Also, it is very important to remember that NMF scholarships are only offered to students entering as First Time in College for the Fall semester. They will not be available later as a transfer student.
@mom2collegekids I think you are right. IT is so hard to dig through the info on NM site. He is not an NMF. This is what he is
http://nationalmerit.org/Info%20and%20Instructions.pdf
What are Special Scholarships?
Special Scholarships are provided by many of the National Merit Program’s corporate sponsors that also
offer Merit Scholarship® awards for students who meet their specified criteria—usually children of
employees or residents of communities where the company is located. Only students who qualify as
Semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program and then advance to Finalist standing can win
Merit Scholarship awards. Because the number of Finalists eligible for a sponsor’s Merit Scholarship
awards varies from one annual competition to another, corporate sponsors who want to offer a fixed
number of awards each year make arrangements with NMSC to offer Special Scholarships as a
supplement to their Merit Scholarship awards. In years when the number of eligible Finalists is smaller
than the number of scholarships a sponsor wishes to offer, NMSC designates a pool of high-scoring
candidates (who are not Finalists) to compete for Special Scholarships.
Special Scholarships are administered by NMSC in the same manner as a sponsor’s Merit
Scholarship awards. Both types of scholarships provided by a corporate sponsor usually are named for
the grantor organization. However, the words “National Merit” are not included in a Special Scholarship
name; for example, a scholarship may be called “XYZ Company Scholarship” rather than “National Merit
XYZ Company Scholarship.”
Yes super important : he can’t attend tcnj and think he’ll transfer to a nmf school later on.
You also need to look carefully at the amounts and conditions of his corporate sponsored scholarship.
What’s your out of pocket budget (from income and savings, without bankrupting yourself and your other children, and without parent loans)?
Good luck… and if you are scout mom… Eagle Scouts are highly regarded in many schools. So keep them working towards that.
In addition to not getting NM scholarships as a transfer student, the best scholarships available are for entering freshman.
@ClaremontMom I agree. I am so sorry I didn’t mean to take over this conversation and I have felt really bad about all this… I was just voicing my frustration with what everyone else was saying and since everyone is so kind and knowledgeable they felt compelled to help me not make a terrible mistake. Thank you everyone. I really appreciate your advice, sympathy, and candid advice. It has really helped me and pushed me to have a conversation with my son that he may not like but we have got to make this work for all… If there is any other advice, message me separately… THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH…
Don’t worry. Your individual dilemma has actually been quite instructive for a broader audience, especially on the distinctions between different levels and sources of National Merit Scholarship finalists and awards, and has reinforced other relevant issues like not expecting merit aid for transfer students, only incoming freshmen.
aehshm
What I learned during my “college search and application” process is that you don’t let kids to decide what they want and do all the work. You have to do a lot of work yourself, or you’ll be in a lot of financial trouble. And all these “shoot for the stars”, “follow your dreams” and “find the perfect fit” is complete crap. I still don’t understand what “perfect fit” means. I have seen several financial disasters because of “shooting for the stars” with no financial means. Several students dropped out from private universities and went to community college, one student transferred from an ivy to state college because she couldn’t get into intended major in ivy, parents of one student divorced !!! for finaid purposes and the kid dropped college because of emotional pressure.
It looks like your son still have some choices and might have very bright future practically for free (FREE college education is my personal meaning of “shooting for the stars”)
I have information only about Texas colleges.
Colleges from the list of Cyber Security programs.
University of Houston
Application deadline for Fall 2016 - August 1 , 2016
Corporate Sponsored Merit Scholarship - Full ride
http://www.uh.edu/honors/students/prospective-students/paying-college/national-merit-scholarship/index.phppriority
ROTC scholarship deadline for 2016-17 - March 7, 2016
UT Dallas
Application deadline for Fall 2016 - July 1 , 2016
National Merit Scholars Program 178,000 for OOS
http://honors.utdallas.edu/nmsp
University of North Texas
Application deadline March 1, 2016
National Merit Program - full ride
http://financialaid.unt.edu/scholarships/university-funded-scholarships/unt-meritorious-scholarship-national-merit-finalists
The best ranked is UT Dallas. But if it’s a special cyber security program due to shortage of qualified people it will be no difference in recruitment, so full ride is better than free tuition. Though if you dig you can probably find out that UTD can stack scholarships.
I would go with utd because the other two are more commuter/suitcase, whereas from establishing an excellent honors college that recruits nationally for McDermott, Utd has created more of an on-campus community, which would matter a lot for an oos student.
“fit” is not ridiculous and is actually important. It’s how well the college’s “personality” matches yours. It is not a proxy for prestige and it supposes the kid is relatively self aware. Parents can thus be very important for this! Some kids are energized by discussion -based classes, others want a large university with Greek life, one may be really outgoing and making friends easily Hike the other has to really be drawn out of his shell, one may want to play as a freshman while another may be into spectator sports, one may devote his Friday evenings playing card games while another may be a competitive debater, etc. If something -atmosphere, activity-makes the students more comfortable and “feel at home” in college, that’s fit and it helps success. What will help a kid succeed is not what will help another one. Now, dream schools are bogus - there’s a longtime poster here who famously says “don’t have a dream school, have a dream life” :)- except they may provide insight into what the student likes. Then you look for these characteristics in colleges where your student ranks at or above the top 25% and you go visit these colleges.
Wow, wish I had jumped into the conversation again yesterday regarding the Corporate NM Scholarship.
There are actually two kinds of these, believe it or not. My oldest son was a NM Finalist and was awarded the “standard” Corporate National Merit Scholarship (provided my my dh’s company). Because of our moderate income, he was awarded the highest amount, which was $6000 a year.
My middle son was only a National Merit Commended Scholar; thus, I thought it was a done deal as far as him getting a NM Corporate Scholarship. However, apparently, there weren’t enough finalists in the company (which is pretty crazy given how large it is), so he ended up winning a Special National Merit Corporate Scholarship. Again, because of our income, he got the highest amount, and will also be receiving $6000 a year to be used at his college of choice as my oldest did.
My oldest would have been eligible for college National Merit Scholarships because he was a finalist, but my middle son would not have been.
The Corporate Scholarship is an incredibly sweet deal for the right situation. It has made the difference between debt and no debt for my oldest.
^^^
We experienced similar. Older son made NMF, got the corporate NMF scholarship, along with a Univ NMF scholarship (minus the small official portion). Younger son missed the NMF cut-off, but got one of the “Special NMCorp Corporate” scholarships. Both were from my H’s company.