National Merit Scholarship

<p>2UNCorBUST, sorry that I don’t have the exact number. I heard it is the top 1% of the incoming freshman class…</p>

<p>if you win the national merit stuff don’t you just pick any school and you get a full scholarship?</p>

<p>i did meet someone here on national merit, but i didn’t know her well or anything</p>

<p>Absolutely not!! My best friend in high school won National Merit and was offered 400 dollars a semester to go to Duke.</p>

<p>At Northeastern, about 100 students TOTAL get National Merit or Trustee scholarships. That means that around 100 students out of almost 3000 are given either full everything, full tuition, or half tuition. And to be honest, Trustee scholarships are done really strangly. I was way better in high school than most of the Trustee kids I know-- but they did something strange or unique so Northeastern really wanted them.</p>

<p>neuchimie, do you know around what percentage of those who received the highest Dean’s scholarship will end up getting the Trustee scholarship? According to my logic/estimations, if the top 10% get honors, and of the people who posted in the EA acceptance thread, there are four different scholarship levels that the people accepted into honors can get… 14k, 15k, 16k, and 17k.</p>

<p>If, say, those 4 are divided about evenly, that means that the 17k is <em>about</em> (not exactly, obviously) the top 2.5%, or about 75 to 100 people. So does that mean that aroudn 50% of those will get the Trustee scholarship? I’m not an NMF so don’t count that</p>

<p>double post, my bad</p>

<p>that seems to somewhat logical but you never know. That makes me wonder because I got the 17k academic scholarship but didnt get into Honors Program</p>

<p>^This happened to me as well. I believe you have to be top 10% in your major i believe to be in honors.</p>

<p>^Oh okay that makes sense because I applied undecided which probably had more people than the other majors</p>

<p>Woah, STOP with the percentages. You are going to freak yourself out. You’ll either become wicked depressed for months, or you’ll become over confidant and possibly very disappointed. Not only are there many other levels of merit scholarships you didn’t list, the percentages have NO MERIT in your calculations because 100ish people become STUDENTS with trustee/nmf scholarships whereas 10% of ADMITTED STUDENTS are offered honors.</p>

<p>Moreover, I know MANY MANY people who got very high scholarships and no honors, because as we’ve all said before, honors is by college. An engineering student can get 16k and no honors, whereas CJ (no offense) could get 11k and honors. So the honors percentage thing has even less merit.</p>

<p>I’m sorry for being harsh, and I really understand your attempt. I’m very much a numbers person as well and figuring out the percentages of acceptances, etc makes me feel a lot better about stuff, even when it doesn’t actually help at all. But you need to chill out and enjoy your senior year. You will either get the scholarship or not, end of story. </p>

<p>That goes to same to anyone who is freaking about RD chances! A year from now, you’re going to be wishing you had even a week of more time to spend with the people you hate seeing every single day now. I lived in Florida, and there isn’t anything I wouldn’t give to be able to spend more time with my best friends from high school. So stop it with the percentages and go distract yourself some other way!! :)</p>

<p>I spoke with financial aid at NEU yesterday. My son is also a NMF and is trying to decide which school to “spend” his “first choice” on. I was told that “you MAY be eligible for a full tuition scholarship” means just that, some students who name NEU as first choice get full tuition, and some don’t. My son also received the max. amount via the Dean’s scholarship- $17,000 per year and Honors.</p>

<p>Even more disappointing was that the financial aid rep told me that the National Merit Finalist full tuition scholarship offers and the Trustee scholarships (full rides) are not awarded until JULY! </p>

<p>My son really liked NEU when he visited, but when other schools such as Auburn, are guaranteeing that with a first choice selection they will receive full tuition + many, many extras, and with full tuition offers unrelated to National Merit from schools like Pitt, he just will not be able to take the chance and hope that he will receive more than the $17,000 Dean’s scholarship which is only 1/2 tuition.</p>

<p>I guess it just comes down to how badly you want to attend.</p>

<p>momofnmf - Thanks for the update. It seems to confilct with what we’ve heard, so I’ll be digging into it again next week. I was already confused about the required NEU/NMF timing. Good luck - it sounds like your son has some nice offers.</p>

<p>My admission rep for our area told me that NMF is guaranteed to receive full tuition and will be considered for Trustee, and the decision will be released in March.</p>

<p>However, this was back in September when she came to our school for college open house. So if you guys find out more information, please please share. It’d be greatly appreciated…</p>

<p>I checked the NEU website again today as the deadline for sending/faxing a copy of the National Merit Finalist letter as of last week was Feb. 23rd (tomorrow). I found that the National Merit instructions had changed. They now state that a copy of the letter isn’t needed until March 1st, but it should be submitted if an answer is requested when regular admission acceptances are released end of March.</p>

<p>Because this is so confusing, I called the financial aid office again and was told, very definitely that it didn’t really matter if we sent a copy of the letter by March 1st, just that we needed to notify National Merit by April 29th. I was then told that not all NMF will receive full tuition or a Trustee’s scholarship and that they will only begin deciding who gets what once all the regular decisions have been announced. The fin aid rep followed that by saying, “Please be advised that nobody will be notified until at least early summer. It will take us that much time to make decisions.”</p>

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<p>I’m confused. Are you saying that the students must make a college decision not knowing whether the NMF/full-tuition deal is a go?</p>

<p>I am confused as well. Without knowing how much scholarship will be offered, it is very difficult to make a decision by May 1st. </p>

<p>???</p>

<p>I had thought all scholarship money was given in April. Can;t make a decision beginning of May without all the facts.</p>

<p>Son got 17K Deans, Honors College but not even considering NEU unless they come up with a lot more money.</p>

<p>The website says you can email the NMF letter (I did a scan-to-pdf).
[Northeastern</a> University Undergraduate Admissions > Costs & Financial Aid > Scholarships](<a href=“http://www.northeastern.edu/admissions/costs/scholarships.html]Northeastern”>http://www.northeastern.edu/admissions/costs/scholarships.html)</p>

<p>Perhaps the statements made about summer award had to do with students that submitted their preference card in late April?</p>

<p>I don’t mean to be confusing, but this is confusing. Yes, the financial rep aide was very clear, you will not know if you have received either the National Merit full tuition or the Trustee’s scholarship until summer. I was told it wouldn’t be until July a few weeks ago, but this time the rep just said that they will not be notifying scholarship winners until early summer at the earliest.</p>

<p>Yes, this does mean that you won’t find out until after the May 1st deadline for deciding on a school. My son is in the same position as many others. He has the half tuition $17,000 per year scholarship and the Honors program, but he will have to decide whether or not to attend without knowing if he gets the NMF full scholarship or Trustee’s.</p>

<p>It’s a huge risk to take since he already has full tuition at Auburn, Pitt, UT Knoxville, and Tulane and 85% tuition at Case Western. As much as he likes Northeastern, I don’t think he can chance it.</p>

<p>As a parent, I have to say that this whole process has been disappointing, and based on our visit to Northeastern this summer, actually a little misleading. </p>

<p>If anyone finds out anything different, please post.</p>

<p>My daughter just emailed NU her NMF documents and they said that we will hear from them in March…</p>

<p>^ same.</p>

<p>10char</p>