<p>Does the National Merit Award hold any weight in admissions to the top colleges (HYPS)?</p>
<p>it can't hurt, but it's certainly not going to do much for HYPS.
There are some top-notch schools that will consider it important though, if not for admissions maybe for scholarships...like Rice, UChicago..</p>
<p>It doesn't add anything to your application they don't already know by looking at your test scores, since most of the applicants to HYPS are NMF. As I've said before on these boards, test scores and grades get you on the porch of these schools, but not through the door. However, there are many schools that offer significant merit $$$ for NMF that are quite good schools.</p>