National Merit semifinalists = acceptance into top schools?

Parents Forum
41

<p>Since you were curious, I’ve posted the “Top 60” colleges when ranked by the number of national merit scholars in the freshman class. I personally find it fascinating that the first SLAC to appear on the list, Carleton College, has more scholars than Brown, UC Berkeley, Dartmouth, or Columbia. I also love the fact that the next SLAC on the list, Harvey Mudd, has a freshman class size of 200 students and yet last year 62 of them were national merit finalists. What is that, almost a third of their class?</p>

<p>Colleges With the Most Freshman Merit Scholars, 2008</p>

<p>Note: The list shows the total number of Merit Scholarship winners and the number whose scholarships were paid for by the institution, not by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation or other corporate sponsors. The rankings were determined by The Chronicle from an alphabetical listing appearing in the 2007-8 annual report of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.</p>

<p>Sources: National Merit Scholarship Corporation; The Chronicle of Higher Education
Institution (# of Scholars In Freshman Class/# Sponsored by the College)

  1. Harvard College (285/0)
  2. Univ. of Texas - Austin (281/213)
  3. Univ. of Southern California (254/216)
  4. Northwestern University (239/191)
  5. Washington University in St. Louis (228/161)
  6. University of Chicago (222/148)
  7. Yale University (213/0)
  8. University of Oklahoma (178/147)
  9. Princeton University (175/0)
  10. Arizona State University (169/143)
  11. Rice University (169/104)
  12. University of Florida (166/134)
  13. Texas A&M Univ. - College Station (161/119)
  14. Vanderbilt University (147/107)
  15. Stanford University (147/0)
  16. Univ. of North Carolina - Chapel Hill (142/106)
  17. New York University (127/100)
  18. Ohio State University (120/98)
  19. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (114/0)
  20. Georgia Institute of Technology (105/70)
  21. Duke University (99/0)
  22. University of Pennsylvania (98/0)
  23. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (91/58)
  24. Brigham Young University (90/66)
  25. Carleton College (88/66)
  26. Brown University (88/0)
  27. Univ. of California - Berkeley (85/0)
  28. Univ. of Alabama - Tuscaloosa (83/72)
  29. Univ. of Minnesota - Twin Cities (79/65)
  30. Dartmouth College (78/0)
  31. Univ. of Tulsa (77/59)
  32. Columbia University (74/0)
  33. Baylor University (70/56)
  34. Emory University (68/51)
  35. Tufts University (68/56)
  36. Purdue University (67/55)
  37. Cornell University (66/0)
  38. Harvey Mudd College (62/42)
  39. Tulane University (62/50)
  40. University of Central Florida (62/48)
  41. University of Arizona (61/43)
  42. Indiana University - Bloomington (60/44)
  43. Univ. of Nebraska - Lincoln (60/49)
  44. Michigan State University (58/47)
  45. Univ. of Michigan - Ann Arbor (57/0)
  46. Univ. of Georgia (54/41)
  47. St. Olaf College (53/45)
  48. Iowa State University (52/42)
  49. Univ. of Notre Dame (50/0)
  50. Oberlin College (47/34)
  51. Univ. of Arkansas - Fayetteville (46/39)
  52. California Institute of Technology (46/0)
  53. Georgetown University (46/0)
  54. Univ. of Kansas (45/36)
  55. Univ. of Washington (43/27)
  56. Univ. of Texas - Dallas (42/33)
  57. Univ. of South Carolina - Columbia (40/25)
  58. Grinnell College (39/30)
  59. Univ. of Maryland - College Park (39/31)
  60. Univ. of Cincinnati (37/28)
  61. Univ. of California - Los Angeles (37/0)
  62. Macalester College(36/32)
  63. Case Western Reserve University (35/24)
  64. Clemson University (35/25)
  65. Denison University (34/28)
  66. Univ. of Kentucky (34/29)
  67. Bowdoin College (33/29)
  68. Univ. of Missouri - Columbia (33/29)
  69. Louisiana State Univ. (32/25)
  70. Johns Hopkins University (32/0)
  71. Auburn University (31/21)</p>

<p>Schools with 25 - 30 Scholars include: Boston University, Fordham University, Miami University Ohio, Pomona College, Univ. of Virginia, Claremont-McKenna College, Univ. of Rochester, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Idaho, Kenyon College, University of Iowa, Wheaton College Illinois, Furman University, and the Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison.</p>

<p>Schools with 20 - 24 Scholars include: Scripps College, Colorado College, Univ. of Mississippi, Washington & Lee University, Mississippi State University, Univ. of South Florida, Univ. of Tennessee - Knoxville, West Virginia University, Rensselear Polytechnic University, Virginia Tech, and Swarthmore College.</p>

42

<p>And in no way do I mean to imply that this is a useful ranking to determine the “worth” of an institution, or that I think this necessarily means Arizona State > Stanford > Univ. of Arkansas > CalTech. If anything I think this list shows, refreshingly, how fit is important and how there are top-testing students at a wide variety of institutions, especially beyond the often myopic-focused lists on CC (“Top Ten” - which collectively enroll something like 15,000 freshmen each year, a drop in the bucket compared to the numbers of incoming 1st year students across the country&/or world).</p>

43

<p>Even in the dark ages, it guaranteed nothing. I was a NMF, and got turned down by the one reach school I applied to (and had the grades/scores to match the NM status). Every time I read here how easy it was to get into good schools back then, I wonder what I did wrong. </p>

<p>Of my two kids, one was a NMF, one was Commended. Those statuses in no way predicted or matched their college acceptance results.</p>

44

<p>That list is fascinating, not for the order of absolute numbers of NMFs, per se, but for the comparisons between institutions of similar size and character. Harvard and Stanford are the same size and roughly the same degree of selectivity. Why does Harvard have twice the number of NMFs as Stanford? (Or is it as simple as Stanford draws more from areas where students don’t routinely take PSATs and/or SATs.) MIT vs. Rice; Chicago vs. Columbia. Carleton vs. Pomona and Swarthmore (and Amherst and Williams, missing from the list). Harvey Mudd vs. Caltech.</p>

<p>Now the colleges that sponsor scholarships seem usually to have more NMFs than those that don’t, but the college-sponsored scholarships are generally not large, so it’s hard to believe that accounts for these differences. Maybe it indicates a relative difference in the weight given to test scores, although NMF status is based on a particular test no college looks at, and it relates loosely to the ones the colleges do look at. (For example, in my house my not-even-commended child had higher SATs than my NMF child.)</p>

45

<p>The list is the number of all NM scholars, including non-sponsored, as well as school and cooperation sponsored scholars. </p>

<p>Each year, about 2500 most competitive NM finalists are awarded $2500 non-sponsored scholarship ($2500) from NM foundation. For many schools, most if not all enrolled NM finalists are anointed NM scholars and receive some school awarded scholarship (often a lot more than $2500 over 4 years). While some other schools (e.g. HYPMSC and all UCs) can have a much greater number of enrolled NMFs, but they do not receive school sponsored NM scholarship.</p>

<p>An apple to apple comparison should only consider the non-sponsored scholars enrolled in each school.</p>

46

<p>The other interesting statistic that I noticed in Post #64 is that it also proves that you do NOT have to be a NMF or NMSF to get into HYPMS, etc.</p>

47

<p>Wouldn’t looking at the percentage of NMS kids make better sense? A school like UT- Austin with an undergrad enrollment of almost 50,000 has only a handful more NMS than U of Chicago, a school with 1/10 the undergrad enrollment.</p>

48

<p>In line with JHS’s post, take a look at the #of NMF that USC has vrs UCB and UCLA.[full disclosure- Son is a NMF Sr at USC and would not even consider applying to the UC’s 4 years ago]
Re why Harvard has so many more NMF’S than Stanford, it may have to do with H winning the yield contest 75% of the time with students accepted at both H and S.</p>

49

<p>Yes, I’m flummoxed by Harvey Mudd (756 students & 62 NMFs) vs. Caltech (921 students & 46). Does it mean that Caltech-bound students don’t bother taking PSAT? That Caltech attracts more students who take the ACT?</p>

50

<p>A lot of kids in certain states like California take the ACT over the SAT. </p>

<p>What I find amazing is that you take a small school like Grinnell that has a class size of approx 400 students and they have 39!!! That is incredible!!!</p>

51

<p>Maybe it is the difference between the number of National Merit FINALISTS vs the number of National Merit SCHOLARS. Harvey Mudd gives an automatic $5k NM SCHOLARSHIP to the NM FINALISTS who put them as first choice college on the NM list (and are accepted and go, of course). So perhaps if we saw a list of the number of NMF’s not NMS’s the numbers might make better sense.</p>

52

<p>Money does help and Grinnell has very good merit aid!</p>

53

<p>I think jym has the answer. Most of the colleges that seem to do surprisingly well sponsor a bunch of scholarships themselves, so that every NMF who goes there winds up as a NMS. Colleges that don’t sponsor scholarships themselves only get NMSs if some other organization (or the NM Foundation) awards them a scholarship. That still doesn’t really explain Harvard vs. Stanford, except maybe that sponsoring National Merit Scholarships for the children of employees is sort of an old-line mega-corporate thing to do, and is probably more commonly found in the Northeast than California.</p>

54

<p>JHS and jym:
Would a $2.5k make such a difference to a $ 30±-40+k per year tuition? S1 decided against a school that was dangling a $3k one-time scholarship (unasked) if he matriculated. It was his safety school (according to his GC), though still a great one.
I can see half-tuition making a difference but I’m not seeing $2.5k. $5k? hmmm… But maybe the $5k is only part of the package.</p>

55

<p>^ schools that sponsor NMS usually give at least $1000/year to all finalists, and often more than that.</p>

56

<p>marite:
It may be a combination of factors, including other FA and/or Merit awards offered to accepted students. Using your example, Cal Tech has 46 NMS’s (all corp or NM sponsored as Cal Tech doesn’t sponsor NMF) and Harvey Mudd has 62 NMS’s, 42 of which are school sponsored (with $5k, as opposed to $2,500 corp sponsored) BUT who knows how much OTHER aid might have been offered to the 62 NMS’s at Mudd, such that if the student happened to have gotten into Mudd and Cal Tech, might have tipped their hand to Mudd over Cal Tech. For example, my younger s’s college choice was made by the other merit $ he was offered. The NMS money was just a nice bonus. OTOH, older s applied to his college ED, so we didn’t get to play the $$ game with him. His NMS $ was a token amount ($3000) but the school got to list him on their NMS list. Does this make sense?</p>

57

<p>My question would be how much more than that?</p>

<p>HMC’s COA (not counting personal expenses and books) for 2009-2010 is $51k. $1k per year would not make much of a difference to the COA.</p>

<p>jym: I was typing my response to ngmm when you posted. Your response certainly makes sense, and I know that Caltech does not hand out scholarships lightly. It would be interesting to learn how much aid, other than the fairly minimal NMC scholarship, can bring to a student. Full ride? full tuition? Half-tuition? It would make comparing the percentages of NMFs at different schools more meaningful.</p>

<p>When the older brother of one of S’s friends was applying to colleges in the late 1990s, U of Rochester was promising $10k per year to any matriculant who scored 1200+ on the SAT. That was a significant enough amount (COAs were much lower than they are now) that he decided to attend.</p>

58

<p>S got something in the mail today from Concordia Moorhead, MN. It says if NM finalists name them as your first choice then you are guaranteed a minimum of $14,000 per year. So I guess this means if your S or D has the chance to be a finalist that you should do a little up front homework on colleges offering similar perks.</p>

59

<p>^^^ Yup- that homework includes learning to put “undecided” on the yellow postcard and not changing that til the spring when your s picks his school!!</p>

60

<p>Marite, I don’t think small National Merit Scholarships make kids choose School A over School B very often. The difference is definitional – If there are 200 National Merit Finalists, and 70 of them go to the University of Chicago, and 130 go to Stanford, all 70 of the Chicago ones will be “National Merit Scholars”, because if they don’t qualify for someone else’s sponsored scholarship, Chicago will give them $1,000-$2,500/yr. Stanford doesn’t sponsor any scholarships itself, so of those 130 National Merit Finalists who go to Stanford, maybe only 30-40 will qualify for someone else’s sponsored scholarship and get the “National Merit Scholar” tag.</p>

<p>The list we saw above was a list of Scholars, not Finalists. Stanford (and Harvard, Yale, etc.) could easily have 3-4 x the number of Finalists as Scholars, but Chicago (and I suspect many others) will have a 1:1 ratio of Finalists to Scholars.</p>