<p>^Ah, ok. [10 char…]</p>
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<p><a href=“http://www.nationalmerit.org/annual_report.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nationalmerit.org/annual_report.pdf</a></p>
<p>Simple math:</p>
<p>16,178 - 8,064 = 8114 students are not Merit Scholar designees.</p>
<p>These 8114 students could not go to the colleges that sponsor the program.
So, guess where they went to?</p>
<p>“To complicate this even more, some of the one-time scholarships from NMSC are underwritten by corporations, and kids get them even if their parents don’t work for that corporation–my son got one of these, and they asked him to write a thank-you note to the corporation, if I recall correctly. Are these included in the 2,500?”</p>
<p>Hunt, that happened to me umpteen years ago - a company I had no affiliation with gave me a NMS (I think it was $1,000 in my day). That was something when the cost of an elite school was $5,000! How does that happen?</p>
<p>To complicate matters further, it is possible for a student who is only a commended scholar–not a semi-finalist or finalist, to receive a corporate award.</p>
<p>Corporations (more accurately, their charitable foundations) use NMSC to administer their scholarship programs. It cuts their costs (why pay someone to process applications when National Merit already does that on a broad scale) meaning that more of their money goes to actual scholarships and not on maintaining the infrastructure necessary to evaluate students, send out checks, etc. Not as easy as you think- the possibility of fraud (kids getting money but not enrolled in college, etc.)</p>
<p>Some companies put restrictions on where the money goes- employees kids first, kids in the city where their headquarters or a major facility are located second, etc. So Pizza probably lived the geographic “catchment” area of the company that sponsored her, and that particular year, either no employee’s kid applied or was qualified.</p>
<p>To further complicate things, some companies foundations actually award significantly more than the max NM scholarship- but when there is need. So the small $ NM awards that they give are for employees kids (or students in their desired geography) who don’t have need (good will gesture) with the heavy duty half tuition or more reserved for kids with need (almost always employees kids.)</p>
<p>Running scholarship programs is very costly from an administrative perspective. Makes no sense to re-invent the wheel, much cheaper to participate in NM and let them handle the paperwork. Do you really want to be the head of the Target Foundation or Pfizer or whatever and have to pay staff people to verify that kids who have gotten money are actually enrolled in college?</p>
<p>Didn’t think so!</p>
<p>Pizza- I remember when NM was a very significant chunk of change!!!</p>