can the student name any college (of course accredited etc) as a choice and still receive the $2500 award? e.g. on March 28 in the scenario, the student names, say, Princeton as their top choice (as they may have already got an admission there). Will this student receive $2500 award at Princeton?
The scenario was for the $2500 NMSC award (type 1) received before naming any college. The same can apply to the corporate award received before naming any college. Can the student name Princeton on March 28 and receive the corporate award there?
And apologies for bombarding this forum with so many questions…
@rosered55 in your response in post#18 you said the student will be prevented from being considered for college-sponsored awards in the example. If so, then what purpose does it serve for the student to name a top choice college? I mean, the student will go to some college (accredited in US), and can avail the award there.
While we are talking about the $2500 NMSC award, how does one have to spend the money if they get it? Do NMS get a check for $2500 to spend as they please or is it tied to the college somehow?
I think that the answer is “yes” to all your questions in post #20. As to your question in #21, the student is naming a top-choice college because of NMS rules. However, the student can say “undecided.”
For NMSC award (type 1) and corporate award (type 2), the choice of college is immaterial. It can be left undecided till the student actually finalizes a college.
It gets a bit murkier for college-sponsored (type 3) award. If the student does not know till end of March/beginning April whether s/he has got type1/type2 awards, then will not naming a college choice somehow reduce his/her chances of getting admission/award at another college that s/he is applying to? I read that UChicago, e.g. gives type3 award to NMF. So, instead of keeping undecided, will naming UChicago as top choice increase chances of admission (showing interest) and award? Since in the end it is a non-binding decision, the student can join any college of his/her choice anyways, so why not name UChicago if it helps in improving chances there?
I don’t think the colleges use the top-choice designation as part of admissions decisions, but I might be wrong. I’m pretty sure my daughter had received an admissions offer from, for example, the University of Chicago before she designated a top-choice college for NMS purposes.
The thing that confuses most people is the difference between the “official” NM award, and the other scholarships offered by universities to NMFs. You only get one official NM award, if any. If you get the $2500 from NMSC, but you also have named a first choice university that offers an official NM award, you won’t get both. But it doesn’t matter. You can still get the rest of the scholarship package offered by your first choice university even though you won’t get the “official NM” part of it from more that one source.
Just don’t designate a first choice college yet. Wait until you have more information. If you are still waiting on acceptances, then just wait. When you know where you are going, designate that as your first choice university. Most universities do not limit the number of students to whom they will give NM scholarships.
If you get the NMSC or corporate award, it can be used at any university. You have to let NMSC know where you are going to attend college so the money can be sent there, just like most 3rd party scholarships. Also, if the college offers additional (non-official) NM scholarships, you have to name that school as your first choice to get the NM package.
@albert69 most NM sponsor colleges give their NM scholarship to every NMF that names that school as the top choice with NMSC. Very few official sponsor schools limit the number of NMFs who get the scholarship. The school decides that.
@prayerfulsearch, I’m not sure I follow what you are saying. If your son has already designated a first choice school, and doesn’t change it before his name is sent to that school, it will be too late to change the school and he will not be eligible for an official NM scholarship from any other school, right? A school may say May 1 is the deadline, but if another school has been listed, you have to change that. Those are the NMSC rules and the sponsor schools abide by them. The school may still give him the non-official part of the package though.
Do colleges know who among their applicants are NMF? I think they may guess based on the info provided by the applicant on the application, but do they get any official list?
If the colleges "know" the NMF students who have applied to them, and if the student has not listed them as their top choice, does it indicate to them that the student would most likely have listed some other college as their top choice. Will this not be considered during admissions(and offering other awards) as a less than a strong show of interest? On the flip side, will indicating a college as a top choice let them know that the student has a strong interest there?
If college X was the top choice, and the student got an admission and some college-sponsored NM award, I believe this is not binding on him/her, and s/he can, by May 1, accept admission to any other college Y of her choice. Let's say, e.g. college X is UChicago which participates in NMSC program, and college Y is a UCalifornia which does not participate in this program. In this case, what is purpose of letting NMSC know that their top choice is a UCalifornia? How does it matter? (NOTE: I am talking of the case here where the award is tied to a college, and not the NMSC/Corporate award).
Also, by May 1, college X will know that the student has declined its admission+award- letting NMSC know seems superfluous at this stage.
Not sure I’m answering a specific question here but will describe my dd’s scenario a few years ago. She waited to designate to NM who her first choice was until she knew where she was going. State Univ offered a NM scholarship. She had been awarded a full tuition scholarship through a competition they held for top scholars; but in her letter they said they knew she might become a NMF and if so, they would award the same dollar amount through another scholarship so that they could give the competition award to the next in line.
Sounded great, named a finalist and now a different name on the scholarship. Then they awarded her a school sponsored NM $2000 scholarship and because she was a recipient of the award for NMFs, they blended the awards, rather than adding them together…but she had been given no way to refuse the NMF award rather than the competition award. We never saw the $$, they were applied to her account each semester.
You have to name a school to even get the NMSC or Corp scholarships because NMSC sends the scholarship money to the college, not to you directly. But there is no benefit, and great risk, to naming a school early if you are not sure you will go there. If you are not certain what your first choice school is, don’t name one. When you do know, name it, EVEN if that school does not give a NM scholarship. It’s that easy.
Once the final deadline passes and you can no longer change your college choice, you will stop getting attention from the schools that want you just for your NMF status. Until then, the schools assume you are fair game and they will continue to try to woo you.
@Barfly, you wrote, “If you are not certain what your first choice school is, don’t name one. When you do know, name it, EVEN if that school does not give a NM scholarship.” I would have thought there was no benefit to naming as first choice a school that doesn’t offer a NMF scholarship. Can you explain the rationale? Thanks
This is not true. Just because your name is sent to a school does not constitute an “award” of a National Merit College-Sponsored Scholarship. You can have your name get sent to one school in the first pool in early March, change your designation, and have it sent to a different school in a subsequent pool. The action the constitutes the “award” of the scholarship is NMSC mailing the offer of the college-sponsored scholarship to the NMF. They start mailing these letters on May 1st. So it is true that if you have a choice listed on MAY 1st and a letter is mailed to you (regardless of when you receive it) with that college’s sponsored scholarship, you cannot THEN change and get a different college-sponsored scholarship. This is all explained on the back of the letter sent to Finalists.
By the way, this is also the reason that the award of a corporate or the $2500 NMSC scholarship is completely independent of First Choice school. Those awards are mailed to Finalists well before May 1st.
The actual scholarship money from NMSC or a corporate award will be sent to the school you select and credited to you. You are not eligible for an award if you are not going to college, of course, so you have to notify NMSC of where you are going to college. You do that by making your first choice college selection. If you are not getting a NMSC scholarship, or a corporate scholarship, and you are choosing a school that does not offer any money to NMFs, then perhaps you don’t have to pick a first choice school. But I would anyway so that the school will be notified, for what it’s worth, that they will have a NMF in their midst when you enroll. @Putterer, is there some reason you know of that a student would not want to name a first choice school regardless?