DD16 (a rising senior) will most likely be a NMF this year. She had a PSAT of 223 (our state last year was 213) with a SAT of 2290. I read that in order to get a full-ride or full-tuition from some colleges, you have to pick the college as your first choice. DD16 is interested in a few of these colleges, but she is still not sure which one she may ultimately pick. Are you allowed to change your mind after the financial aids are given?
For example, she is interested in USC which gives only half tuition award if you pick them as the first choice. She is also planning on applying to the full tuition scholarship that USC will give out to a few people. So if she does not get the full tuition, can she pick another school such as University of Alabama or Oklahoma?
First choice selection is locked in, otherwise it would defeat the purpose of ranking the schools. If a scholarship wants first choice designation, it does so in order to ensure that if they offer you a scholarship you will accept it, and other schools will not draw you away with their potential NMF scholarships.
That being said, just because you get NMF does not automatically mean acceptance to a school that happens to offer NMF scholarships. In fact, it can mean quite the opposite. USC is probably the best school that offers this sort of scholarship to date, and as such they do not like to admit students based on a single test score, let alone with a huge scholarship. A classmate of mine with NMF applied last year with a 2300+ SAT and great GPA, but did not get in. He was going for the scholarship, not just admission, and so his application was placed under greater scrutiny than those of other applicants.
The point is that if you go for the NMF scholarships at the top schools that offer them like USC or Boston University, admission may become even harder because rejecting your application saves them tens of thousands of dollars. They have to really want you to give you that scholarship–the NMF designation just puts you in the pile for consideration.
Side note specific to USC: If the Trustee Scholarship (full-tuition) is what you are really interested in, read this
----->http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-southern-california/1597366-tips-insights-observations-and-scoop-on-uscs-top-merit-scholarships-p1.html<----- Basically, it highlights the fact that of the 26,000 who applied before the scholarship deadline, 200 were ultimately offered a full-tuition award. ~1%. That’s it. Also, the interview process begins before NMF scholarships are awarded as they are completely separate. Many Trustee Scholars were not NMFs. So, in your case, do not expect USC to offer you a full-tuition award because it is similar to being accepted to a Top-5 university in terms of difficulty. By all means, put it as your first choice if your daughter is designated NMF, but realize that it is a calculated risk.
Part of the @lonetreegrad question was “Are you allowed to change your mind after the financial aids are given?”. From what other folks with experience in the NMF arena have posted, I was under the impression that the deadline for the 1st choice college designation is May 1st in most cases - which is after the financial aid packages are offered…and if you designate a 1st choice prior to that (which some folks said can be a good strategy-but I cannot remember the reasons), then it can be changed by the deadline.
S16 and our family will most likely (fingers crossed) be going through the NMF process for the first time this year…so I have no first hand experience with any details of the process (but have been soaking up much information here in preparation!).
@4kids2graduate is correct. You are not locked into a selection for a school until spring of senior year, after you’ve already got admission results. For schools that offer big scholarships for NMF, they will require you to list them as your first choice school with the National Merit Corporation by a certain date - usually the same date as NMC requires. By that time you should have all of your results and financial aid packages to compare. My D just graduated and was a NMF. She was considering the full-ride package at Kentucky, so we went through this fairly recently. She kept her choice “undecided” until she had decided for sure where she was going.
@4kids2graduate and @suzy100 Thank you so much. This is the information I was looking to get. So, hopefully, we will get the financial aid packages and results before the date of May 1st.
@ThisOneKid Thank you for your long information regarding the USC NMF and Trustee scholarship information. I just wanted to know if you can change your mind with NMC about a school after the financial aid packages are out. We have actually done a lot of research about how difficult it is to get these scholarships. I know that there are a lot of people with the SAT score of 2300+ and perfect GPA that do not get into USC or more selective schools. You never know who will get in or not based on just GPA and SAT scores!
I think DD16 has comparable stats as a lot of people who are applying to USC. She has a SAT score of 2290, GPA of 4.0 (UW) and 4.5 (W for now), doing both the IB diploma and AP classes, 4 leadership positions, research in science lab for 2 summers and published an article with the professors, varsity golf, and several ECs that are unique (eg, first place award in ballroom dancing, finalists in a short movie competition and playwriting competition). She knows that she will get rejected from a lot of schools. I have also heard that a lot of less selective schools will reject you, if they think that your are most likely get into a more selective school. Most likely she will end up in a school that offers her full-ride based on her NMF status (eg, Univ Alabama, Oklahoma, etc), but she is willing to apply to other schools to see what happens.
Thank you all again for helping.
@lonetreegrad, I think your D has a really interesting background and she is well positioned to have a very successful run. I suggest you have her apply widely if you are looking for merit money. My D had similar stats (without the interesting ECs your D has) so if you want any info on her actual results, etc., feel free to PM me.
@suzy100 Thank you so much. I would love to get her actual results. I have never PM’ed anyone in CC. I will try to do it now.
@suzy100 Not sure if I did the PM correctly, but I sent you one!
You are not “locked in” to your first choice school at all - that is completely wrong.
You can change your first choice as often as you like until May 1st.
However, NMSC starts notifying colleges of first choice selections in late March, so to best to be listed as undecided at that time of you aren’t sure.
Also some colleges expect you to have them listed as first choice prior to May 1 in order to qualify for their large NMF awards. Just be mindful of the individual college deadlines.
@BobWallace Thank you
Does a college find out before making an admissions decision that you have identified them as your first choice? In which case, wouldn’t it make sense to pick one as a first choice to get that benefit and then change it as needed?
First choice is not locked in!
A student can change his first choice, the form is online on NMCorp…you just fax it in by May 1.
However, many kids do NOT choose a first choice until May 1st.
Isn’t it a red flag for the popular NM schools if the student doesn’t indicate first choice early? Here are NM schools my DD considers ( if she makes NMF): USC, OU and Texas Tech with USC being her first choice by far. Should she list USC as first choice to let them know she is serious? But if she will not get at least half tuition off from USC the school become too expensive and one of the other two will be considered.
Of the three schools you list USC is the only “ify” school. I’ve heard that they don’t admit all kids that make National Merit. I would be hard pressed to believe that OU and TT would turn down any NMF.
Apply to all three, list your first choice as USC as soon as you can, you will hear back from them by April 1st, if she doesn’t get in or they don’t give the scholarship just change your first choice to OU or TT by May 1st.
Congrats to your DD OP!
@SOSConcern Thank You 
USC is her first choice school. Hopefully, she can get more than half the tuition; otherwise the school is too expensive for us.
“First choice selection is locked in”
NO it is NOT!! what utter nonsense!
Students are allowed to post their FINAL NMF choice in early MAY, AFTER acceptances are in and after they have decided where they are going to college.
“I’ve heard that they don’t admit all kids that make National Merit.”
Of course they dont! They DO however accept a higher % of NMF students than NON NMF’s, just as other highly competitive colleges do.
OP, USC does NOT get the list of NM finalists until later on in May. This I learned from the Dean of admissions. Then they “match” the names on the list to students that have notified USC of their intention to enroll.
You can certainly designate USC as the first choice early on, and let USC know that in the application, but USC does not get the list of finalists until mid May, long after students have been offered and accepted offers of admittance there.
@menloparkmom Thanks. Then we will probably list them as the first choice.
OP I saw you mentioned varsity golf. How good is she? That may be a hook to a very competitive school, USC or other.
Very high stat neighbor was invited to apply to Harvard due to her sport (volleyball - state championship team and was all state player two years) - had stacked scholarship closer to home with a very good private school, which is where she will attend in the fall.
If she comes to UA, she won’t be disappointed. Great honors college and sizable pool of high stat students. What does your DD want to study, and what state are you from? My DD has finished a year at UA and is excited to return in a few weeks.
In case you haven’t seen this on CC already, it explains quite a bit how UA has been able to greatly improve its academic programs and attract high stat students from a wider area:
Our son went through this last year with USC.
He was admitted to USC but was only offered half tuition as a (URM NM winner). They really seemed to want him and during a visit he was pulled aside by the engineering dean.
So, we were surprised that he was only offered 1/2 tuition. That would have left us with a cost of at least $40k
Our guess was that they had FAFSA info and there was probably someone with less resources that was given the Presidential. And the notification for the presidential wasn’t timely. Overall, USC was too expensive.