How valuable would you say qualifying for National Merit is?

Can colleges see if you qualified for National Merit? If so, do they take into consideration your state?

If you list it as an award on your application or send them an update when you get the honor, the college will see it.

Florida takes it into consideration and awards a full ride.

@kukido004 look at the threads on NMF schools posted under Financial Aid & Scholarships. There is a whole world of information on cc regarding the full Cost of Attendance and high merit schools there, including all the schools in Florida thanks to the Benacquisto scholarship, the U. of Alabama, New Mexico, and others. In answer to your question posted in the title of this post, if your child is interested in attending one of these schools then I would say the value of a NMF is a free college education at a highly rated university. All of these schools offer these scholarships irrespective of which state the student comes from, as long as they score above the NMSF threshhold Selection Index for their particular state and move from SF to F status by submitting a successful application (of the 16,000 SF each year, 15,000 become Finalists).

@sherimba03 Oh, wow, I definitely missed that, thanks!