Hi everyone. This is my first post on this forum.
my son is a National Merit Semi finalist, wants to stay close to home. Looking at USF or UF, or UM, less likely. should he prefer a certain college for premed and still get Natinal Merit benefits. will this matter if he already has bright futures and florida pre paid?
@BingeWatcher My oldest is at Tech ! We’re going to the Baylor game at Jerryworld over Thanksgiving ! And yes my youngest DD is absolutely LOVING UCF. She says its the best decision she’s ever made !
@deligentintelligentdeligent All three of those schools are excellent for pre-med. Plenty of research opportunities, etc.
The Benacquisto Scholarship will “replace” Bright Futures and pays out Cost of Attendance. You will still have Florida Pre paid, so you should be able to start saving up funds for medical school. :-bd
If you have questions about how Benacquisto works with Bright futures and pre-paid, you should search the UF forums. You’ll find several threads on the subject. Here is one example:
Thank you!
@Gator88NE We are visiting UF next week and my son is considering Comp Sci or Electrical Engineering. Could you share the good and the bad of the UF Engineering Dept. Thanks.
@Phlipper - “Jerryworld” LOL!
Hi everyone, This thread is very informative. My D is an NMSF and she has only been to TAMU NM invitationals so far. We were invited for a scholarship dinner last week and got some insight into it. She has been admitted to their Business Honors program too. Basically, if you are a finalist, 48k is guaranteed. But they did mention that she will be eligible for much more than 48k. Did not get specific numbers though. We have sent in the scholarship application too. Now for the waiting game…
From what I remember the Aggies were generous, just not top tier generous. Their offer was much better than UT Austin but there are other schools in Texas that will give NMF full cost of attendance. Texas Tech, UT Tyler, UT Arlington. As noted above if you are considering out of state, state schools in Florida offers are awesome.
@AggieMom68 , did your daughter apply for the Brockman foundation scholarship at TAMU? Does she have an interview set up yet? Come join us on the waiting game page!
No. She did not apply. I thought it was only for the STEM kids and not for business major.
@AggieMom68 , sorry, I missed that she was a business major! Good luck on getting those scholarships! She has great statistics!
@Gator88NE sorry if I’m beating a dead horse, but just confirming that acceptance to UF + NMF (scholar with their small award) => full ride at UF
I’m OOS, and it seems to good to be true
I may have missed the distinction made by others but just to be sure others do not: there is a NMF scholarship at both UT at Dallas and The University of Dallas. Two different schools.
https://udallas.edu/admissions/undergrad/scholarships/index.php
@garamxmasala, UF, FSU, USF, and UCF are all full-ride for NMF. Just get accepted and declare the Florida school as your 1st choice, and it’s all free.
@garamxmasala Yep, the Benacquisto Scholarship Program pays the full cost of attendance (COA) at a Florida public university. See the following for details…
https://www.floridastudentfinancialaidsg.org/PDF/factsheets/FIS.pdf
It’s something of a strange situation, in that it’s a state sponsored scholarship, not a school sponsored scholarship. Several states offer scholarships like Florida’s Bright Futures, or Georgia Hope scholarships, but almost always they are limited to in-state students. The state of Florida has decided to expand Benacquisto to OOS in an effort to recruit OOS students to Florida and raise the profile of it’s state university system.
UF would likely not feel the need to offer this type of scholarship to recruit NMF, but the state does, and UF ended up covered by it. It’s also why UF hasn’t been actively “marketing” the scholarship, but they are more than happy to process it (and any other scholarships you may have).
Planning to visit wherever son gets in: UF, CU-Boulder, UMich, VTech, Cornell
When will the students be informed of the finalists status?
@AggieMom68 , I have a note on my calendar that principals will be notified on Feb. 4th. I made that note along time ago; not sure if they are emailed? snail mailed?
@AggieMom68 - apparently rejection letters have gone out. NMF notifications go first via snail mail to principal and then to student a little later. There is another thread following notification. Getting close! 
@mountainmomof3 , So does that mean kids have received rejection letters already? I can’t find the thread. Can you post it?