<p>Have any of your students chosen, as a back up or even first choice, a college that will give them a substantial scholarship for their Finalist status? Our child will likely keep Northeastern (30k + honors program and honor housing) on the table as an option as she awaits regular decision results and aid packages.
We know others who have chosen Alabama, OK, and Howard, all of which I believe give substantial awards to Finalist.</p>
<p>I’m a NMF still waiting on decisions from Stanford, Columbia, Vanderbilt and USC but I’m pretty dead set on going to Alabama at this point. I can’t see myself going to any of the other places I got in or am still waiting on regardless of where I get in later.</p>
<p>We just paid our deposit at Northeastern this week! We visited Alabama, Kentucky and Oklahoma and while their award packages were definitely impressive, my son just fell in love with Boston and Northeastern. He is still waiting to hear from George Washington, but we’re not expecting their merit scholarship to come close to Northeastern’s.</p>
<p>S1 loved the Boston area too but he is responsible for his own college finances and the money needed to be even better at a school like Northeastern due to travel. OU is going to pay for everything for 4+ years and it is only a 3 hour drive to Norman. OU also made him feel wanted. I asked him why there over Alabama and he said it came down to which school seemed to care.</p>
<p>D will be heading to OU in the fall. Between the size of the scholarship, NM perks, the honors college, and proximity to home, it is hard for another school to be overall more attractive or affordable. The National Scholars office at OU has done an excellent job of making D feel welcomed and wanted.</p>
<p>Nope. We expect to learn if D will get a huge award from an SLAC any day now, maybe even today. She’s also competitive for Harvard and UChicago, though $$ will be a reach for those, especially Chicago, so those are real Hail Mary’s.</p>
<p>My D received a pretty good scholarship offer from one admitted school if she names it as top choice school, but we named another admitted school (which is her second choice) as top choice hoping to get a better scholarship there. However, we just got a letter yesterday that the school she picked is no longer sponsoring NMSC scholarship this year although it was on the list at the time of application. Now she switched the top choice school to her real top choice which offers no NM scholarship at all. We are now only hoping for the $2500 from NMSC. The school that offered her the large scholarship would be a backup plan and she may switch to it on May 1 if necessary. We are not counting on the RD school until we receive the admission notice. It does not sponsor NM scholarship anyway.</p>
<p>For now DS has WPI (minimum 20k) as his first choice, and it’s certainly among his top three. Others in play are Rochester, Stony Brook, UCF, Virginia Tech, and RIT (admitted to all those), plus Northeastern (deferred EA to RD). Stony doesn’t give much to NMF, but their list price is lower to begin with; VT sponsors an NMSC scholarship, not sure the amount but it’s in the ~2k range. </p>
<p>S has designated his school (UTD).</p>
<p>UTD gives one of the best Finalist offers out there, doesn’t it? What nice position to be in before March even arrives, @atonmom!</p>
<p>@atomom, is UTD U of Texas at Dallas? </p>
<p>Yes-- This will be my 2nd kid taking that scholarship!</p>
<p>No decision yet, but he’s looking at Barrett, U Ok, Kentucky. His regular decision schools are reaches, I’d say, and I’m hoping he goes to a public school with a good NM scholarship. </p>
<p>Went to go change the first choice with National Merit today, because what is currently there is the ED school my S did not get into. Tried too many passwords, got locked out. Hope they aren’t sending out letters to colleges first thing Monday morning because (grrrr) we have call during office hours to get back into the account.</p>
<p>Our daughter also listed UTD as first choice back in fall and where she decided to go regardless of NMF standing. She received their AES scholarship anyway, so the NMF one is just an increase in the stipend each semester (which we definitely are glad for).</p>
<p>For those of you who feel like OU did/does a great job of making your child feel “wanted”, I want to let you know that it does not stop once the student accepts. I was a tiny bit concerned that they’d do a great job of recruiting and it would end there but my fears were totally unfounded. The National Scholars office continues to impress me with all they do to make sure the kids are happy and successful at OU. My son couldn’t be happier with his decision. </p>
<p>I have my first choice listed as undecided with NM right now. I am unsure as to whether I will accept one of the full rides or go somewhere else after RD acceptances. I will not decide until I have all of my options.</p>
<p>Son has UA and OU offers in hand, as well as lesser one from Auburn. Based on visits and choice of study it seems like he’s leaning toward OU. Going to hear from Caltech on Saturday and several ivies on the 27th, but cost may still dictate OU or Bama.</p>
<p>Son still has Pitt listed as first choice but they don’t offer anything for NM. Can’t convince him to accept any of the other NM offers that he’s received. Pitt has always been #1 in his heart. Getting some money from PItt and we’re in-state, but still would love to see him consider the NM full offers. Wating till end of March for RD on 6 others, but none of them offer NM and they are all reaches in my opinion.</p>
<p>@kleelak Only advice I can give is to sit down and show the debt load your son will incur graduating from Pitt and how long it will take to recoup that money versus getting a degree at a full-ride school. That made the difference to mine. Grad school is in his future and the MS or PHD from a ‘great’ school is more important than the BS from wherever.</p>
<p>@poppasmurf Sounds like our kids have the same mindset on this. Perhaps they will be classmates.</p>