Full Rides for National Merit Finalists/Scholars

<p>If you do become a NMF, you are good for both ASU and UA National Merit Finalist scholarship, no minimum GPA requirement. I believe there is a GPA requirement for ASU's National Merit Semifinalist $10,000/yr. scholarship.</p>

<p>Anyone attend honors visits at ASU, Texas A & M, or UCF? Will probably attend UW-Madison for engineering program (but have to pay all but $2000 scholarship), and would love to hear anyones opinion on the above opportunities. Thanks</p>

<p>Daughter just received letter from ASU. ASU offers National Merit Finalists $23,000 per year for out-of-state students and $13,000.00 per year for in-state students for up to 4 years.</p>

<p>Texas A&M offers to pay D who is a NMSF to visit the school. I think the maximum reimbursement is $300. Is this enough?</p>

<p>It depends on where you live. Some people can take a bus there and will cost less than $300. Some airfare might cost less while some might cost more. It is better than no reimbursement though. Texas A&M has some very good scholarship for NMF.</p>

<p>My understanding at most schools is that NMF scholarships are somewhat 'nominal'. However, there are often other scholarships they offer on top of the NM scholarships and by the time you're done, depending on the school, you may be in pretty good financial shape. ASU is known to 'buy' NMF enrollment, but there are plenty of other great schools for you to choose from, public and private. As NMF, you really should have some great opportunities, so pick some schools you think would be a stretch but would love to attend, and pick some as safeties - a lot of the top private schools are generous with finances for top students, but it might not be 'automatic'. Don't feel bad about picking a public institution - there are lots of great choices out there.</p>

<p>Another nice scholarship opportunity for National Merit Finalists. Denison University offers 30 Paschal Carter Scholarships to National Merit Finalists worth $34,000.00 per year for 4 years. In addition, if a NMF designates Denison as his or her first choice school to the National Merit Corporation, he or she will receive another $2,000.00 per year stipend. Finally, Paschal Carter Scholarship recipients receive a $3,000.00 Great Opportunity Fellowship for other educational opportunities. Potentially a total scholarship of $147,000.00. Not quite a full ride, but I think my daughter will take a good look at it.</p>

<p>University of Alabama offers a full tuition scholarship to a NMSF with a 3.7 GPA who applies by December 1. Additional awards are available to NMFs</p>

<p>bump...........</p>

<p>I've read this entire thread and a couple of others, but didn't find my alma mater here. I attended as a NMSF (I was awarded a NM scholarship to MSU, but only $100 per/yr. so ditched that) decades ago.</p>

<p>This is the web address for Kentucky or southern Indiana NMF:</p>

<p><a href="https://vhost.louisville.edu/student/services/admissions/sch/sch-descr.php?abbr=NMF%5B/url%5D"&gt;https://vhost.louisville.edu/student/services/admissions/sch/sch-descr.php?abbr=NMF&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Here is the web address for NMSF from Kentucky or southern Indiana.</p>

<p><a href="https://vhost.louisville.edu/student/services/admissions/sch/sch-descr.php?abbr=NMSF%5B/url%5D"&gt;https://vhost.louisville.edu/student/services/admissions/sch/sch-descr.php?abbr=NMSF&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I don't find it on the website, but I called U of L a few months back. They do have a similar program for out of state NMF. The student just pays the difference between in-state tuition and out-of-state tuition ($10794/yr).</p>

<p>They also have another program where qualified out-of-state students can attend for the cost of in-state tuition plus $500 per semester. This is called the National Scholars Program. National Scholars Program
Scholarship Application: application for admission
Amount: This program allows students to enroll at UofL and pay in-state tuition, plus $500 per semester instead of out-of-state tuition rates.
Deadline: Priority Deadline March 1, 2008
Award Notice: rolling
Accept Deadline: rolling
Eligibility (for consideration):
- U.S. citizen or permanent resident
- Minimum high school GPA of 3.35 on a 4.0 scale
- Minimum 26 ACT or 1170 (CR + M) SAT</p>

<p>Hope this additional school will be helpful to some who have not thought of Louisville.</p>

<p>hey guys,</p>

<p>if I took SAT II subject tests on December and got a higher score than the previous tests (I took the same subjects twice), do I have to update National Merit Corp. about this? or do they even consider SAT II scores or only SAT I scores?</p>

<p>UCF! is a great school
especially if you are NMF
my two cents</p>

<p>Hopefully February is a good month for us all
That is when we find out for sure we made finalist status, right?</p>

<p>harvardprincess, National Merit only consider SAT I. No need to report any SAT II scores to them.</p>

<p>In response to the question about great merit scholarships at schools with great engineering programs and honor programs (it might have been on a different thread), UT Austin is the answer for National Merit Scholars! UT Austin has an honors program with benefits such as smaller classes, top profs, honors housing and undergraduate research opportunities, the school of engineering is in the top ten nationally and UT Austin offers generous scholarships to National Merit Scholars. To top this off you get to live in a trendy city—Austin is great—and you receive a bus pass so you don’t even need to bring a car. Although NMS winners don’t receive a free ride, the scholarship aid is substantial and a large number of scholarships are awarded. If you decide to apply, though, read the application materials carefully, because there are three separate deadlines: the deadlines for housing, honors program application and scholarship application are October 1, January 15 and December 1, respectively. These all are earlier than the general application deadline.</p>

<p>The University of Texas at Austin ranks second among universities and colleges enrolling the most National Merit Scholars. In the university’s 2007 entering class, there were 283 freshman Merit Scholars, second only to Harvard University where there were 285. UT Austin was ranked ninth in the nation for engineering in the U.S. News & World Report 2008 edition of America’s Best Colleges, as well as seventh in business and first in accounting. In addition, McCombs School of Business ranked ninth in the country on Business Week magazine’s list of the top undergraduate business schools. See Rankings</a> & Kudos : About UT : The University of Texas at Austin for more detail on rankings including grad schools. The 2008 U.S. News feature article about UT Austin is at America's</a> Best Colleges 2008: University of Texas-Austin -- U.S.News & World Report </p>

<p>My son’s MIT interviewer told him he should chose UT over MIT. My son couldn’t be happier with his choice. He receives $11,500 a year in renewable merit scholarships, makes great money working as a soccer referee and university tutor, and loves the honors program and living in the honors quad, which incidentally is right next to the engineering buildings and one of the dining halls. He doesn’t even need a bike to get around campus. This summer he is attending a special UT McCombs School of Business program for engineering students with honors program sized classes and excellent profs including one from the graduate school of business. And of course he received another scholarship for this program! If you like sports as my son does there are lots of club and IM sports, including a top club swim team that practices on campus and gives a discounted price to UT students. In addition you can make good money as an IM sport official. </p>

<p>The University of Texas at Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering provides a great package for National Merit Scholars, both Texas residents and nonresidents. Texas waives nonresident tuition for out-of-state and foreign students who receive a scholarship of $1,000 a year. This waiver is designed to provide Texas universities with a recruitment incentive to attract top-ranked students. The number of students who may receive the waiver is capped at 5 percent of each institution’s total enrollment. The state’s two flagship institutions, the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M, both offer out-of-state tuition waivers to National Merit Finalists.</p>

<p>At UT Austin National Merit Finalists receive out-of-state tuition waivers (approximately $13,000/year value) plus a $1,000 annual scholarship for four years. Students with SAT scores of 1500 (ACT 34) and above may apply for an out-of-state tuition waiver through the Cockrell School of Engineering, if the cap on waivers has not been reached. The UT Austin National Merit Scholars scholarship package for Texas residents is even more generous with a $13,000 total four-year package: $4,000 for the freshman year (including $1,000 awarded initially for being named a semi-finalist) and $3,000/year for three years. Remember that you have to be sure to list UT Austin as your "first choice" school before the deadline, or you will not receive the scholarship.</p>

<p>In addition, the Engineering Scholarship Program supports prospective first-year, transfer, undergraduate and graduate engineering students by providing financial awards based primarily on merit, with renewable awards up to $6,000 per year. Prospective first year students can apply for scholarships simply by completing the scholarship section of the Texas Common Application when applying to UT Austin. However, to be considered for scholarships from the Cockrell School of Engineering, the student must select Engineering as the first choice-major. Cockrell School of Engineering scholarships are based on merit, and SAT/ACT scores and class rank are the key factors considered. Texas A&M has a similar total aid package for National Merit Scholars except the $6,000 is automatic and based on National Merit finalist status rather competitive, available only to engineering students, and based on SAT scores and grades. Both A&M and UT Austin offer honors days for NMS students and UT sends a coach bus to pick up students from the larger Texas cities like Houston.</p>

<p>The very top-ranked engineering schools like MIT, Stanford, Berkeley and Cal Tech won’t give you merit aid. In addition, my son did a spreadsheet showing starting engineering salaries adjusted for cost of living and found that he will make a whole lot more attending UT and working in Texas than attending one of those four schools and working on the East or West Coast! This year we ended up paying about $4,500 for tuition, room and board at UT Austin compared to $45,386, $45,608, $41,300 and $40,560 at the top four engineering schools. Now multiply that cost savings by four!</p>

<p>Here’s a chart of the top engineering schools offering merit aid. It shows 2007-2008 numbers for NMS winners, NMS university scholarships, academic quality ratings for the university as a whole and for the engineering program, and costs assuming that you receive the Texas out-of-state tuition waiver. The cost numbers in this table are also for 2007-2008. The peer assessment score is used by U.S. News and World Report to rank universities in its annual America’s Best Colleges issue. The rating from a low of 1 to a maximum of 5 is an average of the opinions of presidents, provosts and deans of admissions who rated each school’s undergraduate academic excellence. </p>

<pre><code> Number Overall Engineering

Total of Peer Peer

# of NMS Assesmt Assesmt
NMS Scholar-Score Score Room & Total
</code></pre>

<p>University Winners ships (Max 5) (Max 5) Tuition Board Cost</p>

<p>Texas A&M 173 134 3.6 3.8 $6,966 $7,052 $14,018
UT Austin 283 232 4.1 4.2 $7,630 $8,176 $15,806
U. Wisconsin 29 4 4.1 4.0 $20,730 $7,574 $28,304
Georgia Tech 100 73 4.0 4.5 $21,348 $7,294 $28,642
Penn. State 15 5 3.8 3.8 $22,712 $6,850 $29,562
Purdue 87 66 3.8 4.2 $22,224 $7,530 $29,754
U of Illinois 84 56 4.0 4.5 $23,896 $8,196 $32,092
Rice U 159 95 4.0 3.8 $26,106 $10,250 $36,356
Rose-Hulman 17 13 4.5 4.5 $30,723 $8,343 $39,066
Northwestern 249 186 4.3 3.9 $35,229 $10,776 $46,005
Harvey Mudd 68 52 4.1 4.5 $34,891 $11,615 $46,506</p>

<p>Can anyone provide the Indiana cutoff score for a National Merit Finalist in 2008? I know the National Merit Semi Finalist Score was 213. Just curious where you had to be to achieve Finalist status in Indiana. Thanks.</p>

<p>There's no separate NMF cutoff for any state. After NMSF status, they just base decisions off of the application you submit.</p>

<p>Does anyone know if Uinversity Texas Austin offers National Merit Finalists any type of schloarships?</p>

<p>In a post several pages up, jlauer95 said:</p>

<p>“The only times I have EVER heard of a SF not becoming a finalist have been when the kids have bad grades, didn’t take the SAT or did badly on it, didn’t do the paperwork, and/or was a discipline problem at school and couldn’t get the rec from principal.”</p>

<p>Sorry to reply to a post from a couple of years ago, but I’m curious: just how bad do the “bad grades” have to be to prevent a SF from becoming a F, assuming everything else is as it should be (good SATs, clean discipline record and rec. from principal)? </p>

<p>Are we talking <3.5? <3.25? <3?</p>

<p>I think <3.5 would prevent a student from getting National Merit. One D would do it, probably. Maybe one, probably two C’s. I’m not sure why Fang Jr. didn’t get National Merit. He had one C and one D in college classes; I tried to explain that the D was because his clueless parents made him take a calculus class when he didn’t have the prereq, but I guess they didn’t buy it. (We are homeschoolers, so all of Fang Jr’s grades are in college classes and I wrote his counselor’s reqs.) He took the prereq and retook the calculus class, so now the D is gone, but too late.</p>

<p>In the end, not having National Merit didn’t matter. He got a big merit award at the school he’s going to.</p>

<p>It depends on the school. A kid from a highly competitive high school would not necessarily need a 3.5 if the rest of his/her application was strong.</p>