<p>Can a student who is commended, not a semifinalist, call himself a National Merit Scholar?</p>
<p>NO. Nor can a Semifinalist, or even a Finalist, call himself a National Merit Scholar. National Merit Scholars are the ones who advance to Finalist and are then awarded scholarships through the National Merit program.</p>
<p>A commended student can call himself National Merit Commended.</p>
<p>Semi-finalists submit applications to become finalists. Their applications are judged by some criteria, and a determination made yea or nay.</p>
<p>How is it determined which Finalists are awarded National Merit scholarships? Do they first skim off the Finalists who receive scholarships from elsewhere (because I understand you can't get both)? And then, apply some criteria to determine which Finalists receive the scholarships? <strong>What are the criteria?</strong>*</p>
<p>Skyhook -- NMSF to NMF is based on a combination of SAT scores and GPA. Then they look at the rest of the application (which includes essay, ECs, and recommendation) to determine scholarship awards, but I don't know how they weight the different parts of the app and I don't know how (or whether) they coordinate with corporate- and college-sponsored scholarships.</p>
<p>I do know that the college-sponsored ones are often better than the NMSC-sponsored ones, because they're renewable (NMSC is a one-time $2500 award). The lowest possible institutional NMF scholarship at geek_son's college (which uses financial need to decide the amount of the award) is still a bit higher than the NMSC-sponsored award.</p>
<p>And the NMSC-sponsored ones are representational by state (i.e., split up evenly among residents of each state, just like NMSF and NMF status). So each state will have roughly 164 students who get the NMSC-sponsored award.</p>
<p>Here's a page from NMSC's Web site that gives a little more detail... not much more, but you may find it useful.
National</a> Merit Scholarship Corporation - NMSP</p>
<p>If someone knows how the determinations are made about who gets the scholarships, I hope they will enlighten us.</p>
<p>One thing that seems unfair to me about the process: If "advancing" to National Merit Scholar from National Merit Finalist is supposed to be considered an honor, then it doesn't seem fair to remove from the running those students who receive a college-sponsored scholarship. Some of those students may be more qualified than those who eventually are called National Merit Scholars.</p>
<p>Do you agree?</p>
<p>I have never, ever seen anything published which gives any indication of precisely how NM selects the NM-sponsored scholarship recipients. Never count on College Board or National Merit to enlighten us.</p>
<p>Students who receive college and corporate sponsored NM scholarships are also considered National Merit Scholars. Since those are offered after the NM-sponsored scholarships, I don't see how that puts anyone "out of the running". You may also find that the college-sponsored NM scholarships are a better deal than the NM sponsored scholarship.</p>
<p>most of the national merit kids at are schools are just finalists, but they call themselves scholars since most schools will give you the nms scholarship even if you are only a finalist. Im an actual scholar so i get kinda ticked off but oh well. I'm not sure anyone knows the difference between a finalist and scholar anyway. National Merit does a very poor job of clarifying these issues. . .</p>
<p>
most schools will give you the nms scholarship even if you are only a finalist
Only if you're "only a Finalist." As far as I know, you can only receive one of the three: Corporate-sponsored, college-sponsored, or NMSC-sponsored. I know for certain that geek_son's college will only pony up for an NMF if the NMF didn't receive money from NMSC or a corporation.</p>
<p>And I'm pretty sure that recipients of scholarships from any of those three sources are considered "National Merit Scholars." Corporate- and college-sponsored scholarships are, in fact, types of National Merit Scholarships according to the official word from NMSC (linked above), and recipients of National Merit Scholarships (any of the three types, apparently) are all designated National Merit Scholars.</p>
<p>So..... If you get a NM scholarship from the college, a corporation, or NMSC itself, you are considered a NM Scholar. Thank you for this info.</p>
<p>It still remains that a person who attends a college which gives these kinds of scholarships, or who has some type of affiliation with a corporation which does, has a leg-up advantage over students who don't. So, strictly speaking, the Scholars may not be ONLY the most qualified, but rather a mix of most-qualified and most lucky. Maybe that is why NMSC downplays the criteria they use to select for their scholarships.</p>
<p>I am not being critical of these outstanding students (for they are all outstanding). I just think the term "Scholar" is a bit problematic.</p>
<p>Once you are a finalist, you can definitely get a scholarship (many are full free rides) from any one of a number of good, but not top echelon, institutions.</p>
<p>Does it make sense to forbid a Harvard NMF with no National Merit money to call themselves a National Merit Scholar when another NMF at Alabama (Roll Tide!!!) gets an automatic full free ride because of the Finalist status?</p>
<p>If a NMF dies trying to climb Mt. Everest when they are in their 50'S, the obit will state "former National Merit Scholar". LOL</p>