<p>I am quite confused about colleges who ask for notification about NM first choice school. Some ask for a choice by Feb. 1 and there is $ attached, some don't seem to care, and for others the date is later. I would think that you would want to pick your top choice among the ones who ask, but are you shooting yourself in the foot for a fat scholarship if you do?</p>
<p>Advice or previous experience appreciated!</p>
<p>Most schools that give National Merit Scholarships will only give you the scholarship if you designate them as your first choice. Thus, it only makes sense to designate a school that gives National Merit Scholarships as your first choice. For example, designating Harvard as your first choice would eliminate you from the National Merit Scholarships at Rice, unless you changed your first choice from Harvard to Rice before Rice's financial aid award is determined. So, If you apply early to a school, you can list them as your first choice until you get a decision, but there's no real advantage of doing so. The possible disadvantage is that you might forget to change your first choice and lose a (sometimes very large) scholarship.</p>
<p>I'm not totally sure what the question is... However, NM does ask you to list a first choice school, and if you end up attending that school, you may receive a nice scholarship. If, however, your first choice school does not offer NM scholarships, then list your next choice that does. And, as mentioned, if the one you list as first choice rejects you in time, you can change your first choice.</p>
<p>In my son's case, his first choice school was Stanford, which does not give NM scholarships. His second choice was Case Western, which does. So on the NM form, he listed Case Western as his first choice college. This is what NM advised us to do. (On his Stanford application, however, he told Stanford it was his first choice.)</p>
<p>My son ended up receiving a NM scholarship good at any college. (from NM itself, not a college) As soon as he knew he had been accepted at Stanford, he informed NM that Case Western was no longer his first choice, and he was able to use the scholarship at Stanford.</p>
<p>Susantm - So basically, even if you list another school as the first choice school (that gives NM scholarships), you are still eligible for the NM scholarship from NM itself?</p>
<p>CollegeBound:
See the thread 'National Merit Semifinalist Questions'. In particular, Carletons' website
is very informative:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.carleton.edu/admissions/...erit/index.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.carleton.edu/admissions/...erit/index.html</a> </p>
<p>According to the NM rules listed at this site, if you receive the NM one_time scholarship, you are not eligible for the NM corporate or college scholarships. However, if you are a 'National' NMS winner. many schools specifically offer to match this one-time award (or come close to it) for each of your remaining three years in college. Carleton itself does this (it says so on the above website), and so does WUSTL (this happened to my D2).</p>
<p>"So basically, even if you list another school as the first choice school (that gives NM scholarships), you are still eligible for the NM scholarship from NM itself?"</p>
<p>Yes, that is correct. I think you have until June or something like that to let them know what college you will be attending.</p>