I’m a NMF, and I had to designate a school as my “first-choice” since some of the scholarships are school-sponsored. I know a lot of top schools take into account demonstrated interest, and they want students that will actually COME to their school (higher yield rate in order to promote the oh-so important US News and World Report Ranking.) So if I were to put a school, say, Duke, as my first choice for my National Merit Finalist Scholarship, would that have any affect on my application? Also, what do schools see from my National Merit Application, if anything?
Duke will not see that you put it as #1 at this point, so it won’t help you get accepted. Schools don’t see who put them #1 until May…which is long after decisions are made.
You’re best to put your back up school that will give you a NMF award as your first choice or stay undecided until April.
You can stay undecided until April and then declare your #1 choice when you decide where to go to receive their scholarship.
I must disagree with the first part of @mom2collegekids’s post. Schools who offer college-sponsored NMSC scholarships will see that you have them as First Choice beginning around the 1st of March. That is the date that NMSC sends the first batch of names to First Choice sponsoring colleges. Then they continue to send batches of names until May 31st.
This is from the back of the Finalist letter:
Note that it is only sponsoring schools that ever get these lists. According the the NMSC list of sponsoring colleges, Duke does not sponsor an NMSC scholarship. Therefore they will never receive notification that you have designated them First Choice. In this case, I totally agree with @mom2collegekids that you should list the college that is the highest on your list that is a sponsoring college. Here is the list for 2015
http://www.nationalmerit.org/Merit_Sponsor_Leaflet.pdf
Colleges don’t see anything at all of your NM application. All they ever see is your name on their first choice list and even then only if they are a sponsoring college. You could however, notify the colleges in writing on your own that you have become a National Merit Finalist. That contact alone would probably say more about your interest.
@STEMFamily @mom2collegekids @Erin’s Dad
Should I tell my no. 1 school (Duke) that I’m a NMF regardless?
You can. It really won’t make a difference for Duke admission since they don’t have a NMF scholarship. They already know your stats and record. If you go there you would just get the nominal $2K from the NMS Corp.