<p>This is copied off their 2011-12 Financial aid page. Is this going away next yr?</p>
<p>NATIONAL MERIT FINALISTS.
Scholarship Name Academic Requirements Award Amount Renewal Requirements
National Merit Finalist Named a National Merit $60,000 ($12,000 per 3.5 GPA and 15 earned
Finalist with
TTU as first year/5 years) hours per full term
choice w/National Mer
it semester
Cor
p
University Student Same as above plus $39,000 ($7,800 per Same as above plus
Housing and Hospitality reside on campus year/5 years for campus campus residence
Services National Merit residents
Scholars Scholarships
Scholarships awarded for five years include one year of graduate study at Texas Tech University. Awards and criteria are subject to change</p>
<p>Our son is a National Merit Semifinalist with 2300 SAT, GPA 4.68, 8/372 rank, good SAT subject and AP scores, tennis/music talents, etc. He plans to study electrical or engineering in college. Does anyone know if any of the colleges offering significant awards to National Merit Finalists have good to very good (perhaps even excellent!) schools of engineering. For example, can anyone comment on the schools of engineering at USC, Baylor and Northeastern? How about University of Arizona? Any comments would be appreciated! Thanks …</p>
<p>USC and Northeastern are very well respected in engineering. Some of the other schools that give large merit for NMF and excel in engineering are Texas A&M, Drexel, Florida, Arizona, Arizona State, Michigan State, Boston University, and Auburn.</p>
<p>The next tier after those would be Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, WPI, Washington State, Houston, New Mexico, Central Florida, and NJIT.</p>
<p>Some of these schools give guaranteed awards, others are competitive.</p>
<p>Although they don’t give large awards specifically for NMF, with those stats you’d have a good shot at big merit awards at some other good engineering schools like Clemson, NC State, and Case Western Reserve.</p>
<p>You could look at U. Tulsa or U. Texas at Dallas. Your S would probably get a full ride, or at least full tuition at Tulsa, and a near full ride at UTD.</p>
<p>If he is applying for Fall 2013 admission he needs to get moving quick. Texas A&M engineering filling up fast. Excellent engineering school, good opportunities for NMF. He appears to be a guaranteed academic admit, but additional scholarship needed to be completed by 12/1. Call the admissions office and ask to talk to a NMF specialist. Which USC are you considering–Carolina or California.</p>
<p>Has anyone heard of Chicago giving merit aid to NMFinalists? Son received a letter from them saying they have some merit available and I was surprised a school of that caliber would offer merit money.</p>
<p>University of Idaho gives full ride to NMFs. I think at some point they had a 25/yr limit on scholarships so that they were not on this list, but that is no longer true. In fact they get fewer than 25/yr so not sure how they would react if suddenly deluged with NMFs.</p>
<p>I had correspondence with them earlier this year asking about the scholarship and this is a cut-and-paste from the reply. Note that just as on website no mention of limits:</p>
<p>Welcome to the University of Idaho, and thank you for your interest in our scholarship program(s). After reviewing your high school grade point average and test scores, I certainly hope that you can advance to Finalist status! You would be an asset to any university that you attend, and I hope that you can picture yourself here, as an Idaho Vandal. We are pleased to have 67 National Merit Finalists on campus for the 2012-13 academic year. For next year (2013-14), National Merit Semi-finalists who advance to Finalist status in February 2013 are guaranteed to receive a full-ride scholarship if they complete the following steps: 1) Apply for admission by February 15; 2) Provide us with a copy of their Finalist letter by March 1; 3) List the University of Idaho as their first school of choice with the National Merit Scholarship Corporation by April 30.</p>
<p>The full-ride scholarship includes university-defined costs for basic registration fees (including a full non-resident tuition waiver for non-residents) and room/board. For the 2012-13 academic year that is a value of $13,894 for Idaho residents; for non-residents it would be a value of $26,682.</p>
<p>For a NMF to get a full ride at University of Tulsa, they have to apply for the Presidential Scholarship, which is competitive. (Deadline has passed this year.) My son, a NMF, applied to TU but did not apply for the Pres. Scholarship and was offered $20,000, which is about $14,000 less than full tuition.</p>
<p>New here - so please forgive any redundant question. Does anyone have a list of partial or full ride colleges for NMF for class of 2014. Not sure if my S will get NMF - but seems to me that we need to proactively tour these schools NOW - summer before Sr year.</p>
<p>I really wish someone had told me the importance of PSAT before I took it. So many opportunities. I only got a 198 and I didn’t try super hard or study anything. Oh well</p>
<p>momofcolt…Check post #318 on the previous page to see the schools currently offering large scholarships for NMFs. It’s always possible that some of these offers might change, so I’d recommend periodically checking the websites of any schools your S is interested in attending in case there is any new info. There’s a lot of good information in the stickied thread at the top of the NM forum here.</p>
<p>I want to share this information which I was so glad to find out.
UMass-Amherst offers several full-ride scholarships to in-state National Merit finalists, for 4 years with a GPA requirement. It is competitive. They selected 5 students this year, probably 2-3 may attend.
All mandatory fees, tuition, standard room, and regular meal plan are paid, ~25k for this year’s freshman. Great program!</p>
<p>Thank you for sharing your research! After not hearing anything about highscorers as we were expecting per the (now we know) incorrect info in the PSAT Student Handbook, I went online to try and see what might be happening next. Due to all you’ve shared (special thanks to Bob) we’ve been able to anticipate and prepare. Son has been looking at bioengineering programs. We recently visited UAB, which wouldn’t have been on our radar at all. Professors in our family have expressed high regard for UABirmingham’s research programs…it seems like it might be a great fit. Again…many thanks!!</p>