Help Understading Possible Awards, Please

Paying for College National Merit Aid
1

<p>Am I correct in understanding that finalist are able to only get one of the three types of scholarships as a finalist - NMSC $2,500, college-sponsored NMF scholarship, or corporate scholarship, if anything at all?</p>

<p>Also, are the notifications for each given out at the same time?</p>

<p>Finally, how does your 'first choice' college impact these possible awards? Do you only get the college sponsored scholarship if you name that college first choice? Can you get the NMSC $2500 or the corporate if you do not name a first choice?</p>

<p>Thank you!</p>

<p>T</p>

<p>(Note: Child is National Achievement SemiFinalist but thinking that basic principles I keep reading about finalist are the same, perhaps, or at least close)</p>

2

<p>taben:</p>

<p>I will share with you the best of my understanding but, to be honest, I am not completely certain myself.</p>

<p>You are right about the three types of scholarships. An NMF (or NAF) can only qualify for one, regardless of source.</p>

<p>They do not all notify at the same time. Each college and each corporation runs on its own timetable. Even the NMSC notifications are released in “batches” throughout the Spring and not on a single date.</p>

<p>Most (maybe all) colleges that give NMF scholarships require the recipients to make the school their first choice but usually this means “eventually” - NMSC allows NMF’s to change their designated first choice through April. However you should check with each school to verify their policy on this. You might have to call them in order to get clarification. You do have the option of leaving the first choice “undecided” until April, and some sources have recommended this as a strategy. (Of course an NMF does have to *apply *to a school in order to be considered for its scholarships.)</p>

<p>As far as I know your first choice is irrelevant to corporate and NMSC awards. If you are fortunate enough to receive one of these in addition to a school award I believe a choice will have to be made. This is the point of which I am most uncertain.</p>

<p>See here for more authoritative advice: <a href=“http://apps.carleton.edu/admissions/afford/national_merit_tips/[/url]”>http://apps.carleton.edu/admissions/afford/national_merit_tips/&lt;/a&gt;. And, as the link suggests, call the NMSC with any questions.</p>

3

<p>Be aware that when we say that you can only receive ONE…we mean only ONE official NMF scholarship.</p>

<p>However, you can receive more than one IF the other one isn’t “official.”</p>

<p>For example, when Bama offers its big NMF/NA scholarship, the only part that is “official” is around $1000 (it may have changed this year, so not sure of exact amount). So, a student can get an Official Corporate award of $2500 from parent’s employer AND still get the Bama NMF/NA award - minus the official part. Bama increased the stipend part of their NMF scholarship by 2500 this year, partly to avoid the issue of a student losing a NMCorp award.</p>

<p>My older son took that Bama NMF award, and also got a 2500 official NMF year award from H’s company, so he only lost $1000 from Bama (the official amount at the time), but gained 2500.</p>

<p>As for the “one time $2500 awards” from NMF. I don’t know how those work for NA, but for NMFs the NMCorp will award a one time 2500 award to 2500 NMFs (out of 15,000). Supposedly, the students are split between genders and spread out amongst the states.</p>

<p>No, all of the 3 different types of official awards do not all come out on the same date. If you go to NMCorp’s website, there usually is a schedule.</p>

<p>To get a college award, you do need to name a first choice school. Usually, you don’t have to name one til May 1st. However, some schools require them to be named earlier.</p>

4

<p>Here’s some NA info…</p>

<p>Achievement Scholar® Designees</p>

<p>All Achievement Scholarship® winners (Achievement Scholar® designees) are selected from the group of Finalists based on their abilities, skills, and accomplishments–without consideration of financial circumstances or college choice. Beginning in late February, the National Achievement® Program notifies about 800 Finalists that they have been selected to receive a National Achievement Scholarship. Two types of Achievement Scholarship awards are offered:</p>

<p>National Achievement® $2500 Scholarships</p>

<p>Every Finalist competes for one of these single payment scholarships, which are awarded on a regional representation basis. A total of 700 National Achievement $2500 Scholarships are awarded.</p>

<p>Corporate-sponsored Achievement Scholarship awards
Corporate sponsors support awards for Finalists who plan to pursue particular college majors or careers, are children of their employees, or are residents of an area served by the sponsor. These scholarships may either be renewable for four years of undergraduate study or one-time awards. Currently about 100 corporate-sponsored awards are offered each year.</p>

5

<p>Here’s some NMF info…</p>

<p>Types of Merit Scholarship® Awards</p>

<p>Beginning in March and continuing to mid-June, NMSC notifies approximately 8,000 Finalists at their home addresses that they have been selected to receive a Merit Scholarship® award. Merit Scholarship awards are of three types:</p>

<p>National Merit® $2500 Scholarships
Every Finalist competes for these single payment scholarships, which are awarded on a state representational basis. Winners are selected without consideration of family financial circumstances, college choice, or major and career plans.</p>

<p>Corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards
Corporate sponsors designate their awards for children of their employees or members, for residents of a community where a company has operations, or for Finalists with career plans the sponsor wishes to encourage. These scholarships may either be renewable for four years of undergraduate study or one-time awards.</p>

<p>College-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards
Officials of each sponsor college select winners of their awards from Finalists who have been accepted for admission and have informed NMSC by the published deadlines that the sponsor college or university is their first choice. These awards are renewable for up to four years of undergraduate study. The published deadlines for reporting a sponsor college as first choice can be viewed on page 3 of the Requirements and Instructions for Semifinalists in the 2014 National Merit® Scholarship Program. (Adobe Acrobat Reader is required.)</p>

<p>Merit Scholarship awards are supported by some 440 independent sponsors and by NMSC’s own funds. Sponsor organizations include corporations and businesses, company foundations, professional associations, and colleges and universities.**back to top </p>

<hr>

<p>National Merit Special Scholarships</p>

<p>Every year some 1,200 National Merit® Program participants, who are outstanding but not Finalists, are awarded Special Scholarships provided by corporations and business organizations. To be considered for a Special Scholarship, students must meet the sponsor’s criteria and entry requirements of the National Merit Scholarship Program. They also must submit an entry form to the sponsor organization. Subsequently, NMSC contacts a pool of high-scoring candidates through their respective high schools. These students and their school officials submit detailed scholarship applications. A committee of NMSC professional staff evaluates information about candidates’ abilities, skills, and accomplishments and chooses winners of the sponsor’s Special Scholarships. These scholarships may either be renewable for four years of undergraduate study or one-time awards.</p>

6

<p>Thank you for the insight. I have a much better understanding of things now! I am surprised that schools do not explain the importance of the PSAT, the benefits of NM/NA (and the Hispanic Scholars organization) and the process for those selected as semi-finalist more fully to all involved. Thank goodness for this board or we may have not paid much attention to the semi finalist notification!</p>

<p>T</p>

7

<p>I just found out that my son, a Commended Scholar, was eligible for a corporate sponsored scholarship through my husband’s work because there were not a large number of semi-finalists from that company. So they expanded the pool by reaching out to the Commended group. We thought he was out of the running.</p>

8

<p>taben, here’s an old thread that will help you to understand how the official NMSC $2500 scholarship can interact with a college’s official NMF scholarship, either to the student’s benefit, or to their loss, depending on individual college policy. It’s a lot to wade through.
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/1308813-decline-2500-scholarship.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/1308813-decline-2500-scholarship.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>My D didn’t get the $2500, only her college scholarship, so I have no personal experience, only what I read on CC.</p>

<p>The idea seems to be that a student can really only receive one official NMF scholarship, be it from a college, NMSC, or corporation. And the NMSC scholarship, once awarded, appears to take precedence over the college scholarships and cancels them for official purposes. That doesn’t prevent the college from giving the student the money all the same, but it seems to prevent them from claiming sponsorship of the student as an NMF scholar, perhaps for the lists in the NMSC annual report.</p>

<p>So colleges can handle this a couple of ways. Some, like UAlabama, are generous and say, OK, you can have the NMSC $2500 the first year, and in the years after that, we’ll give you the $2,000 a year you would be getting from us as your sponsor, just to be nice.</p>

<p>Others, like Northwestern, interpret things in the narrowest fashion and say, well, you got the NMSC $2500, so you aren’t eligible for any of the $2,000 per year we give NMFs, sorry. And it doesn’t seem possible to turn down the NMSC scholarship to get the Northwestern money instead, though I find that hard to believe. But the ways of NMSC are very strange so I guess I can believe anything.</p>

<p>I’ve seen people here advise that if you might attend a school with a policy like this, to ask them to officially award you their money before NMSC can award theirs, so you don’t lose out. Once the school has awarded it officially, then NMSC can’t preempt and force you to take their money.</p>

<p>I THINK this is how it works, but I am not 100% sure. If our famiy were in that position, or thought there was a possibility of it, I’d be calling NMSC for clarity. Also, they can change their rules anytime so that everything we think we know about them is no longer true.</p>

9

<p><a href=“http://nationalmerit.org/annual_report.pdf[/url]”>http://nationalmerit.org/annual_report.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>If you look at page 38 of the report, they list colleges that enrolled NMFs. NAF are further down the report, but they don’t break that down in the same way.</p>

<p>To the left of a college name is the # of freshman NMF scholars enrolled, which is not necessarily the # of NMFs. At scholarship schools like ASU, it does tell you the number of NMFs since every NMF there gets sponsored either by the school or by getting NMSC or corporate scholarship. ASU had 97 NMFs that year. To the right in () is # of scholars sponsored by the college. That’s 75. So 22 kids got the NMSC $2500 or a corporate award. But all 97 get the full tuition/fees unofficial scholarship for NMFs.</p>

<p>Northwestern has 236. That also should be all their NMFs, since they give their NMFs automatic $2K/yr official award. 169 are sponsored by Northwestern. So 67 got their awards from NMSC or corporations. I wonder if all 67 had to take the bad deal and forgo the rest of the $8K. What I haven’t seen written about is if one can turn down a corporate award to keep a better college award. It seems like it should be easier to accomplish than turning down NMSC but who knows. If anyone has experience with this at a school with a policy like NW’s, please post about it.</p>

<p>Then there are schools like Harvard, with 268, none sponsored by Harvard, and unlisted several hundred probably, of NMF who didn’t get NMSC or corporate award, so aren’t NMF scholars.</p>