<p>This may have already been posted, sorry if I'm repeating, but I just saw this today in the Daily Texan:</p>
<p>The</a> Daily Texan - UT's National Merit Scholarship canceled next fall</p>
<p>No more scholarships for NMF status as of 2010 - current students scholarships will not be effected.</p>
<p>That’s a real shame. It is surprising how little hard work and accomplishment mean these days. This will only help A&M and OU, both extremely generous in their merit scholarships.</p>
<p>From the article:
But he said the decision to stop automatically offering scholarships for national merit designation would not harm UTs ability to recruit top students.</p>
<p>Its more prevalent in emerging institutions than in institutions that have already attained a certain stature, Hegarty said.</p>
<p>National Merit Scholars will still have plenty of other merit-based scholarships to apply for at the University, Melecki said.</p>
<hr>
<p>UT does offer other scholarships that recognize hard work and accomplishment. Liberal Arts Honors offers the Dedman Scholarships. I’m sure other departments have some as well. There are many listed on the Texas App Scholarship page for UT. Also, Texas Exes offer some and may be offering full rides to some students next year. </p>
<p>Many of the top 50 schools don’t offer much for National Merit, alone, even though they may offer generous merit scholarships. These schools are looking for more than top scores. For example, Rice, Duke, Emory, Vanderbilt, Wash U, and others offer merit aid that takes into account more than SAT scores. They may offer a little something for Nat’l Merit, but the big bucks are reserved for those with wide ranging accomplishments. On the other hand, you have schools below the top 50, such as Baylor (and I’m sure others) which only offer the big bucks to National Merit Scholars.</p>
<p>IMO, UT is comparable to Florida, which waives OOS tuition for National Merit Finalists. Hell, USC even gives half tuition. I had been considering Texas until I heard that it didn’t give these scholarships anymore.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t give up so quickly. Check out the other scholarships UT offers. If you are a NMS, then no doubt you are qualified for some. These scholarships do require an application and some require interviews, but my son thought it was worth it.</p>