<p>The National Meirt finalist can receive only one of the three types of the scholarship from NMSC (the $2500, the corporate-sponsored, and the college-sponsored). The $2500 scholarship is a one-time offer, and the college-sponsored scholarship is renewable for 4 years. So it is better to receive the college-sponsored scholarship, right? But the NMSC will choose 2500 students for the $2500 awards. Does anyone know the criteria for the $2500 scholarships? What should a finalist do to make sure that he can receive the college-sponsored scholarship? Just to fill in the first choice school?</p>
<p>According to NMSC, about half of the finalists will be Merit Scholarship winners. What happens to the other half? Do they just choose to attend the colleges that are not on the college sponsor list?</p>
<p>The number of finalists are reduced to around a total of 8300 winners for all three scholarships. Two of the four winners from my school last year choose schools that weren’t on the college sponsor list, but each received the one time $2500. The other two choose colleges on the sponsor list. Unfortunately, the other finalists (non-winners) don’t receive anything. 1,300 non-finalists are chosen for special corporate-sponsored scholarships.</p>
<p>Besides listing the college as a first choice school, the finalist cannot do much. Colleges limit the number of scholarships given through National Merit. NMSC will compare the students that have listed the college as their first choice,</p>
<p>As for is it better to receive the college-sponsored scholarship, it depends on the person. While there are several notable colleges on the sponsor list (Emory, Northwestern, WashU at St. Louis, etc.), there are also prominent ones missing i.e. the Ivys, MIT, Cal Tech, Duke etc. It really depends on where the student wants to go. The scholarship should be a factor, but it shouldn’t be an all-encompassing one.</p>
<p>My understanding is that the big prize is being named NMF. Once awarded, there are Universities like Alabama and Arizona that will offer free rides. Anyone who further advances to NMS is also eligible for the cash prize. But as I understand things, most universities will require that you pony up the cash prize into your university account. </p>
<p>I’d be interested to know if the cash prize is ever greater than $2500, and which colleges if any will let you keet the prize for incidental or personal expenses? If the cash prize is taken off the top of Merit aide, it seems like the cash prize is much ado about nothing?</p>
<p>It is unique to the school so you have to ask the schools you are interested in exactly how they handle different scenarios.</p>
<p>For example, my son attends Vanderbilt, which offers $5000/yr to NMF students. I don’t know (or care) if it is sponsored or not. He did get the official one-time $2500 from NMC. But it didn’t really matter to us. The end result was that for freshman year Vanderbilt took the $2500 check and applied it for first semester and then second semester gave him $2500 from their own funds (or where ever - but not my pocket) for a total of $5000. Sophomore year he still got $2500 each semester it just looked slightly different on the statement.</p>
<p>I think this is not accurate. You still have to be a finalist to get one of these corporate scholarships. Most go to kids of employees of the corporations who are also finalists. </p>
<p>You are supposed to be able to only get one of the three types of scholarships as a finalist - NMSC $2,500, college-sponsored NMF scholarship, or corporate scholarship. Some colleges seem to get around this “only one” rule by having the college NMF scholarship be sort of unofficial, so you can take the NMSC $2,500, and then the college might give you something like $2,000/year for the last 3 years. Some students end up with none of these.</p>
<p>Sosomenza, I am pretty sure all of my D’s colleges add the prize on top of any other merit aid you have received. The question is whether it impacts any need-based aid, and how. That is a question for specific colleges… sometimes their websites will answer it.</p>
<p>The OP’s question was about finalists, although the info about the “Special Scholarships” is also interesting. If a student gets a corporate “Finalist” scholarship, they are not supposed to be eligible for the other two types of finalist scholarships (NMSC $2,500 or a college-specific NMF scholarship).</p>
<p>I believe this depends on the college. Some (like OU) automatically give to all NMF. Others (like Univ. of Tulsa) have competive NM scholarships. </p>
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<p>This depends on the financial situation of the student/family. My son would love to go to an Ivy, Wash U, etc., but our family can’t afford to turn down full tuition+ just for the opportunity to go to a “better” school. I’m happy for those who don’t have that as a consideration, though.</p>
<p>@gstudent99 - Does your son qualify for need-based aid at Vanderbilt? I am curious about how they handle the $5k NMF award in conjunction with their FA packages. I assume they will either treat it as an outside scholarship (which replaces student work funds) or if it is added on top of the FA package or if it is simply considered part of the FA package.</p>
<p>The corporate awards to finalists are given before NMF are selected for the $2500 award. My daughter gets a corporate award every semester. It arrives after all bills have been paid and the university deposits it into DD’s bank account. She just saves it until she wants to buy something; she used it to replace her laptop a while back.</p>
<p>rmldad: I’m not 100% sure how it effects FA because he is on an Army ROTC scholarship for tuition/fees + $6K from Vanderbilt that they give to all ROTC students. So in his case the $5K NM goes on top of all of that. </p>
<p>But I am fairly sure the $5K NM would reduce any non scholarship based FA. Before he started they did send us a FA award letter and if I remember correctly that’s how it worked.</p>
<p>For what it is worth, if he hadn’t gotten the ROTC scholarship (which was tied to Vanderbilt by the Army) he would be at Alabama.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>8,300 Merit Scholarship winners will be chosen from the 15,000 finalists, “based on their abilities, skills, and achievements.”</p></li>
<li><p>In early March NMSC’s staff will select winners for the Corporate-sponsored scholarships (about 1,000 from the finalists and 1,300 from the nonfinalists) and send offers.</p></li>
<li><p>In late March NMSC’s committee (made of college admission officers and high school counselors) will select 2,500 winners for the $2,500 scholarship and send offers.</p></li>
<li><p>Officials of each sponsor college will select 4,800 winners for cllege-sponsored scholarships ($500-$2,000,renewable for 4 years)from the admitted finalists who list the sponsor college as the first choice and send offers in late April.</p></li>
<li><p>Some schools will offer their own awards to the finalists who will attend, like OU, Alabama, Arizona etc.</p></li>
<li><p>Some schools will give the $2,500 winners the same benefit of college-sponsored scholarship in the next three years. Some schools, like Vanderbilt, will offer more than $2,000 in their college-sponsored scholarships.</p></li>
<li><p>Some schools may apply the scholarship to the financial aid; some may allow it to be add-on.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Conclusion: Not all finalists get money. The college-sponsored schoalrships vary from school to school. Only certain schools offer noncompetitive schoalrships to all admitted NM finalists. So choose your first choice school with prudence.</p>
<p>So if you have chosen a first choice school on/by March 1st, is it locked into that particular school from that point on? Is it better to leave your choice as ‘undecided’ until you start to approach school deadlines, most of which appear to be in late April?</p>
<p>It is BEST to leave it undecided UNLESS a specific school you applied to requires it to be named before May 1st</p>
<p>Example: Tulsa - In order to be qualified for the competitive full ride at Tulsa, a student MUST name Tulsa the 1st choice by March 1. This effectively blocks the student from receiving the $2,500 for NMCorp. </p>
<p>If student decides before 5/1 to not attend Tulsa, the student can change 1st choice, but effectively the student missed the $2,500 award deadline.</p>
<p>Best thing is to review with your specific school choices.</p>
<p>OU, Bama, Arizonia do NOT require to be named 1st before 5/1</p>
<p>Quote :
“Example: Tulsa - In order to be qualified for the competitive full ride at Tulsa, a student MUST name Tulsa the 1st choice by March 1. This effectively blocks the student from receiving the $2,500 for NMCorp.”</p>
<p>I have the same question as drw4taww’s. Will the NMSC choose the winners of the $2500 scholarship only from the pool of the finalists who have not reported their first choice schools? I know they do pick the winners of the corporate-sponsored scholarships first and then choose the $2500 recipients. </p>
<p>I read the NMS info in a college of interest and it clearly says that the finalists can only receive one type of the NM scholarships but it will give $2000 to the $2500 merit scholars in the next 3 years.</p>
<p>drw4taww – It could if the student has Bama as first choice in March when NMSC makes decisions on the $2500 awards. If the student has really decided they are going to Bama, it makes sense to leave the first choice in place because the NMSC part of the Bama package is $1000/yr for 4 years which is a better deal. However, if the student then decides they aren’t going to Alabama, they have lost the chance to compete for the $2500. On the other hand, if they don’t put Bama down as first choice and get the $2500 award they cannot later get the Bama $4000. Once an offer from NMSC is made, I don’t think it cannot be changed to a different type (and certainly can’t be changed to a different school for a college-sponsored award.)</p>
<p>You can also change a first choice back to undecided.</p>
<p>What maranatha says is also true. Some schools with $2500 merit winners will supplement with their own money so that the $2500 winners get the same overall package as those who have the college-sponsored scholarship.</p>
My son would love to go to an Ivy, Wash U, etc., but our family can’t afford to turn down full tuition+ just for the opportunity to go to a “better” school. I’m happy for those who don’t have that as a consideration, though.</p>