@listener76 My D has chosen to go to OU and accept the NMF scholarship. She had full tuition+ scholarships at two private schools, Tulane and Tulsa. We did visits to 3 other public schools also (Houston, Texas A&M, and Alabama). We all really enjoyed our visit to Tulane and Tulsa and my D would have really been happy at either school. I think OU had the edge with NMF housing, study abroad programs, 5 year scholarship, and their honors college. My daughter also loved the idea of the new residential colleges…I say idea, since we couldn’t visit them and have no idea what they will be like. She envisions it to be like the Hogwarts school from Harry Potter 
She is also studying chemical engineering which means that basically all of the schools will use the same textbooks/curricula.
After visiting so many schools, it was really tough to pick one out over another. I certainly understand your family’s dilemma. My D felt excited after each visit and changed her favorite school each time. As a parent, I liked OU the best. The student tour guides impressed me and their benefits for NMF were considerable. I liked the idea that all the NMF live together their freshman year. This should make my daughter feel like she is in a smaller college with a core group of friends who have done well academically in high school. There are also lots of out-of-state students in the NMF program, which I think will give her a great experience as she moves away from small town Texas.
For financials, I am fortunate enough that any of my D’s college choices would have been fine. We gave her a criteria that she could spend no more than the cost of University of Texas w/room and board. With scholarship offers, even the private schools met our criteria. In the back of my mind, I still like the idea of saving as much money as possible. I had to force myself not to influence my daughter to save me additional money.
I hope we made the right choice. At some point, parents have to let go and allow their kids to grow up. I’m not a big believer in a “perfect” school, but think that most kids can be successful at many colleges. Good luck with choosing among those schools.
@listener76 S2 is finishing up freshman year at OU and is so glad of his decision… We are waiting on additional engineering scholarships to be awarded but if none are, his sophomore year will be out of pocket around $7000 for housing. He has chosen to live in a single apartment at the new Calloway House across the street from campus. This is probably the most expensive option he could choose. He is pre-med/engineering physics major and already offered an honors research position in biomedical TRUE lab in his 2nd semester there and already has a poster presentation at the medical school under his belt from it. It seems the NMF can easily get into research and projects early on if pursued. We have learned the NMF have so many opportunities on this campus available to them (even offering a stipend for research which we just now found out about). S1 NMF pre/med chose to stay home and attend Boise State. They actually pay him to go there and it has worked out great and will be entering medical school next year lol:)
Buyer beware! OU has a well-trained sales force for this scholarship and is highly-invested in boasting nationally about their success enrolling National Merit Scholars. They use some first-year incentives to make the scholarship look attractive but they fail to reveal that OU has some the highest mandatory fees in the nation (average $80/credit plus multiple other mysterious “academic excellence” charges that resemble your cell phone bill) and that these are NOT covered by the scholarship. After the first year, even counting the actual National Merit Scholarship, you will barely break even on tuition and fees with virtually nothing left for books, food, housing, travel, etc.
This school is costing us far more than if we enrolled our daughter at Washington State University, which covers full tuition, and the mandatory fees are 1/4 that of OU. We deeply regret taking her to Norman at multiple levels and would caution parents to look at better options.
BTW, the best kept secret is University of Idaho, which is a small but fine state university in Moscow, Idaho. They cover virtually the entire cost for NMS recipients as long as they choose to live in university housing. Wish we had found this sooner in our search process!
In short, most schools are deceptive about the actual cost of attendance and are scrambling to look better on paper than they actually are. At a minimum, you must use the same discretion you would use when shopping for used cars. The “sales teams” for many universities are hauntingly similar!
@notatallpleased I understand your disappointment with unexpected fees but just wanted to add that my son is starting sophomore year and we are extremely pleased with sending him to Norman (and we are Idaho residents). The opportunities abound at OU! He has won so many additional monetary awards through his research and his academics and service…almost enough to cover all. The engineering research he is a part of will even offer summer research positions sometimes paying up to $6000 which he plans on taking part in next summer. Other schools may have just as good of opportunities but our experience is that these NM kids have so many extra available opportunities to pursue at OU it is just incredible! He even just received an email stating he was in the running for another $1800 award to be chosen in November. We love OU! BOOMER SOONER:)
My son is HS class of 2018. So, how much should we pay for tuition and room&aboard as OOS NMF? Confusing to me.
My DD is also high school class of 2016 with the first year housing scholarship and other outside scholarships we had zero out of pocket expenses, won’t owe anything next semester and would have been zero spring but she changed her mind about a semester abroad program after she already signed a lease and it’s doubtful she’ll find someone to sublet. So she’ll have a room in an apartment in Norman and dorms in Germany for 7 months. At least off campus housing is cheap and she works 10 hours a week to pay for her own food. She’ll be applying for more scholarships as she goes.
The fees are crazy but so far d has figured out how to cover them. The OU National Merit office did warn us that they did not offer full ride scholarships. I don’t think we could have made OU work with their new plan though.
I am curious @notatallpleased , what year is your child? Did they complete freshman year or are they entering this Fall?
@Notatallpleased My D is also a sophomore… I found the Nat’l Merit office to be quite up front about what is and isn’t covered. Their estimate for last year was about 7% less than what was billed (reflects the increase that the Board implemented.) And like others stated, D also received some add’l scholarships that offset some of the cost. She chose to move off campus which will cost less in housing and food than on-campus options (and are much nicer!) She had a great experience first year-- research, student organization; networking opportunities. Just returned from moving her in for sophomore year-- and looking forward to a great year.