<p>My ds is a NMF. He received a letter from one of the schools where he has been accepted and where he is eligibiel for a large NMF package.</p>
<p>I have a question about the following wording from that letter:</p>
<p>"As a Finalist, if you name the University of XXXX as your first choice, you will receive an additional $1,000 per year as a National Merit Scholar, unless you are selected to receive a National Merit Corporate award."</p>
<p>Do scholarships from the National Merit Corporation itself count as "National Merit Corporate awards"? We have no affiliation with a company/corporation that does anything with NM, so he would not receive <em>that</em> type of corporate award. But what about the ones that come directly from the National Merit Corporation? </p>
<p>I guess what I am asking is, if he receives one of those "offers" that are coming out on March 27th, is he effectively losing $1,500?? Or by naming the school (which he would do), does he get more? </p>
<p>Sorry! I still don't understand how the one-time awards from the National Merit Corporation play into all of this!</p>
<p>Hoggirl…My guess would be that they’re referring to the corporate sponsored awards as opposed to the one-time $2500 award. It sounds like they just want to make sure your S is designated as a NM Scholar through receipt of an “official” school-sponsored NM award. To be certain, I would call the FA/Scholarship office of the school in question and ask them specifically how they handle the $1500 difference if the student is awarded a one-time $2500 scholarship. </p>
<p>Some schools clearly state how they will handle it…some good (Ok State would award the additional $1500) some bad (Northwestern says you’re screwed) but many don’t specify. A phone call is probably the simplest way to ease your mind. Good Luck!!</p>
<p>There are 3 different “official” national merit awards: (1) NMSC funded awards to the ones NMSC picks from among the finalists, (2) Corporate sponsored awards that are funded by a corporation and usually (always? - I don’t know) go to an employee’s child or someone that the corporation has some kind relationship with, or (3) College sponsored awards that are funded by the college. Key to all of this is that a student can only receive one of these and while NMSC or Corporate awards can follow the student to any school, a school sponsored award is offered only to an incoming student to that particular school.</p>
<p>Now, if you really want to get confused, understand the “big money” is not any of the above. Example, U of Kentucky will give an NMF finalist a package that is essentially a full ride IF they name UK their first choice and accept their offer of admission. At Kentucky, this offer is laid out sometime after March 1st and must be accepted by 1 May or it is null and void. Note that as part of all of this they will offer a small “College sponsored” award as explained above but it is but a small fraction of the overall award. There are other schools that offer similar awards as you can read about all day here, but they are not the prestige schools that admit ~10% +/- (or less!) of an extremely competitive applicant pool.</p>
<p>Just realize I probably didn’t answer your question well. The NMSC direct award is the most “prestigious” of the three awards as it is given to those selected from among the national finalist pool and will supercede the others as I understand it. The school in that case could/would not give the $1,000, but credit his account the NMSC award instead.</p>
<p>@OhDad3, this question is along the lines of the one I have so I wanted to chime in with the scenario we currently are dealing with. S was notified that he is a NMSC $2500 scholarship winner.</p>
<p>College A: Accepted, Full-ride because S is an NMF</p>
<p>College B: Accepted, No NMF money but could use NMSC $2500 scholarship toward loans right? Have yet to receive FA package so don’t know if this is a possibility financially</p>
<p>College C: Waitlisted, currently listed as NMF college-sponsored choice, gives $5000 for NMF </p>
<p>What to do? Should we change college choice to College A because that is guaranteed $? Would College C know of that change and perceive that as lack of demonstrated interest? Also, from what the NMSC letter said, it looks like you have to reply by April 9th. We won’t know anything by that time to make a sound decision. How long can we hedge our bets on College C? Even if he was accepted off the waitlist I am assuming he would lose the $5000 because that date will have passed. </p>
<p>FWIW, I will call NMSC once we get the actual letter in the mail, but I would appreciate any feedback so I am asking the right questions. </p>
<p>Check with each college separately. College B may reduce any other money by the 2500, so the net is zero. Could be the same with College B. Sounds like College A is different. I know OU stacks most scholarships, but from what I have been seeing all schools play it a bit differently.</p>
<p>OU’s letter made it sound like if you are have them listed as number 1, then NMSC would know you were getting a college sponsored award and move on to someone else. </p>
<p>Ultimately, what college does he really want to attend? (and can afford) S1 applied to school he would like to have attended to see if he could get in, but deep down he knew that he would have to choose a College A type deal in order to really afford it.</p>
<p>Just put a call into College A and it turns out they are not an official NMSC sponsor so he said to feel free to accept the scholarship and not to turn down any other scholarships if they come his way. </p>
<p>We will talk about how College B allocates scholarship $ when we visit. </p>
<p>I am thinking that in the case of College C it would be a situation of losing out on the NMF $5000 (if he came off the waitlist of course!) but being able to use the $2500. Every little bit would help though as I understand that when coming off a waitlist the FA offered will probably not be as good as if you had been accepted outright.</p>
<p>@AnnikaH Since your son was offered the $2500 NMSC scholarship, he is ineligible for any part of the $5000 from College C that is the officially college-sponsored award through NMSC. He will not be offered a different NMSC scholarship so there is no reason not to accept the $2500. Some schools will make up the difference from their own funds but you would have to contact College C directly to find out. </p>
<p>Just make sure that your S has a first choice listed by the end of May so NMSC knows where to send the money. I don’t think you can accept a spot from a waitlist past the end of May without risking losing the $2500.</p>
<p>@AnnikaH - I can’t add anything to the advice given you already by STEMFamily, but agree that communication with the schools is key. A dilemma perhaps but a very nice one to have. Congratulations to your son. </p>
<p>Oh, and for anyone reading this thread who did not get either the NMSC sponsored or Corporate sponsored award but is expecting a college sponsored one. Even though you have until May 31, be aware that NMSC begins mailing college sponsored notifications to students on May 1st. NMSC provides this warning of sorts to be heeded:</p>
<p>“If NMSC receives notification of a change in college choice from a Finalist after mailing a college-sponsored Merit Scholarship offer to that student, the Finalist cannot be offered another college-sponsored Merit Scholarship award. This applies even if the new choice of college is one that also sponsors Merit Scholarship awards. Therefore, a Finalist who has previously reported a sponsor college as first choice but is uncertain about it may choose to notify NMSC that he/she is now “undecided”; such notification must be submitted online at osa.nationalmerit.org before May 1. The Finalist can subsequently report a firm college choice that NMSC receives by May 31.”</p>
<p>@OhDad3, @STEMFamily, @Torveaux Thanks for the advice. We accepted the scholarship and will see how we feel about College B when we visit. It won’t be cheap! Otherwise it looks like College A in the fall!</p>
<p>OU’s wording may be a little misleading but this is not what it means. The $2500 NMSC scholarships are decided in January from among all finalists before finalists themselves have even been notified of finalist status. And even the official offer date of $2500 is too early to expect kids to have made their final decisions anyway. What OU is saying is that they will supplement from their own funds any NMSC award (ie either the $2500 or a corporate-sponsored award) so that any NMF that goes to OU will have the full $5000 cash stipend regardless of their actual award amount from NMSC.</p>
<p>OU aggressively recruits NMF’s and probably would prefer you to name them as first choice as early as possible, but this has absolutely no bearing on who is awarded either the $2500 or a corporate-sponsored award.</p>