My son got NMSF and expects to be named a finalist next year. He plans on applying ED to a reach school that does not award any money for NM finalists. However, one of his match schools (which he would be happy to attend if the reach doesn’t come through) does award money provided that you designate it as a “first choice” on the National Merit application.
Does anyone know if my son could get in trouble if he lists his match school as his first choice when the reality is, the reach school is his first choice as evidenced by the fact that he is applying ED to the reach? If he did this, he would be in line for money at the match school in the (more likely than not) event that he is rejected by the reach. On the other hand, I’m leery of him listing the match as his first choice when this is not really true.
One other thought, maybe we could avoid this whole issue by listing the reach as his first choice on the National Merit application and then changing his first choice to the match if he is rejected or deferred by the reach school.
Any advice on what we should do in this situation would be greatly appreciated.
Also he does not have to list anything until next spring (I forget exact date, may be MAY 1ST). So he can leave the first choice blank, apply to ED school, then designate the match school at #1 if not admitted to reach via ED.
Colleges don’t start getting the lists from NM until spring (some start in March I think, with May 1 as the deadline to make changes). Put the match school. You can always change it if he gets accepted to ED school.
@TheBigChef from my understanding: putting the match school as his first choice might result in him getting NM scholarship from that school and if he decides to go to another school, he will forfeit that scholarship and also will not be in the running for NM scholarship from the corp. itself (i.e. $2500 - which he could win if he doesn’t have a school that gives its own NM scholarship listed as his first choice); i think once the scholarship gets awarded - it can’t be changed; on the other hand $2500 is not guaranteed and if he goes to the match school he will be better off with that school scholarship. So it’s a gamble.
He can wait until he gets confirmation from NMF in Spring and then choose this school. The deadline for NMF is sometime around Apr-May, and by then he would know where he would be going.
But by March, wouldn’t he know the ED result (admit, defer, reject), so he should know whether he is bound to the ED school (admit) or not (defer, reject)?
the one time NMCorp $2500 awards are announced much earlier…March 21st. So it’s not possible for a student to get awarded a School NMF Award, then change his school, and then get a $2500 award.
You make this decision in March. Presumably, you would have already decided on the school by end of March, and you can then add that as your first choice school for NMF. DS initially selected a school with generous NMF scholarship, but when he decided to attend another school, which did not give a school award, he was able to change his 1st choice school to receive the one-time $2500 award from NMF.
Update: DS got deferred and ultimately rejected from ED school as expected. However, he did get into another reach school RD and will be attending in the fall (Tufts). Switched 1st choice to Tufts and will receive a whopping $500 per year for NMF!