<p>Finally got letter in SoCal! Phew!</p>
<p>American Overseas here. No letter received yet, but called in and finalist standing confirmed. Have any other Americans Overseas received their letters yet?</p>
<p>This is incredibly frustrating. I’m in CA, and I haven’t gotten anything yet. I haven’t heard anything from my school, either.</p>
<p>Never mind. Just got the letter.</p>
<p>Congrats, ours finally came on Friday</p>
<p>@MedBound17–yeah, I’m overseas American, but have a ‘residential’ address in the U.S. and received both letter and certificate there as I am homeschooled.</p>
<p>Hey! So now the wait for the National Merit Scholar letter begins. That letter is supposed to come out this month, right? </p>
<p>I suppose you are right. For some people, the NMS is rather meaningless. In fact, for some colleges you have to decline the NMS to get the full-ride NMF scholarship. They effectively substitute the full-ride or tuition-waiver or whatever in place of the $2500 award. I am curious if anyone knows how they handle that. College Board says about 8000 kids get the NMS. Do they backfill, so if my kids turns it down does another kid get it, or what?</p>
<p>There are 2500 of the $2500 NMSC sponsored awards. The rest of the 8000 are funded by colleges and corporations. Approximately 1000 NMFs get corporate awards. 4300 NMFs got college sponsored awards in the most recent annual report year- graduating high school seniors of 2013. Additionally, corporations give over 1000 awards to commended students who are not finalists.You can read this in the NMSC annual report. It is not well explained in the page you link in the drop-down menu on their website</p>
<p>There are many threads in the forum that address the issue of how the $2500 NMSC award affects any college awards. You cannot refuse the $2500, is what people say.Colleges have various ways of incorporating that money into their awards. The colleges which have large awards break off a small part, $500-$2000/year which is ‘official’ and connected to NMSC in administration. Some colleges allow students to substitute the NMSC $2500 for the first year of their official college award and after that year pay students the amount they would have received from the college in any case. A few insist you substitute the $2500 for the entire college official award over the 4 yrs, which most often means a loss of overall $$$ to the student. It may be that some allow you to use the $2500 and still give you all 4 yrs of the college award, but I don’t know examples of any doing this. </p>
<p>The idea is that a student can only receive one ‘official’ award. Once they get the $2500, that IS their award. If a college agrees to give the student money anyway on top of that which would have been official money, it doesn’t really cost them any additional $$, but they don’t get credit for sponsoring a NMF award for that student.</p>
<p>As far as a wait list, I don’t know. It must happen that sometimes a $2500 winner does not enroll in college, or dies before college begins so that an award is unused. My guess is that money stays in NMSC coffers, but you could call them and ask.</p>
<p>It has been a long process. Scores in December 2012, state summaries in February 2013, long wait until notifications started in late August 2013, submitting the application materials in October 2013, and getting notification as a NMF in February 2014. My DD has now received (3/17) her notification as a National Merit Scholar. It was through the company that I work for. 
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<p>Congratulations to you and your daughter, CAPdad! That’s wonderful! My son is also an NMF and my husband’s employer sponsors some awards as well. We have not received anything yet. Could you tell me how your daughter was notified - via email or mail? At home or school? Thanks!</p>
<p>IntoTheWoods: It was in the mail, but we were directed to log into our account to accept the award and a copy of the letter was also there. So I would log into the account that you setup when you were notified as a semi-finalist and see if anything is there.</p>
<p>CAPdad - thanks. We’ll check the account, in case the letter is still en route!</p>
<p>CAPdad - nothing on the account yet. My son still has his college choice as “undecided” - not sure if that has anything to do with it. Does your daughter have a college named? Thanks,.</p>
<p>IntoTheWoods - Yes, she has listed a college and it was included in the letter. Although it also said that you can still change the college choice and what the final date for making that change is.</p>
<p>Thank you, again, CAPdad. In my opinion, the college choice shouldn’t have anything to do with it since we are talking about corporate sponsors. Yes, eventually he’d need to name a college so that the $ can be sent there. Anyway, I think there might be more letters going out and that we’ll receive one shortly. We’ll call and make sure that the college choice is not an issue, just to be sure!</p>
<p>Anyone hear anything yet?</p>
<p>Though the letter for NMSC scholar ($2500 ) is getting sent out today, you can check the decision online at osa.nationalmerit.org.</p>
<p>My D got the one time award of $2500 to the college of her choice. </p>
<p>Congratulations!!!</p>
<p>Logged on to osa and nothing there. I guess that means he didn’t get the $2,500. It shows up right when you log in?</p>