I think you are on to something there, @Gator88NE . I wish they would show NMFs, but considering many NMFs who are not Scholars don’t fill out the form advising NMSC where they ended up going, I am not sure there is any general tracking mechanism. Still, the decrease in NMS at Harvard and some other elite schools I think does reflect that those who don’t qualify for need based aid are following the money.
: careful, none of these schools are lower tier.
I meant “lower tier” as comparatively lower in prestige than the ones I had just mentioned (Harvard, MIT, etc.). I went to a directional college; trust me, I’m not disparaging anyone’s choices.
: These counts are showing National Merit Scholars and not Finalist.
I don’t believe so. There are ~10k students in the database for 2018, and there are only ~7500 NM Scholars for that year. I think it’s showing the compete list of NMFs who (a) go to an American university (no foreign ones are listed for any year) and (b) alert NMSC of their choice. There’s about 30% of NMFs not listed, I would guess more from (b) than from (a).
(That is, more not alerting NMSC than ones not going to an American school.)
Nope – ignore the last two post above. My summation was adding in the year 2018 to the number of scholars. (Oops.) @vistajay and @Gator88NE are correct.
“This could also explain why we’re seeing a large drop at HYPMS. They may still be getting about the same number of NMF’s, but they are not receiving as many scholarships (and becoming Scholars)?”
These schools don’t participate in NM. Roughly half of the 15,000 finalists become scholars (i.e., are awarded some kind of scholarship money), and of this half, 4,600 become scholars through school sponsored scholarships. Thus, since HYPMS don’t participate, they are at a disadvantage as far as having a large number of scholars (not that they care). However, these schools have not participated for a long time. Thus, I don’t know why they would receive fewer scholarships (which for these schools, would only come from NM itself or corporate sponsors) now compared to five years ago.
What makes 1 NM different to other NM. Nothing, It’s all balancing act.
15,000NM strong will end up somewhere, some takes’ money, some takes prestige and somewhere in-between.
@mdpmdp BTW (A&M is Tuition Free Only and UTD is Full Ride for NM)
Harvard pays 0 for 195
TAMU pays tuition only for 178
UTD pays full for 175
Highly unlike, if Harvard are just down to few NM each year, they will start paying too.
At one time, Texas was paying for NM. Now they don’t have to.
If TAMU gos full ride, any surrounding universities suffers recruiting NM, and that’s including Texas.
This is a fun tread - not too serious and informative, Thanks for all the posting.
@texaggie, there is a second scholarship (I believe coming from someone in Houston) that gives many of A&Ms NMFs a full ride unless things have changed in the last few years.
@GTAustin what is second scholarship?
I don’t remember TAMU being a Full Ride school for NM Finalist. If so, that must have been when tuition was only $500 a semester and dorm was $500 too.
Here is where people(me too) are confused! Was explained to us at the NM scholars day.
$46,000 Guaranteed Tuition Free (with 3.5gpa) and anyone who is Finalist can STACK other scholarships. A&M encourage you to apply for any or all other scholarships.
I know Brown & Brockman is very competitive because scholarship is open to all NM (Finalist, Hispanic Recognized, Achievement)
So, if all goes well, most Finalist will pay some, little to nothing for upcoming year’s room and board. Of course that’s not guaranteed.
@TheBigChef and @Gator88NE --HYPSM NEVER sponsored awards (at least not going back to the 1980s when I was a student), so the drop has nothing to do with former scholarship recipients now being NMFs that aren’t captured in the numbers.
@vistajay is partially onto something. Through the magic of compounding, the full pay cost of an elite private school education has grown from under $40K in the late 1970s to mid 1980s, to over $300K now, far outstripping overall cost of living increases and general wage growth, and making it an increasingly bad value proposition for full pay families whose kids are eligible for substantial merit scholarships at lower ranked schools. So part of the reason is money.
The other part is, as the elite schools respond to criticism regarding their elitism and become more accessible to lower income, first generation college applicants, they are simply accepting fewer and fewer NMSs every year. NMFs who don’t receive the $2,500 or a corporate award were never captured in the NMSC statistics. Trust me, far fewer NMFs, as well as award winners, are gaining admission to elite schools today as compared to to 5, 10, or 15 years ago. That’s at least as big a factor in the lower numbers as kids turning down Harvard for a full ride at UF, although I’m sure that happens as well.
@texaggie, 5 years ago representatives from A&M spoke to the NMF at our HS and told us it would be a full ride. A&M would pick up the tuition and there was an alumni in Houston with a fund that was picking up the housing but that was 5 years ago. If you went to NM Scholars day and they did not mention this, it appears that fund is no longer available. Sorry for the giving you false hope.
@vistajay – I’m not sure that the issue with NMSC tracking NMFs is an issue of them not all filling out a form. After all, in the end, it is a scholarship program. NMSC’s audience is its sponsoring corporations, its sponsoring schools, and its scholarship winners.
I am not sure that they even ask NMFs who do not choose a sponsoring school or otherwise win a scholarship where they are going to school because they have no use for the information. They ask the winners because they need to know where to send the money, and for sponsoring schools and corporations, where to send the bill!
Other than for our debate and discussion purposes here on CC, why would NMSC care to track which schools that do not participate in their program enrolled their NMF non-winners? What about the Commended Students, who also didn’t win a scholarship? What about the NMSFs that didn’t become NMFs? These are all interesting data points that we might like, but they have no value to NMSC, so they make no attempt to collect and disseminate them. 
@NJDad00 pretty sure my first two NMFs were sent a survey about college choice, separate from their NMS college scholarship status, but I could be wrong.
And I mentioned the drive for greater diversity amongst elite schools as part of the reason why less NMS may be enrolling at those institutions, so I want full credit for my answer! ?
@vistajay – Oops; I missed your Post #9 when I only gave you partial credit. You are 1,000% correct. In addition, I will be thrilled to give you full credit for posting a multitude of insightful comments here last year when I was new to this and guiding my DS through the process!!!
@GTAustin “No false hope”, that was mentioned at the Scholar day as a sidebar. Time to time, local Aggies would fund scholarships for NM students with real desired to be an Aggie. We are fortunate and had a feeling this was not for us and we didn’t pursue.
Having followed Aggie Network for many years, giving back is ‘part’ and somethings Aggies don’t discuss too much in person. Normally, University does good job with announcing and one Facebook is real big on that. I’m sure most university’s individual donors are in the same boat, very low key about giving.
Past 6 years, we enjoyed it and received wonderful information from CC. It’s all coming to the end, my third and last child will decide in few weeks and I can’t wait to drop the mic.
Good Luck to Everyone.