<p>Does UNC give merit money to NMFs? If so, how much? Does it significantly improve your chances of admission? (I am out-of-state)</p>
<p>My son is receiving $1000 per year from UNC as a National Merit Finalist. I have no idea how NMF would affect someone's admission chances, but would think it would certainly work in their favor...</p>
<p>$1,000? Shoot... I was hoping for a bit more than that... </p>
<p>I know that being an NMF could only help your chances, but the reason I asked was because I wanted to know if it really, really helped. (There are some colleges where NMFs are almost automatically accepted). Considering how good UNC is, I wasn't expecting it to be a huge factor, but I expected it to be a nice addition to an application. However, I can't be particularly optimistic about its effect on acceptance chances if they only give $1,000 a year to NMFs... I think that's less than Vanderbilt gives....</p>
<p>Hi jlauer - yes...it isn't much. But if I think certain oos schools can nominate kids for Robertson and Morehead scholarships. Full rides, plus laptops, etc... I'd check that out. Chances are a NMF with good ecs would stand a good chance at one of these scholarships. I'm just not sure how the nomination process works and which schools can nominate. I know my daughter's public school was not one of the nominating schools darn it.</p>
<p>Another thing about UNC-CH. For us, UNC oos cost was only about $8K more a year than we would have spent on Big State U in Texas and is less than Rice. And UNC has fantastic study abroad programs...one of the most respected in the nation in fact. The tuition/room/board costs for study abroad candidates (instate and oos) is about the same as in-state cost....which is about $5K for tuition and between $6K and $7K for room/board. So oos students really take advantage of the study abroad program...it is great on the resume and it is a huge savings on the tuition/room/board bill.</p>
<p>Thank you for the advice.</p>
<p>Lol...I know what it takes to be a Robertson or a Morehead scholar, and frankly I don't have it. I'm just not that in that group of super elite students (the 35 ACT/2300+ SAT group). My stats might be good enough to get in out of state, but that's about it. </p>
<p>I was hoping that the NMF thing would be the thing that made UNC affordable, but apparently not. It's a shame because I won't qualify for financial aid either because my parents make a lot of money, but that doesn't help me much because they aren't willing to pay much for college anyway...</p>
<p>The study abroad programs sounds wonderful but will be of little benefit to me if I can't even afford to go there.</p>
<p>I'm not sure what the Robertson/Morehead profile looks like, but I bet you are selling yourself short. My d's SAT score jumped quite a bit over the PSAT score that qualified her as a NMF, btw. Unfortunately, only a handful of nominating schools here in Houston. Not that I think she would have definitely gotten a one, but it would have been nice to try!</p>
<p>There are some other academic/merit scholarships at UNC besides the Morehead and Robertson. My daughter was offered a Carolina Scholars award, which is offered to both in-state and OOS students. As an instate student, it was worth $7,500 per year. Had she been out of state, the same award would have been a full ride. There are some other merit scholarships that you might be in the running for, so I'd recommend checking out the scholarship/financial aid section of the UNC website. It should give specifics about what types of awards are available. They're, as you might expect, pretty competitive, but they're not so unattainable as to make an application to UNC pointless. No guarantees, of course, but I would think it'd be worth a shot.</p>
<p>Believe me, I'm not selling myself short. 32 ACT, a 1410 SAT, and no hook...nothing special by UNC standards, especially for out of state students...(there aren't even any guarantees that I'll get in, considering so few get accepted OOS).</p>
<p>I'm trying to find the average stats for Carolina scholars...I'm not having much luck though, and I don't think it matters anyway...I doubt I have a chance.</p>
<p>jlauer95: Here's a link from the UNC-CH web site which answers some of your questions. Hope it helps. <a href="http://studentaid.unc.edu/studentaid/faq/ssa_scholarship_faq.html%5B/url%5D">http://studentaid.unc.edu/studentaid/faq/ssa_scholarship_faq.html</a></p>
<p>Lol...I just found the average stats for Carolina Scholars...</p>
<p>I now realize the problem with CollegeConfidential. Because so many of the students here are so astonishingly smart, it is assumed that every member here is.</p>
<p>I think some of the other academic scholarships probably have a slightly lower average SAT score (and are not worth quite as much money, but more than just the NMF $1k), and that with even for the Carolina Scholars ones, not everyone is at or above the average.</p>
<p>That said, you really may want to retake the SAT, if you are interested in a merit scholarship at UNC or any number of top schools that offer them. Those scholarships do seem to be somewhat numbers driven, although from what I can tell, the essays are critically important as well. As you undoubtedly know, merit scholarships are generally offered in an effort to lure a student away from a more competitive school, so they're generally offered not just to students who have the stats to get in but to those who have the stats to do more than just get in. Your scores at the moment are, of course, very good, but higher ones would be even more helpful.</p>