<p>Just got daughter's PSAT scores and confused. Scored 222 in Tx & counselor indicated should likely make finalist. As I look at NM web-site noticed most semi-finalists make it to finalist but very few make "Merit Scholarship Winners". What is this vs finalist?</p>
<p>I've been looking at the thread that lists schools that give tuition for NMF. Is this to only the "Winners" or is this offered to most Finalists?</p>
<p>Finally, we're hoping this score will open up universities that were not affordable before. Should we be very honest with them that private tuition is out of our range without lots of aide? (FYI our income is 95,000 and our EFC is around 23,000.)</p>
<p>This is all new and a little overwhelming so would appreciate any advice.</p>
<p>Your daughter’s score is high enough that she will be named a Semi Finalist. Have her take the SAT Test this year if possible. She will need to achieve a 1960 or above to move on to Finalist. The SAT must be taken by Dec of Senior year. In September, she’ll receive a packet at her school requesting GPA, SAT scores, LOR and an essay. In February, she’ll find out if she is one of the 15000 Finalists. (reasons for not moving up is failure to turn in paperwork, low GPA, bad recommendation, low SAT scores, etc.) </p>
<p>In May or June she will find out if she is one of the 8,000 winners. Those awards are $2000 or $2500. Some from sponsoring corporations may be a little higher. </p>
<p>The full tuition and full ride scholarships are automatic to National Merit Finalists who apply to those schools by their deadlines. They are given without regard to need. Make sure she looks at and applies to one or two of those big merit schools, in case she doesn’t get in or the financial aid at the privates doesn’t work out. </p>
<p>Ask questions. The posters here have a tremendous amount of knowledge of the whole college process and they are willing to share.</p>
<p>Most semifinalists go on to be finalists. Certain colleges will award money to finalists, sometimes up to a full-ride. As far as I know, the most comprehensive list of these colleges is on CC:</p>
<p>A little over half of the finalists get the “real” $2500 National Merit scholarship. But if you’re looking for big money, the difference between being an NMF finalist and being an NMF winner is unimportant.</p>
<p>Anyone who becomes a NMF can get a scholarship if he wants one IF he decides to go to a school that gives every NMF student a scholarship.</p>
<p>*we’re hoping this score will open up universities that were not affordable before. Should we be very honest with them that private tuition is out of our range without lots of aide? (FYI our income is 95,000 and our EFC is around 23,000.)</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>This will be tricky. </p>
<p>Aid is based on need. Merit is based on stats. </p>
<p>If you’re saying that you have an unaffordable EFC, then that means that you need HUGE scholarships that will cover need and “cut into” EFC. A token scholarship isn’t going to reduce your EFC. </p>
<p>I don’t know what privates you’re considering, but many cost $50k or more. If such a school gave your D a $26k per year merit scholarship(which is big for a private), you’d still have to pay the other $25k.</p>
<p>Again, I don’t know what privates you’re considering, but many of the top ones don’t give merit scholarships because all of their students are top students. </p>
<p>If you’re trying to lower your EFC, then you need HUGE scholarships…</p>
<p>example…</p>
<p>OOS public COA is $35k</p>
<p>EFC is 23,000</p>
<p>Need is $12k</p>
<p>If such a school gave you a $25k per year scholarship, then your remaining costs would be $10k…you will have cut your EFC by more than half. </p>
<p>Merit scholarships only reduce EFC after they cover “need” first.</p>
<p>She is trying to narrow down her search but is undecided as to her major. She’s not trying to get in Ivy League. She interested in Alleghany & Harvey Mudd but don’t think they will give much. Doubt she could even get in Harvey Mudd. </p>
<p>We just found the list off this site that indicates what schools give to NMF. Didn’t know if this list meant every NMF can get the college scholarship or if it’s a limited number?? (For example, Baylor is listed as full tuition. Is that to all NMF who list them as first or just a few?)</p>
<p>We have $80,000 in college savings so we can cover some of our EFC. We’re going to visit Baylor, Southwestern, UT Austin & Rice next month. She really wants to go out of state and is making a list of dream schools hopefully with consideration as to who gives heavily to NMF.</p>
<p>University of Southern California will give half-tuition to their admitted student who are being National Merit Scholar. It is a private school.</p>
<p>Being a National Merit Finalist is not necessary being a National Merit Scholar.
There are 15,000 National Merit Finalists but there is only 8,400 National Merit Scholarships. That means there are only 8,400 National Merit Finalists who receive scholarships. The other 6,600 National Merit Finalists do not receive anything.
Here is the break down of those scholarships:
2,500 Finalists will receive one time payment of $2,500 offered by NMSC.
1,000 Finalists will receive corporate-sponsored scholarship offered by Corporate. ( this one only apply to the corporate employee children who happen to be Finalist).
4,900 Finalists will receive college-sponsored scholarships ( every college-sponsored scholarship is offered with the condition that the Finalist must be admitted to their school first)
I had known in the past that there were several Finalist who selected University of Southern California (USC) as their first choice school were rejected by USC because there are limit number of scholarships that they can give out. They offered 245 scholarships to National Merit Finalists who applied and admitted to their school last year.
I hope this information will help others that are not familiar with National Meir scholarship.</p>
<p>“Merit Scholarship Winners” is the National Merit Scholars. They are the Finalists who received scholarship. They are the group of 8,400 Finalists. The Finalists who won scholarships are called the Scholars or the Winners.</p>
This is incorrect. The NMF 1/2 tuition scholarship offered by USC is a USC scholarship - it is NOT a National Merit Corp. scholarship. Only the additional $1,000 NMF get in addition to the ~$20,000 USC scholarship is from the National Merit Corp. USC can give out as many NMF 1/2 tuition scholarships as they please, and students are NOT rejected for being a NMF.</p>
<p>If an applicant is worried about that, they can simply not put it on their application - they will still be awarded the scholarship by USC if they name USC as their first-choice by May - and they can wait until they receive their admission decision if they wish.</p>
<p>let me see if I understand now-
Winners & Scholars same thing. Approximately only 8400 of NMF are awarded this but it’s only a small amount of money.</p>
<p>To get full/half tuition, some colleges offer this to NM Finalists. I have the blog off College Confidential that lists schools that give heavily to NMF but I need to check with each of those schools to see how many of these they have available and how competitive it is.</p>
<p>^ I can give the answer for one school mentioned in the thread - University of Southern California:</p>
<p>USC awards a 1/2 tuition **USC scholarship **to accepted National Merit Finalists. It is an automatic scholarship - if the student is admitted and names USC as the first-choice by the deadline (May), they will receive the scholarship (currently worth about $20,000/year). It is a four-year scholarship, and the amount increases if tuition increases. In addition, NMF receive $1,000/year from the National Merit Corp.</p>
<p>USC has no “limit” on the number of NMF scholarships they award - it is a USC scholarship, and USC may distribute their own funds as they please. At this time, they award this particular scholarship to all accepted NMF.</p>
<p>Being a NMF is always a positive in terms of admissions at USC - no applicants are rejected simply because they are NMF - the perception that USC can only “afford” a certain number is silly. USC is choosing of their own free will to award these scholarships - if it was a problem, they could simply remove the automatic aspect of the scholarship.</p>
<p>That said, *admission *to USC is very competetive and not all NMF will be admitted - the scholarship is automatic but admission is not. If any applicant is still (inexplicably) concerned that being NMF will hurt their “chances,” they are free to leave that accomplishment off their application - they will still receive the scholarship if admitted (which pretty much disproves the notion that there is a “limit” on the number of scholarships…). </p>
<p>TexasCollegeMom, there are many other schools that will offer half or full-tuition scholarships to NMF, and a few that even offer full-rides - congratulations on your daughter’s accomplishment and have FUN in the coming year finding all of these wonderful opportunities. Between the scholarships available and the very nice college nest egg you have for her, she has a world of possibilities in front of her. Great job!</p>
<p>*Winners & Scholars same thing. Approximately only 8400 of NMF are awarded this but it’s only a small amount of money.
*</p>
<p>You’re mixing up stuff. Only about 2500 (I think…could be wrong) students are given the small NMC one time award of $2500. However, many kids accept big NMF scholarships from schools. And some get decent sized scholarships from corporations.</p>
<p>Schools who give big NMF scholarships tend to designate a small portion as the “official” NMF scholarship. This enables a student (like my son) to accept a good-sized corporate scholarship AND a NMF scholarship from a school (minus the small “official” portion).</p>
<p>And…since some colleges will give EVERY NMF student who attends a scholarship, there really is no upper limit as to how many students can get a NMF scholarship. If more kids accepted those assured offers, the total number of NMScholars would go up.</p>
<p>My son accepted the NMF scholarship from Bama…</p>
<p>Free tuition
Free housing
laptop
Study Abroad money
$1,000 per year (this last item is the “official” NMF scholarship)</p>
<p>So, son was able to decline the “$1,000 per year” official NMF scholarship and accept the $2500 per year official NMF scholarship from H’s company. </p>
<p>The free tuition, housing, etc that Bama gives NMFs is the “unofficial” NMF scholarship.</p>
<p>The “official” portion is handled by NMCorp…which means the entity sends the money to NMCorp and then they give it to the student.</p>
<p>The unofficial portion never gets handled by NMCorp…it’s just a bonus a school can give to NM Finalists without NMCorp involvement. </p>
<p>Schools have the right to give whatever they want to NMFs in addition to official NMF scholarships. </p>
<p>When faced with a situation like above, NMCorp is very helpful. In our case, NMCorp called our home and told us that my son could “get more money” by doing this. NMCorp WANTS kids to get as much as they can. NMCorp helped with the whole process.</p>
<p>Just to give you some fact number about the 2010 NM Scholars in our county. There were 310 NM Finalist in Orange county for class of 2010. We had a total of 109 Scholars in our county; the Finalist won scholarship . We live in southern California. For class of 2010, our school had 34 NM Scholars, the most Scholars in Orange county.</p>
<p>I don’t know if that info is really very telling.</p>
<p>California schools (except for USC) aren’t really that into awarding NMF scholarships. The UCs don’t…and many OC kids end up at UCs. </p>
<p>At my kids high school, a very, very high percent of NMFs become scholars because most choose a school that gives a NMF scholarship…either a big one or a token one…or their parents work for the corporations that give them. </p>
<p>Again, if a NMF really, really wants to be a NMScholar, then he can choose a school that gives those scholarships.</p>
<p>“At my kids high school, a very, very high percent of NMFs become scholars because most choose a school that gives a NMF scholarship…either a big one or a token one…or their parents work for the corporations that give them.”</p>
<p>My kids went to a high school in the south. We don’t live in Calif anymore.</p>
<p>What I’ve noticed about California is that because the UC and Cal State systems dominate the apps in that state, they hardly even talk about colleges that give NMF scholarships. </p>
<p>I imagine that most of the NMF kids in Calif that do make NMScholar have gotten the one time NMCorp award, a corporate scholarship, or the USC scholarship. I know that some Calif NMFs do wander out of state to accept NMF scholarships elsewhere, but probably not a high number. </p>
<p>On the flip side, if you live in a region with many schools giving NMF scholarships (big and small), you’re going to get a lot of NMFs choosing schools that give NMF scholarships and becoming NMScholars.</p>