Hi all -
How does one qualify for a corporate scholarship? Is there an application necessary aside from the main national merit scholarship? Or are we automatically considered? I’m a finalist, and I’m completely confused about this part of the process.
Cheers.
You are not automatically considered. You have to meet the criteria of the corporation, which often means being the child of one of their employees but can be other types of criteria. If you find out that you meet their criteria, you also have to fill out the corporation’s separate application form before the deadline that the corporation specifies. This deadline for the corporate application can be many months before one knows whether one will be a semifinalist or not. The corporation then forwards the application information to National Merit. National Merit later determines which of the corporate Finalists should receive the corporate awards. National Merit also determines which of the corporate applicants who did not make the semifinalist cutoff should be given the corporation’s “special” awards.
Where do I find these applications? I’ve looked and can’t find them
If you are the child of an employee at one of the companies that offers a NM corporate scholarship, ask the employed parent to find out from human resources at the company how to access the application. In our case, I couldn’t find it by Googling, and then the human resources person gave us a phone number at National Merit to call, and National Merit informed us that the company had just decided to discontinue the scholarship.
At my husband’s company, a general email was sent to all employees. Anyone who had qualifying children submitted the names of their children to HR.
Since DH’s company is a huge sponsor of National Merit, an inhouse form was submitted. DS won a corporate award, but hubby stated, that he was told, that the selection process was extremely competitive in son’s year.
H’s company is also a NMCorp sponsor that provides 100 awards. H had to submit a form. I think he was informed by an email as well.
Does your parent work for a NMCorporate sponsor? If so, have him/her contact the HR office at work and ask. I would think that any form would have deadline that is either soon or passed.
Unfortunately my dad works at Ford, and they don’t offer anything. I was looking at the other companies that give based on location (Michigan) or major (Electrical/Computer Engineering), and can’t find anything from them.
I haven’t looked lately, but when I did, I only found one or two companies that gave to students who weren’t children of employees…but an unusual major was required
My daughter is a finalist. We talked to NMSC & they said they’d automatically entered my daughter for the Insperity scholarship based on her application. There wasn’t another application for her to fill out. I hope that’s right! 
Anybody get corporate scholarship notifications yet?
I think in the past they start their first round of notifications on or around the 11th. I think you can check your osa account everyday after noon to see if the letter has been uploaded.
We are waiting on a Corporate Special Scholarship, which I believe go out last, near the end of the month or even into April.
Thanks @mrslac1 !
I just checked the osa website and the letter is there!!
gphati was yours a special corporate of NMSC Corporate?
@jenkath It is the NMSC Corporate
@gphati congratulations! Waiting on notification for Special… @mrslac thank you for the intel on timing!
Anybody who has been offered a corporate scholarship, are you able to share what your #'s were on the bottom of your application?
CI, % Col, Rank
I am curious about the Rank section. I wonder how they are ranking the applicants before getting high school info (maybe solely going off of PSAT scores). DH’s corp only offers 6 scholarships and DS is ranked “9”. He is not a NMSF, he is only commended.
Thanks!
Has anyone received notification one way or the other on a Special Corporate Scholarship?
@jenkath not yet. Hope soon
Have you guys seen anything yet in your osa account? I’ve been checking all week, nothing yet 
In the past the last week of April seemed to be the time Special Scholarships showed up…
@mrslac1 I think it depends on the company. My company let us know end of March. But my husbands company hasn’t released yet. They did say end of April.