<p>Disagree with MomPhd. The participating college decides if the student will receive the award for national merit. For example: Davidson participates in NM but only gives money to 3 or 4 national merit finalists that are admitted and decide to attend there. This is regardless of whether 20 national merit finalists decide to go to Davidson. On the other hand, USC give 1/2 tutition to all national merit finalists that list it as first choice. USC gives the scholarship, not NM. I know this from personal experience.</p>
<p>Phoenix 121, if you have the $2500 award, and know you are going to a college that also sponsors a larger amount, you would have to try to get your award extended by you college. Usually Admissions offices handle merit awards. Some colleges are willing to do this, but surprisingly, some are not. It may depend on whether they have already given out all of their own merit $$, and how much variation in the number of NM Scholars in a class they can tolerate–some years yield more than others; some merit funds are more flexible than others. It’s worth a try. I’ve seen it go either way for students.</p>
<p>NM Scholarship Corporation tries to make the best use of the 3 separate categories of funds. They now awards monies in a way that will reach the maximum number of Finalists, to direct the maximum possible scholarship to each. Since relatively few Finalists are eligible for corporate awards, these are given out first to those who have Scholar-level credentials and are also eligible for one of these. However, not all Finalists who are eligible receive corporate scholarships, because corporations can limit the number of awards they sponsor, so these can also become very competitive for a given corporate award when numerous Finalist qualify. Winners are decided by the NM Corporation. They are usually notified in early March. If students haven’t indicated a sponsoring college as their first choice to NM, then they become part of the pool considered for the one-time $2500 award, and they hear towards the end of March. Because NM’s own funds are limited, not all Finalists in this pool receive awards, so this is also competitive. Students who selected a sponsoring college as their first choice are notified later, to allow for acceptances and final college choices, and thus maximum use of those sponsor’s funds. Again, some colleges limit the number of awards, so this can become competitive too, depending on how many Finalists selected a given sponsoring college as their first choice. NM decides who gets what award–not the corporations or the colleges. PSAT scores do count in their decision process. Thus no one category (Corporate vs NM $2500 vs college sponsored) is more prestigious or competitive than another. No student can receive a NM Scholarship from more than one source.</p>
<p>To all of those who got letters about a $2500 award… where are you from? I am really hoping to get this award because I will get full tuition paid for at my school regardless of whether I am a NM college sponsored winner or not. So if I got the $2500 that would just be on top of tuition. I haven’t received a letter yet but I am hoping my mail is just slower because I live in Nevada. I am curious what areas people live in that have already received letters. Also, if anyone who got one of these letters wouldn’t mind sharing… I would love to see what NMSC was looking for… what were your test scores? gpa? extracurriculars? etc. thanks</p>
<p>My friends in FL got theirs Saturday.</p>
<p>I’m in Georgia and got mine on Saturday.</p>
<p>Ohio on Saturday.</p>
<p>MomPhD, Are you sure about this: “If students haven’t indicated a sponsoring college as their first choice to NM, then they become part of the pool considered for the one-time $2500 award, and they hear towards the end of March.”</p>
<p>My understanding was that what college you listed as a first choice did not matter when being considered for one of the $2500 awards.</p>
<p>Momphd is wrong. It does not matter what college you listed in terms of qualifiying for the national $2500 award. The award offer specifically states you can change your college selection. Furthermore, NM requires you to have selected a first choice college in order to be considered for the $ 2500 award (although as I said you can change it). There is someone on these boards who reported a call from NM asking him to designate a 1st choice college becasue the student was under consideration for the $2500 award.
For example: my son received the $2500 award offer but also has received a “predicted” award for National Merit from a participating college. He may only accept one of these award.<br>
To directly answer Spenier’s question, you are considered for the $2500 award even if you have selected a first choice college. My son had and received the $2500 award offer. So you are correct spenier.</p>
<p>I’m in North Carolina and received mine today.</p>
<p>OK I have answers- called NMC, called 2 schools, & e-mailed on this. If you got the $2500 ‘National’ award, it is the only, only, only, award you will get from NMC. You need to accept it by 4/8. It is totally portable- it can go to any college even those not on the NM list (it is however not good at military academies or special interest type colleges like pilot college etc & you have to use it by Fall 09- no gap year etc)You may change the first choice college named until 4/29. The school’s do not give you this money- NMC gives the school this money in your name. The school’s do not in anyway control who gets $2500 or even who gets their own school sponsored awards–they simply get a list of names that NM sends them after the fact. I believe the $2500 goes to the top NM scholars (excluding corporate award eligible kids). How NM determines who is tops & gets $2500 Idk- perhaps it is based on SAT scores alone or on an index of SAT scores plus GPA, class rank etc?? I called a school to see if they will honor their stated NM annual award-of $1000/year, they will NOT. We have to take the $2500 & that is it, they will not make up the difference. Waiting to see if another school will honor their stated NM annual offer also $1000/year. ( I hear it can happen!) I think as far as the schools who offer NM scholars full tuition or large $$$ amts, then that MAYBE independent of the NMC’s awarding process. So when UT-Dallas says NM finalists can have a full ride, you could be one of the nearly 50% of NMF who never got matched up for an award through NMC and still get a full ride at UT-Dallas. I may be wrong on UTD offer-someone else who knows for sure should answer this. Hope this helps all worried parents out there.</p>
<p>UNC’s website says that they give $1000 for national merit if you name UNC as your first choice school. However, it also says that if you get the $2500 award directly from the national merit org, they will still give you the $1K for years 2, 3 and 4 – so you don’t end up getting penalized by getting the award from NM (seems like a fair solution to me) can’t speak to any other school - there is probably a very wide variation in this…</p>
<p>I think Vandy has the most generous stand on this - they up the award to $5000 if you have received no other merit aid from them and will renew it for years 2,3,4. If only we could come up with the rest:(</p>
<p>As I said earlier, NM now tries to maximize the number of scholarships they distribute from all 3 sources, corporate, college, and their own fund. This is a somewhat recent change, and maybe why some posters are saying it worked differently for their kids in the past. It is also why they want to know first-choice colleges as they consider awardees. If Finalist Kid A and Finalist Kid B are similarly accomplished, with Scholar level stats etc., and Kid A picks a first-choice college that sponsors NM awards, whereas Kid B picks a nonsponsoring first choice college, National Merit’s approach is to give the college-sponsored award to Kid A and the portable $2500 award to Kid B. This spreads the wealth better than giving Kid A the portable $2500 award and leaving kid B with no award because NM (at some point) will exhaust their own scholarship funds. It must work in the other direction at times–say there are more worthy Finalists with a particular first-choice college than can be awarded through that particular colleges’ NM scholarships–then NM can decide to award with their own funds. My impression is this is far from an exact science, but they do now try to reach as many Finalists as possible with available funds. Some semingly deserving Finalists may not get a National Merit award, but at least some colleges award their own money to Finalists and Semifinalists.</p>
<p>I got the good news today in CT - the check will be sent to Yale.</p>
<p>Still nothing today… I’m in Las Vegas… Should I give up? Or possibly tomorrow? Be honest.</p>
<p>I got the $2500 award today :)</p>
<p>Now, I believe this will remove my work study at whatever college I attend for one year. But the next year, can I assume I will be offered work-study again, provided my family conditions stay relatively stable?</p>
<p>Of those who got one of the $2500 awards, which college did you list as your 1st choice?</p>
<p>MomPhD - Where did you get that information from? </p>
<p>Here’s what the NMSC web site still says:
"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>I also called NMSC this morning to specifically ask them about the process and they confirmed that the college choice had no bearing on the $2500 awards. The person said the committee that selects them does not even see the college choices.</p>
<p>Congratulation to those who are taking their one-time awards to schools that do not believe in merit awards and therefore do not participate in the NM program.</p>
<p>I’m always left grinning after reading these debates about whether or not the one-time award is more ‘prestigious’ or whether only the one-time winners are “real” national merit scholars. Here is the bottom line: if you take your one-time award to Univ. of Chicago, it will cost you between $1500-6500; if you take it to Vanderbilt, it will cost you between $6500-18,500; etc. Such is the price of “prestige”.</p>
<p>Also, when discussing the “prestige” of the award, one needs to keep in mind that the one-time awards are distributed on a state-by-state basis. One needs only to look at PSAT qualifying scores to understand that criteria differ considerably between states.</p>