When my son toured, they also showed us Boren Hall, which is located in the honors college. My son chose to live there his first year. He loved it.
Great, thank you! I’m in the process of setting up a personal tour. I’m roughly an eight hour drive away so this will most likely be my only chance to visit and I want to make sure I get to see everything. 
@StormRoses Do be sure to visit on a day classes are in session, and if not familiar with the area also try to give yourself an extra day just to explore. We visited from a 12 hour drive away (if you are superhuman and never stop, so more like 13-14 hours). OU was very accommodating about every expressed interest, and my son had such a jam-packed Friday schedule that we had to come back Saturday for the campus tour, which included a run through the residence halls. We spent the balance of that Sat AM wandering the area immediately around campus, and the late afternoon/evening in Oklahoma City. We found the January outdoor ice-skating in shirt-sleeves fun
Will do! I’m visiting on a Monday and planning to spend Sunday and Monday afternoon touring the surrounding areas.
Psywar,
Thank you for the wonderful report on OU visit.
How did it compare to other full ride universities like Alabama, Dallas etc?
Any similar experience you can share will be helpful to us looking at nms this year
@Rshenoy I am a current (albeit, older) NMF at OU. My final two schools in the college search process were OU and Alabama.
I have typed up more detailed reviews before, but I really don’t think they’re that useful. OU and Alabama are both schools that I would have enjoyed and succeeded at, but it came down to feel. Both are large, have vibrant communities and school spirit, a lot of activities, etc. Both do a lot to support NM.
I personally chose the OU for three reasons:
1). I liked the concentration of NM at OU. I knew there was a NM floor in the dorms so I knew I would find like-minded individuals.
2). The National Merit office at OU would be there to help me. While they are wonderful people there and are extremely willing to help, I personally rarely contact them for anything.
3). The most important factor for me was feel/culture of the school on the visit. OU was more midwestern, which was more familiar to me (I am from Missouri). I felt like I got along better with the students I met and everything like that. Alabama students were great, I just didn’t vibe with them quite as closely.
I think a lot of NM students that end up succeeding at OU would also do well at Alabama, it just depends on personal preference and if any minor differences separate them in the student’s mind (aka, a major being significantly better at one school or another).
Dallas is completely different though. It is not the same kind of state flagship university the way that OU and Alabama are. The differences there are much more significant, and would need to be further analyzed based on the priorities of the student.
@Rshenoy I think @WoolScarves summed it up well. We toured OU and UA (see my write up on UA here: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-alabama/1789529-a-visit-to-the-university-of-alabama-cbh-and-honors-college-p1.html ). You cannot go wrong with either school, and it think it would come down to intended major and location.
If I had to choose, UA gets the slight nod because of the unique and excellent CBHP, but that would not be attractive to all students.
Good luck!
Psy
@Rshenoy I’ll chime in to agree with @Woolscarves and @psywar . We toured UA with my daughter and OU with both her and and two years later with my son. Daughter chose Arizona State and son chose OU. I think in both cases it was location as both their choices are within a day’s drive of home and Alabama would have been accessible only by flight plus the drive to Tuscaloosa. Also, my daughter liked her major requirements and available classes better at ASU than either OU or UA. My son is doing great at OU and will likely take advantage of the fifth year of the scholarship to do a 5 year accelerated BS/MS (which is also included in the UA scholarship).
Good luck! Nice to have choices!
That’s awesome to hear. I always wonder how that 5 year MS works out. Seems like such a win. My son decided to attend Princeton over the OU, UA NMF programs, but I can’t help but wonder how it would have been. A lot more money for my high school daughter, that’s for sure.
This is my understanding. Similar to how it works for UG, for 1 or 2 years of Masters program, OU will waive the tuition of whatever amount depending on IS and OOS. For example, if MBA OOS tuition is $20k, that will be given for 1 or 2 years depending on if the student completed UG in 3 or 4 years.
@GoldenRock is right about how it operates. Fun little story, I know a student right now who finished their undergraduate requirements in 2 years and are now attending OU Law, meaning that they won’t be paying any tuition for either undergrad or law school. Pretty cool use of the scholarship.
My D is a freshman NMF at OU. She plans to use her fifth year to complete a double major - meteorology and comp sci. I think she could do it in four years but she doesn’t want to do summer school (which is covered by the tuition waiver) and only wants to take 12 credits each semester of her fifth year. If she decides to go directly to grad school for meteorology, most programs worth going to are fully funded anyway.
@WoolScarves Agree that student fully utilized the scholarship, though doing UG in 2 years is pretty intense. My D also has her eye for the same reason and plans to finish in 3 years since MD OOS is pretty stiff, as of now $55k for OOS. So she wanted to use 2 years of free tuition. Let us see how it goes.
S1 will finish MS in Chem E in 4 years. Not only is OU generous with the NMF, but they are fairly generous with the AP credits. This allows many of these high-achieving kids to jump-start their college careers and make great financial decisions.
@Torveaux Congrats to S1 and the supporting. Smart move to complete MS in 4 years and move on career with solid foundation. GL.
Well, son is fortunate to have offers at Grinnell, W&M, St Olaf as well as the NMF packages- the private colleges will all cost around 11k a year, but seem to offer many intangibles- his parents like the financials of OU’s offer. How did you all make the decision- and how did it work out? Private vs public? Free vs 11k? Any BTDT? Thanks
@listener76 what school has most interesting programs to your son? What school just “feels” right? If no major difference between the schools, go for OU and save the money for grad school, a new car, or a down payment for a house 
@listener76 for D it was just fit. .she wanted a larger school; wanted to have access to certain areas of research in engineering; and really clicked with the idea of a scholars community within the larger, state school environment.
Let him walk the campus, watch his reactions- look for a place where he can see himself for 4 years.
@listener76 Remember that OU is only a near full ride, not free. Is that 11k difference compared to free, or compared to the 8-9k/year that OU will cost after the NMF package is applied?
Not a knock on OU, btw. It’s very high on our list. For free, look at Texas Tech, UNM and UTD - though UTD will be about 1-2k/year, just shy of free.
11k/year is 44k by the time the degree is finished. Free vs 11k doesn’t sound like that much, but it’s really free vs. 44k. If that’s an amount that won’t make much of a difference, then choose based on fit.
Congrats on your offers!
Grinnell, W&M, St Olaf are very different from OU.
These are very personal decisions of course, but the student experience at these privates will be very different than OU.
A couple suggestions;
First, if you have not already, compare the average student test scores and your son’s scores at all four places. I think you will find that your son has more peers at G, W&M, or St Olaf. He will find more friends that connect with him better. We have a family friend who was in a similar position and tried the full ride offer at OU and it lasted no longer than the first semester - the fit wasn’t right. (But as we all know in these forums, there can be many reasons for that.)
The good news is that all of these schools offer accepted student days next month-- take advantage of these, and visit the campuses, meet a prof or two, go to a class, do an overnight. The admissions offices will set all this up for your son - just ask. They are all interested in NMF and will take good care of him… After visits your son will just know. The cost difference is not worth the cost of a poor decision. (realize you probably don’t have time to visit all four - but I’d sure try to get to three!)
The quest is to find the place where your son will thrive - find that and the 11k a year extra will be worth every penny.
Among these: Grinnell is great for kids seeking to be a bit more independent, at a small college, they have few required courses so kids can put their own program together. St. Olaf has a strong sense of community, more students (3000), great student abroad / travel programs, music, and a broad liberal arts approach. W&M is high end, broad liberal arts, very well known…actually, you can’t go wrong at any of these - truly. All three generate more than their fair share of future doctoral students and send many on to graduate schools if that is of interest.
Congrats on your choices. I am trying to find a polite way of saying these four are all not the same. But a visit will make whatever the fit is, reveal itself!
Best of luck and success!