<p>I'm curious how past winners used (or didn't use) their National Merit standing.</p>
<p>Questions:
Where did you go?
What scholarships did you get? (National Merit or other)
Why did you make this choice?</p>
<p>maybe23 – interesting questions. I’m not sure how many past NMFs still follow this forum; you may do better to post your questions on the Parents forum, and ask parents for info. re their older kids.</p>
<p>If you are interested in a simple listing of the schools that NM Scholars attend, see the following:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nationalmerit.org/annual_report.pdf[/url]”>www.nationalmerit.org/annual_report.pdf</a> </p>
<p>Go to the 35th page, or “page 33” in the report.</p>
<p>D is attending Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL), and LOVES it. She did not go with the generous offers made by some of the institutions known for targeting NMF students. She is so glad that she didn’t; this was clearly the right choice for her. Each student (and family) will need to evaluate their options given their own circumstances.</p>
<p>Son is a sophomore at Dartmouth. He is very happy with his choice.</p>
<p>* Each student (and family) will need to evaluate their options given their own circumstances.*</p>
<p>True.</p>
<p>However, I’m a believer that there is not just one “right” school for each student. I think most students can thrive, be challenged, and be very happy at several schools. </p>
<p>For students who have law school, med school, or similar plans for after undergrad, accepting a big scholarship for NMF status can mean delaying loans and/or saving parents’ money for professional school.</p>
<p>Good point regarding the professional schools. I would advise that students at least see what other institutions will offer to them so that they can make an informed choice (and visit the schools and attend classes). Many Ph.D. programs at top institutions are now fully funding students, so not all graduate school costs are prohibitive.</p>
<p>Laminate, thanks for the link. That was really interesting.</p>
<p>And good point, I am going to go repost this.</p>
<p>And here’s the link: <a href=“Where do National Merit scholars go? - Parents Forum - College Confidential Forums”>Where do National Merit scholars go? - Parents Forum - College Confidential Forums;
<p>*Many Ph.D. programs at top institutions are now fully funding students, so not all graduate school costs are prohibitive. *</p>
<p>Yes and no…it depends on the major. Some majors offer little to no funding for grad school. </p>
<p>And, some are not funding the year(s) that are spent taking the masters level courses. And, some only award money to some students. </p>
<p>We’ve also have noted some funding opportunities will be discontinued in the next year. I guess the economy is causing these issues. </p>
<p>We are learning all this right now as older son has been applying to grad schools.</p>
<p>what is his subject area–what kind of grad programs is he exploring?</p>
<p>The list of where National Merit <em>Scholars</em> go is a bit misleading because it’s for scholars, i.e. those who received scholarships. Schools that don’t offer their own NMF scholarships are going to be underrepresented on that list compared to a list of where National Merit <em>Finalists</em> go (many more of whom are probably at top schools with small numbers of Scholars listed, because they gave up the chance of a scholarship to go to a school that didn’t offer one.) I know some kids will still get corporate or NMF scholarships to go to schools that don’t offer them, but my understanding is that the vast majority of scholarships come from the schools themselves.</p>
<p>And a question. I noticed on that list that Drexel is listed as having only 2 NM Scholars attending, and they do <em>not</em> have the asterisk indicating that the scholarship was given by the school. Since Drexel offers full tuition scholarships to NM finalists, that seems odd. Is it possible that the Drexel scholarship is not an official NM Scholarship, and thus the recipients are not counted as NM “Scholars”? Here is the description from their website:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Note that there is no mention of specifying Drexel as the student’s first choice school, and the student has to send the proof him/herself. </p>
<p>If it’s the case that this is likely not an “official” NM scholarship, why would a school choose to do this, artificially depressing their number of Scholars attending their school?</p>
<p>@mathmomvt
I can only think of one advantage: If their National Merit program is not official, students that win $2500 NMSC scholarships could probably keep them.</p>
<p>maybe23 hmm, that is a good point</p>
<p>That should not be the issue since the school can always get around it. My son is attending ASU with the $23,000 per year NMF scholarship. The official $2000/yr. is a Corporate NM scholarship from my employer while $21,000 is from ASU. For those students without a Corporate scholarship ASU will give them the whole $23,000. A school can always give you more on top of the one time $2500 from National Merit as long as it is not consider an official NM scholarship.</p>
<p>That wasn’t my question, Christian. I was trying to figure out why there are only 2 NM Scholars at a school that gives full tuition. Is it because really only 2 finalists chose that school, or is it that more finalists chose the school and got the full tuition scholarship, but aren’t counted because it wasn’t considered an official NM scholarship. I think it makes the school look weak to only have 2 NM scholars – it makes other finalists wonder if the school will be challenging enough for them.</p>
<p>I wonder why as well. They might somehow under report the actual number. Or the full tuition is not guaranteed which is a far cry from other schools who guarantee full tuition or more to all NMF’s.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if it is guaranteed or not, Christian. I think it must be under-reported and it seems like the reason may be that it’s not an official NM Scholarship, so that the kids who get it aren’t considered “Scholars” by NM and not counted in that chart. It appears that that is the reason. Drexel is not listed in <a href=“http://www.nationalmerit.org/student_guide.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nationalmerit.org/student_guide.pdf</a> as a school that offers institution-based NM Scholarships, so they must do the whole thing unofficially for whatever reason.</p>
<p>P.S.to the OP: sorry to veer off on a bit of a tangent. Try the Parents’ forum – you’ll probably have more luck there!</p>
<p>I am a National Merit Scholar from 2008. I’m going to the University of South Florida because their scholarship is about $48,000 total (it’s been more than enough money to cover tuition and books and rent to the point where I’ve been able to save a couple thousand dollars since moving to an actually affordable place off campus). They also give you a laptop (up to $1100 and you pay for anything over that) and an additional scholarship to go towards studying abroad. It also happened to be close enough to home that I can visit about once a month.
They also give me $1000 per semester for being valedictorian of my high school, and then there’s also Bright Futures and the Florida pre-paid program.<br>
The only thing I regret about college so far was starting out in chemical engineering instead of chemistry. Being able to get involved in research starting in my sophomore year has been amazing, and I can say that the chemical engineering and chemistry classes most definitely challenge me enough (in the case of one class, more than enough). None of the general education classes I’ve taken have challenged me, but then I wouldn’t expect them to be much of a challenge.</p>