My D is a junior and has received PSAT scores that mean she’ll likely be a National Merit Finalist. We are looking at schools with significant automatic merit aid for NMF.
Some schools, like University of Kentucky, appear to award large scholarships at the National Merit Finalist level. Other schools, like Central Florida University, are less clear - NMF are eligible to apply, but then they are later referred to as National Merit Scholars.
Please help me understand which schools have significant automatic merit aid for National Merit Finalists, and which schools have significant automatic merit aid only for National Merit Scholars.
Thanks in advance.
There’s no such thing as “aid only for NMScholars”.
Once a NMF receives an official NMF scholarship (either from a college, corp, or NMCorp), then he/she becomes a NMScholar. You can’t be a scholar first, and then get merit. It’s the merit that makes one a scholar.
Look at Alabama’s NMF award. What is your DD’s likely major?
@kittencrash Did anyone give you this link in your other thread?
http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com
Oh! Got it. 
Thanks much.
She plans to major in math, and minor in everything (said facetiously, but seriously, Kid keeps discovering one new passion after another. She will need some freedom to explore options, and some time to reflect. )
@Midwest67 - Yes, thanks! I just wanted to make sure I was understanding it correctly. I wanted to be sure that National Merit Finalist means “yes, you get a scholarship” and not “you pass to the next level of competition and might get a scholarship”.
@kittencrash As you keep exploring merit money for NMF, don’t forget merit money based on your daughter’s stats. ACT of 34?
<<<<
She plans to major in math, and minor in everything (said facetiously, but seriously, Kid keeps discovering one new passion after another. She will need some freedom to explore options, and some time to reflect. )
<<<
Well, college is the time to explore.
If your DD has a good number of AP/DE/CLEP credits, and she picks a school that is generous with those credits, then she’ll have plenty of room during her 4 years to fit in courses for interests.
Alabama’s NMF award is for 10 semesters and students can use those 2 extra semesters to cover summer abroad costs. Each semester is worth about $13k, so that’s plenty of money to cover flight, room, abroad tuition, and spending money for study abroad. Doing summer abroad gives your DD more opportunities to take add’l courses for interest.
@mom2collegekids I sure wish UA offered Russian as a major with extensive course offerings. 
If it did, our dd’s search would be over and apps would be super simple!
Yes, her ACT is 34.
We are only looking for large merit awards (full ride or full tuition), because a moderate scholarship doesn’t lower our net price enough at most private schools (EFC = 35K, can afford 20-25K). And we are mostly looking at automatic scholarships, because I’m not confident that she’d win competitive awards.
Hence we are shopping the big NMF scholarships.
We will still look at some competitive scholarships, I just don’t want to count on them. We will not be applying for any competitive scholarships that require you to travel for an interview… I can’t spend the money on a “maybe”.
<<< @mom2collegekids I sure wish UA offered Russian as a major with extensive course offerings>>>
Well, that’s where the generous study abroad opps could help out. Typically students take 6 credits during a summer abroad. If she did that twice to countries/schools that offered more extensive Russian offerings, she could supplement what Alabama offers for the Russian Minor.
http://mlc.ua.edu/russian/course-list/
https://studyabroad.ua.edu/index.cfm?FuseAction=Programs.ViewProgram&Program_ID=10035
No. Not every National Merit Finalist is a National Merit Scholar. Only those who are selected for the actual scholarship funded by the National Merit Corp. And for which only NM Finalists may compete. There are two other scholarships–college and corporate. The money for these is coming from sources other than NM and they set their own eligibilty rules. I don’t think most of them require students to achieve Finalist status. Semifinalist is usually good enough but you should check with any schools of interest. I am pretty sure I took the better money and ran with a NM corporate scholarship but my daughter had to jump through the hoops to become a NM scholar.
Students offered the higher paying school scholarships aren’t eligible to win the NM ones.
NM Finalist means yes you got a scholarship only if you attend a college which gives scholarships to all NMSF or NMF, or parents work for a company which provides this benefit. Plenty of NMF are not selected by NM and do not get one of the other scholarships. They aren’t NM Scholars.
@mom2collegekids Interesting idea and one she has not thought about before. I’ll mention it to her and see what she has to say.
@mathyone <<<< No. Not every National Merit Finalist is a National Merit Scholar. Only those who are selected for the actual scholarship funded by the National Merit Corp. And for which only NM Finalists may compete >>>
Absolutely NOT TRUE. Any NMF who receives an official NMF award (corporate, college or NMCorp) becomes a National Merit Scholar.
However it’s true that not every NMF is a NMS…no one was claiming THAT. There are many NMFs that never get/accept an official NMF award.
<<< Students offered the higher paying school scholarships aren’t eligible to win the NM ones. >>>
@mathyone And the above isn’t true, either.
The larger NMF awards from schools only designate a small part as “official”. So, a student selected by NMCorp to get the one time $2500 award can get that award AND the big NMF award from the college (minus the small official part).
However, since the official part is often a 4 year award, it can make sense to accept that instead. But, there is at least one school that lets the student take the one time $2500, and then makes the remaining “official” portion unofficial so that the students gets the maximum.
A student can only receive one “official” NMF award, but NMCorp wants students to get the max money for their situation. When my son was eligible for the one time NMCorp, a corporate award, and the large school award, NMCorp called us to coordinate so that he could get the max money.
(Oh, and most schools do require the NMF status, not just NMSF to get the large national merit award. Making NMSF is often either not enough, or the NMFs often get additional awards.) The official portion of the NMF scholarship “goes thru” NMCorp, so NMF status is necessarly.
m2ck is correct. This was the case even back in the dark ages when I took the old NMSQT, before the PSAT was adopted as the qualifying test. And boy, was that a tough test. I remember walking out of my high school’s library that day wondering if I had answered any of the questions correctly, and was quite surprised when I learned I had scored 1 point above the cutoff. My scholarship from Bucknell was an official college-sponsored NM Scholarship.
Look on the National Merit site. 3 kinds of scholarships. “National Merit” “Corporate-sponsored Merit” and “College-sponsored Merit”. The word National is not in the names of those scholarships. Furthermore those winners do not need to make Finalist. That is up to whoever is paying.
That said, NM. has no objection to the colleges listing all recipients as NMS and some schools give small scholarships so all their NMSF are counted.
@mathyone I have looked at the site and it’s clear. All NMFs who receive an official Corporate, College or NMCorp scholarship are reported by NMCorp in a press release to the media as NMScholars.
But I don’t even have to look at the site to know this. I have a certificate from NMCorp naming my son as a National Merit Scholar.
Anyone receiving an official college NMF award must be a NMF because the “official” portion gets sent to NMCorp and then sent back to the student’s school account. However, schools are free to give NMSF awards that are just for that.
The word “national” has to do with National Merit Corporation.
“no student can receive more than one monetary award”.
We all know that "no student can receive more than one [official NMF] monetary award…
No one is saying that they can.
What I am saying, because we experienced it, is that a NMF can get an official NMF award and also accept another as long as the “official” portion is removed.
All approx 7400 scholarship winners have the “official” portion of their NM awards paid THRU NMCorp. The money comes from NMCorp for all 7400 students. That’s why the 7400 get the “Scholar” designation…and NMCorp sends their names to the media as such.
from NMCorporation…
[QUOTE=""]
** All winners of Merit Scholarship® awards (Merit Scholar® designees) **are chosen from the Finalist group, based on their abilities, skills, and accomplishments
[/QUOTE]
Types of Merit Scholarship® Awards
Beginning in March and continuing to mid-June, NMSC notifies approximately ** 8,400 Finalists ** at their home addresses that they have been selected to receive a Merit Scholarship® award. Merit Scholarship awards are of three types:
- National Merit® $2500 Scholarships
Every Finalist competes for these single payment scholarships, which are awarded on a state representational basis.
- Corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards
- College-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards
Officials of each sponsor college select winners of their awards from Finalists who have been accepted for admission and have informed NMSC by the published deadlines that the sponsor college or university is their first choice.
[QUOTE=""]
[/QUOTE]
There ya go!
Yes, NM calls the group as a whole “Merit Scholars”. All the money is administered by NMSC and they state “only one monetary award from NMSC” and since the checks for all three scholarships are coming from NMSC it sound like someone is breaking their rules.