<p>Help. Gotta pick two schools to send National Merit letter to...today. I've read on CC "don't bother sending the letter to the Ivy's" and "it's best to send it to schools that track interest." </p>
<p>I'm sure Stanford will not be particularly impressed with a first cut National Merit letter, but does it track interest? Will it care that someone loved it enough to send the letter?</p>
<p>Hiker, I would recommend doing some global searches on CC (and don't limit it to one school's thread, Stanford, Harvard, etc.). </p>
<p>My son was a "commended" NM, but not a Finalist or Semi-Finalist. So, from a personal standpoint, I can't say where, for him, that it made a huge difference. However, in reading the many many threads that I have read over the last several months, where I do recall the "NM" topic coming up the most, was when a student and/or parent was wondering why they did not receive a scholarship "that is normally guranteed for SemiFinalists". I don't recall seeing the answers posted, but my guess is that maybe they sent the letters to School-A, and School-B, and were not accepted to A or B. Then, school-C that did offer them acceptance but did NOT offer them the Scholarship normally associated with NM. Again, that is a guess on my part, based on their post, and the accuracy of their post, as to why they might not have been offered a scholarship that normally goes to NMF NMSF. </p>
<p>If you do some research, you might find more information. My son did receive a merit scholarship that is the exact same $$$ as what a NMF of NMSF awardee can qualify for, so for him, it was not an issue. </p>
<p>In terms of Stanford, and NM letter: you might post a question specific to the Stanford threads, and see what Stanford students have to say. </p>
<p>In my opinion, it takes a LOT more than the NM score (Finalist or SF) for acceptance to Stanford, Harvard, or other top Ivies. If you think that you really have ALL that they look for (gpa, SAT1, SAT2, ACT, ECs, etc), then go ahead and send it to them. If you think it is 50-50 at best that they will consider you (based on ALL of your stats, not just NM), then I would recommend that you really think through your top 5 schools, and see which two are the most likely to accept you. Reach schools are fine. My son was accepted into 2 of his 4 reach schools, and neither was one that he sent the NM letter to. Point being, for him, there was no coorelation. And, he is thrilled with the school that he has chosen, and thrilled with the scholarship offered to him. So, for him/us, the NM (though he scored high enough for commended, over 215), it did not influence his final decision. </p>
<p>Again, do some searching, and reading.
Good luck to you.</p>
<p>My daughter picked Emory and Tufts to send notification to. She was accepted as an Emory Scholar - don't know if there's any correlation. She also visited the school and they do track interest.</p>
<p>It turned out that she never sent in her finished Tufts application after her SCEA acceptance to Harvard. (She did not send Harvard National Merit notification but did have it listed on her app.) She was also accepted to another Ivy without sending notification of NM.</p>
<p>Our thought was that the Ivies wouldn't care. Seems as though we were right. She did not apply to Stanford, so I couldn't say. My suggestion (FWIW) would be to send to schools who largely track interest such as Emory, Tufts, Wash U.</p>
<p>I'm a NM person too, but I was under the impression that the final letter is the only one that matters for the scholarships, when you select your number one school that you wish to attend... That these were just to show interest?</p>
<p>My safety school is UF, but I wanted to make sure Boston University and Northeastern knew that I am interested. I was just going to do UF if my other schools didn't work out.</p>
<p>I could still, if all else fails, say that UF is my top school when the finalist letter comes around, and receive the scholarship, correct?</p>
<p>Correct. Just be sure that the school you'll be attending participates in the program. Many don't.</p>
<p>U of Florida gives very nice NM/NA scholarships so i would definitely suggest them</p>
<p>One more question... Is the actual National Merit program open to all races? I kown this probably sounds crazy. But I know that there is also national achievement, and national hispanic honors... or something like that. Can a hispanic kid qualify for both NM and the other one? Same with an african american?</p>
<p>Yes, National Merit is open to all students who take the PSAT.</p>
<p>my daughter sent scores to barnard and gwu, both of which interest her (she wants big city) does anyone know if either of those track interest?</p>
<p>yes, you can qualify for both NM and NA.. I was both national merit commended and a national achievement winner</p>
<p>We assumed that any college that awarded a NMF Scholarship might be interested, so reviewed the list against our son's potential schools at the time. As it turned out only one school on his list offered a scholarship, so we put that down as first choice. (It was WUSTL, which as everyone says does track interest and he was eventually accepted, although chose to go elsewhere). This list is a few years old</p>
<p>but should be a good starting point.</p>
<p>As un update to the NM list Marilyn gave a link to, I'm told the UCs no longer award NM money. They believe under-privileged populations are disadvantaged in that one day standardized test so are choosing to award merit money for other factors. Looking at it objectively, I gotta agree with them.</p>
<p>This link was posted in the Financial Aid forum (thanks BlueBayou!) -
<a href="http://www.nationalmerit.org/05_annual%20report.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.nationalmerit.org/05_annual%20report.pdf</a></p>
<p>starting on page 20 is a list of corporate/college combined (although it doesn't list those companies who were willing to sponser but had no applicants - my employer awarded my S a scholarship this year but didn't have anyone in the 2005 report.</p>
<p>Even more interesting is the list on page 28 - shows how many NM were enrolled and how many of them were sponsored by the college.</p>
<p>Stanford - 0 sponsored out of 194 scholars
Yale - 0 of 232
Harvard - 0 of 287
WUTSL - 120 of 169
U of Florida - 188 of 230</p>
<p>This can be quite useful to help figure out which schools are really really interested in NMF, although it doesn't tell you the extent of the scholarship. My theory is that those schools who like to brag about their NMF population probably put a lot of emphasis on that in the admission process. Also tells you which schools probably don't care since they can accept as many NMF as they like. So I would say if the school doesn't offer a scholarship, don't bother listing them on the junior year form.</p>