<p>I am interested in any information on scholarships your children have received as a result of being a NMF. Can you also share any tips? Did any schools pursue you because of NM? Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>Most of the schools that either contacted D about substantial scholarships based on NMF scores or would have given her substantial scholarships for her NMF scores were schools she had no interest in attending, such as U/Arizona, U/Oklahoma, etc.</p>
<p>Her later test scores did result in a modest but useful amount of merit aid and research opportunities at the Top 20 LAC she attends.</p>
<p>The general pattern is that the "top" schools won't give much for NMF. Schools a notch or two down will use scholarship offers to attract top students to their campus.</p>
<p>Schools that give no other merit-based scholarships also give no national merit based scholarships.</p>
<p>Some of the "top 20" universities other than Ivy give some relatively small scholarships based solely on NMF status. For most, it is 1 or 2 thousand annually. Vanderbilt Univ. offers 5K annually unless you receive another merit award from them, in which case the national merit award is 2K annually.</p>
<p>If your son or daughter is interested in engineering, Univ. of Texas AT DALLAS gives you something like a full ride, Texas A&M and Texas Tech offer a lot, Univ. of Oklahoma also. </p>
<p>Your mail box will soon be full of information from schools that offer money on the basis of NMF alone. Like TheDad, my son was not interested in any of the schools that offered the big national merit awards, but there are posters on CC whose children did accept some of those scholarships and you will be hearing from them probably.</p>
<p>I would say that being NMF is one part of the total package. By itself, it doesn't amount to much nowadays. You also need good grades, a strong curriculum, and solid ECs and recs.</p>
<p>"am interested in any information on scholarships your children have received as a result of being a NMF."</p>
<p>Both kids recieved about 5-6 mailings a day for a year. Alot of schools showed interest. If they didn't have a NM scholarship, they offered another type. Free money is free money, whatever somebody wants to call it. If you google or check here, you should find a list of schools that offer a scholarship on nm status, but remember the nm status is a decent chip at other places.</p>
<p>" Can you also share any tips?"</p>
<p>Get an expandable file folder for the schools you are interested in. Separate school flyers into three categories keepers, dumpers and maybes. The maybes are ones that deserve a second look before deciding. </p>
<p>Be upfront when schools ask where else you are looking. For, us a couple places shook the trees a bit and a little better deal fell out.</p>
<p>Bottom line, look at schools you are interested in, that fit. Don't worry about school "status" among other people. Go where you fit, not where somebody else says is best. What you'll find, if you kid is of nmf quality, rarely will they fail in college. A small school or one that's not so popular with the in crowd won't hold somebody back if they're good. At least, it hasn't for mine. </p>
<p>" Did any schools pursue you because of NM?"</p>
<p>Yes, alot of them. Having NM kids in a class is a status symbol to many schools. Think of it as the acedemic equal to a 4.3 2,000 yard running back. If you get there, enjoy the momment. </p>
<p>At the end of the day remember to tell your kid "college is what YOU make of it." Success isn't a guarantee anywhere, no matter what some would like to believe.</p>
<p>U Texas Dallas
Tulane
WUStL
U Arizona
all offered full rides (outright).</p>
<p>The military expressed lots of interest.</p>
<p>Many schools sent free apps and implied scholarships would be available.</p>
<p>D got one of the $2,500 scholarships from NM. One state school offered $1K merit award; another offered $5K. Mail from schools that offered substantial scholarships because of her NM status. </p>
<p>If we were in a financial bind, we would have gladly taken one of the full ride offers.</p>
<p>midmo, that's not quite true. There are some colleges where NM scholarships are the only merit scholarships offered.</p>
<p>D did get mailings from colleges offering pretty impressive enticements, even though she did not identify any colleges to NM (when they requested top choice, 2 choices, etc). Whenever asked by NM, she reported "undecided" until she had finally made her college decision, which was in time to for the deadline for college-sponsored NM scholarship consideration.</p>
<p>dmd77, Washington Univ. St. Louis definitely does not offer full rides on the basis of national merit status. If it did, my son and six of his friends would be attending there. They do offer a very few full tuition scholarships, but not on the basis of national merit status.</p>
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Can you also share any tips?
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<p>National Merit scholarships are not the only merit awards out there for students with an overall very strong record, including high SAT/ACT/SAT II, rigorous coursework with good grades, impressive ECs, etc.</p>
<p>In general, landing a large merit award means looking at schools at which your overall record puts you among the very best students. (Put another way, this may involve looking at schools a level "lower" than your ideal). It probably helps if the school is looking to improve a program in which you have expressed an interest, either explicitly or through the activities and classes you pursued in high school. Many believe your chances at merit awards are better if you hail from a part of the country that is poorly represented at the school, or if you help ease a shortage of some ethnic group. In other words, it is hard to predict where your record is likely to garner a large offer.</p>
<p>If you happen to like the schools that are offering huge awards based solely on national merit status, then investigate them. At least one friend of my son is using NM money to attend an out of state public that is very strong in engineering, his field of choice. It is a good fit for him, and he will pay a lot less than he would to attend his own state public, with a lower-ranked engr school.</p>
<p>With respect to Washington U-St. Louis: it is one of the "top 20" that offers a small NM scholarship, around 2k per year, I think. Univ. of Chicago gives 1 or 2K, I think that is the same for Rice, Vanderbilt 5K for most. The schools' web sites say what the awards are.</p>
<p>wemel,
THIS fall is the time for you or your student to be contacting colleges and making inquiries on what opportunities for merit aid are available for National Merit Semi - Finalists and Finalists. follow-up on each admissions email and admissions mailing and admissions phone call that your student receives and ask about merit aid opportunities for national merit finalists at their schools. you can usually make the inquiries through the admissions offices, honors departments, and honors colleges. be sure that you provide this info. to them in your inquiry........PSAT score, ACT or SAT scores, Class Rank, and gpa. once your student is notified by NMC and moves forward in the National Merit Competition, check back with the colleges again to notify them that your student has advanced in the competition. </p>
<p>with some schools, your student may need to actually make application including a financial aid application and apply for scholarships and then you'll be able to review the actual financial aid package that is offered. for some schools, deadlines may be early, so be sure you are tracking their deadlines for admission and see if they require a separate application for honors colleges or honors programs. some may require separate applications for merit aid (scholarships) and you'll want to track those deadlines as well. </p>
<p>here are some schools that you might want to check out further:</p>
<p>baylor, univ. of tulsa, univ. of central florida, tulane, case western, univ. of texas a & m, texas tech, univ. of oklahoma, oklahoma state, wichita state, kansas university, arizona state, univ. of nebraska - lincoln, univ. of houston, ut-dallas, usc</p>
<p>be sure that you contact the state universities in your state and adjacent states as well.</p>
<p>there are merit aid estimators at some university websites that would be helpful in the process too.</p>
<p>upon our campus visit to one college, we asked a couple of NMF'S about their admissions journey......and they each explained that they had applied from 10 to 14 colleges and then reviewed the financial aid packages before choosing their college.</p>
<p>If you do a search, there are lots of threads that answer your questions. Our NMF daughter is now a new freshman in college. To specifically answer your questions, YES many schools will send information. In fact, one of my favorite photos of her is one where we just dumped all the glossy catalogues out onto the floor and she sat in the middle - caption: "I'm wanted!!" She had many, many full ride offers and many more offers that would pay a signficant portion of her college expenses. In the end, she chose a top 20 school that is giving her 2K/year because she felt it was the best school for her. </p>
<p>As far as tips, I would offer you this. In the end, we thought it was a waste of time and money that we visited several schools that offered her four year free rides, just because they were offering her four year free rides. Make sure the school is a school your student is interested in attending. Someone once told me that National Merit is a scholarship "competition". If you take the PSAT on that given October day and you score high enough, you win. Now you must decide what you want to do with your "winnings". Some people think you are squandering your winnings if you don't attend one of the schools offering large sums. Others think that the NMF designation is useful as another "hook" to get your student into one of the top college. It is all about that elusive "fit".</p>
<p>The previous posters have given good info about schools giving scholarships, and great advice that fit should trump $ if there is a mismatch between what the school has to offer and what your student is looking for (and if you can afford the better fit). On thing to keep in mind is that, sometime in the Spring, the finalists are invited to name their first choice school--so your student could name the first choice school among those to which s/he applied that offer NM scholarships. For example, only one of the eight schools D applied to offered the scholarships. She was offered their relatively small one, but had already decided to attend elsewhere.</p>
<p>My daughter was an NMF. She got nothing. Nada. Zilch. But she didn't apply to any of the schools that offer big scholarships to NMFs.</p>
<p>Same here.</p>
<p>Midmo: my son's experience with WUStL was four years ago. Perhaps that makes a difference. It was definitely a full ride, though, because I put those packets aside for him to check. Anything less was ignored. (Son did have some hooks, though, and perhaps the combination mattered. He certainly got a ton of mail from WUStL.)</p>
<p>University of Rochester is a participating school. They gave daughter the 2K National Merit Award along with an additional 10K for being a National Merit scholar that designated UR as her first choice school.</p>
<p>What makes this nice that all 12K is renewable.</p>
<p>A lot of people contend that having NMF listed among your awards gives you an edge for admission or other scholarships even at schools that don't offer any NM money. (I'm not too sure about that but I have no reason to be sure they are wrong.) </p>
<p>What it means for my son is an additional 2K per year on top of his merit scholarship, and 8K is pretty good compensation for a couple of hours spent taking a test and a little more time filling out the required paperwork to advance to finalist.</p>
<p>Unless you are dead set on attending a school that gives no merit awards, and somehow you are certain you will be admitted to those schools, it is worth the time to do a good job on the finalist application. IMO</p>
<p>I'm backing up midmo's comments regarding WUSTL and NMF status. No offer of scholarship based on NMF alone came to S from Washu although he did receive such offers from USC and from U-Alabama and U-Oklahoma and some smaller schools. WashU sent applications inviting him to apply for special scholarships --- some full tuition and some half tuition --- but they were clearly intended to apply to students who had credentials or qualifications beyond test scores alone. S received a NMF corporate scholarship and thus did not qualify for the Washu award, which was a smaller amount anyway.</p>
<p>Son got tons of mail and email offers. Only one I saw was from Oklahoma. They seem to treat it like a sports team.</p>
<p>full tuition
full room and board
special dorm and advisers
transportation and computer stipend
early registration for classes/guaranteed to get courses selected
probably some other stuff I don't remember (like books...)</p>
<p>he ended up with one of the $2500 NM Corp awards</p>