<p>Myquote: “I doubt that the entire “half tuition” scholarship is the official NMF scholarship from USC.”</p>
<p>The entire 1/2 tuition scholarship is a THE official College sponsored NMS scholarship. ALL of it is paid for by USC. In addition, USC NMS can also receive up to $1000 per year paid directly by NMSF.</p>
<p>It doesn’t sound like the ENTIRE 1/2 tuition scholarship is the “official” NMF scholarship. It sounds like the official part is only 1,000. </p>
<p>My son was able to accept a large college NMF scholarship (minus $1k official part) AND accept 2500/yr corporate NMF scholarship.</p>
<p>FlMathMom–In a similar situation, we chose Princeton, which doesn’t give NM scholarships. If my D doesn’t get in, she can change her choice.</p>
<p>The reason we chose a college that doesn’t give official NM scholarships is that, if she doesn’t get this award, we don’t want her to be offered an official college NM scholarship (i.e., administered through NM) to a college that she ultimately doesn’t choose, b/c once it is offered, she can’t change her mind and receive a NM scholarship from another college.</p>
<p>Here’s the info from the 2011 NM Requirements and Instructions:
</p>
<p>I researched this thoroughly, and suggest that you determine from each potential college’s website how the college would treat a NM-awarded official scholarship. All but one of the colleges on my D’s list either don’t give official NM scholarships, don’t guarantee NM scholarships anyway (so we’d rather take the bird in the hand) or would still give some additional money but would call it something else.</p>
<p>DD did get a letter today at home with a corporate scholarship offer, $3K, renewable yearly. We are absolutely thrilled with our National Merit Finalist AND Scholar.</p>
<p>My son just received a National Merit Full Tuition Scholarship to UVM. Not sure if he will accept or not, but sure is good to have. Good luck to the rest of you.</p>
<p>My D got a call from the NMC today, telling her that she is “being strongly considered for a NM scholarship”, but she has to declare a first choice college. Currently, she is listed as “undecided.” They want to know asap.</p>
<p>Only two of the 7 schools she’s applied to offer NM scholarships Macalester, Carleton). She just got into one of them today (first acceptance – yay! … whew!). It’s a great school, but it is her safety. She won’t hear from the other 6 schools until the end of this week or even next week.</p>
<p>So is the best thing to do to tell NMC that her first choice is one of the 5 schools that doesn’t offer NM money? Is that the way to maintain and protect her options?</p>
<p>Interestingly, Carleton makes it very clear on its website that if you accept the one-time $2500, you forfeit their $2000 your freshman year, but get it each of the three years after that. Macalester is not so clear, in fact says nothing about how they handle scholarships directly from NM. FYI, Macalester gives $5000 per each of four years to its NM scholars, $2000 of which is NM money. ($3000 per year comes from something called the Dewitt Wallace Fund.)</p>
<p>I hope I am explaining this clearly.</p>
<p>Anyway, maybe this is not so straightforward and I should call Macalester? I wouldn’t want her to take a one-time $2500 and lose out on $2000 for each of her later years.</p>
<p>You should also know that a student will not be OFFERED more than one NM scholarship. The National Merit Requirements and Instructions document says:
</p>
<p>As I read the last sentence, if you are offered the $2500 Scholarship (and that’s probably what it is, as corporate scholarship offers were sent beginning March 9), you cannot be offered an official NM scholarship from a college, administered by the NM people. In other words, you couldn’t merely decline it and later get an official college-sponsored offer. That’s why it is so important to know what Macalester would do. Once you know that, you can decide where each college stands in order of preference on your D’s list, which would determine which college you should list.</p>
<p>Thanks, Schokolade. I actually emailed Macalester as soon as I posted and will follow-up with a phone call first thing in the morning. If they tell me they do what Carleton does, I think I can breathe a bit easier?</p>
<p>It sure would be nice to be figuring all of this out AFTER admissions decisions had arrived.</p>
<p>I don’t remember this happening three years ago with my son. He’d put down “undecided,” endured all of the admissions results (which included NM money plus from Carleton and Kenyon), then chose a school that does not offer NM money (but has a huge endowment, so our cost was/is actually less) and so got the one-time $2500. He let NM know he had a new “first choice,” but well after all of the results were in (including financial aid offers). I don’t recall a phone call like this at all. Have things changed?</p>