<p>According to the National Merit web site, 1,600 commended students get scholarships.</p>
<p>According to some posters on CC's scholarship board, these go to students whose parents work for certain corporations or belong to certain associations.</p>
<p>Does anyone have any more details? I have never met anyone who says they have gotten one of these scholarships. </p>
<p>Older S was commended, and got no scholarship info. Younger S, a junior, has scores that will virtually guarantee he'll be commended.</p>
<p>I had exactly the same question. I used to work for a company that is a Corp sponsor, but their sponsorship is restricted to kids of current employees, retirees, and the like. If I read the first weblink correctly, it indicates that Corporates sponsor 1,100 Merit scholarships for Finalists and 1,600 scholarships for non-Finalists (Commended???). But, those scholarships are limited to students that "meet eligibility criteria." (see pdf file).</p>
<p>Suggest you check out your PSAT brochure since it lists all Corp sponsors, to see if you can align to any of them.</p>
<p>Thanks for the post, bluebayou.
Unfortunately, National Merit doesn't list on its web site corporate sponsorships. Which PSAT brochure is the corporate sponsorship info on? S has not gotten the hard copy of his results yet, just his score from his GC.</p>
<p>Does anyone know if NEA is a corporate sponsor? Are there any corporations sponsoring scholarships for commended students with certain career interests whose parents don't work for the company?</p>
<p>I don't remember S, who graduated several years ago and was commended, getting any info about corporate sponsors of commended students. Is this something new?</p>
<p>Northstarmom: The 1600 corporate scholarships actually go to Finalists, not Commended students. When a list of possible winners in compiled from the list of Finalists, it is first scanned for potential corporate winners, then the 2500 winners are selected from that list. The corporate sponsors have varying requirements, ranging from children of current employees to residents of the geographic ares where the corp. is located. My son won one based on the fact that his mother worked for a sponsoring company for a few years 20 years ago!</p>
<p>But you know it might be possible that some go to Commended students, if no Finalists meet the Corp requirements. When you fill out the Finalist app., there is a section you fill out about where your parents work, or have worked. Absent that, I don't know how they would know who qualifies.</p>
<p>Hi parents, I'm a student but I decided to post because I know a little bit about this. The scholarships you are talking about are called "National Merit Special Scholarships," and they certainly do go out to non-finalists in many cases. If a company wants to offer a scholarship to the children of employees, but there are not enough finalists in the pool for it to give out the amount of money it wants to, the scholarship opportunity is extended to commended students as well. We are given a "Special Scholarship" application that I believe is very similar to the Semi-Finalist application, from what my friend who is a Semi-Finalist told me. It has the same essay and small space to list activities and such, plus students must list a first choice college. The thing about these scholarships is that they are not automatically offered to all eligible students; the parents have to enter their children and THEN the application packet arrives at school. For example, my mom, who works for a pharmaceutical company, knew that her company offered scholarships connected to the PSAT, so she entered me sometime in the beginning of 2004. We did not hear anything about this particular scholarship (just news that I was NM commended) until the Special Scholarship application arrived at my school at the end of November. I filled in out and handed it in before the December 20th deadline I was given, and my Guidance Counselor sent it to the National Merit corporation, where a committee, similar to the one that decides which finalists get scholarships and as far as I know including no one that has any connection to the company offering the scholarship, makes a decision. We are supposed to hear about it sometime in April.</p>
<p>As for where the list of campanies that offer scholarships is located, I remember finding my mom's company name among a list included in the PSAT bulliten, the packet that you get before taking the PSAT that includes some tips and a practice test, but I could be wrong.</p>
<p>This program isn't very publicized, but for students like me, who missed the semi-finalist cut off by one measly point, it's great that it exists. I happen to be lucky in that my mom's company is one of the ones that offers scholarships. Unfortunately, I probably won't end up winning one as my mom is switching jobs in the next few months. Oh well! Hopefully someone else will benefit from this :)</p>
<p>Thanks, bohemianrhapsody and others for the informative posts.
It looks like S's chances of a special scholarship from National Merit are zilch. I hope, though, other students benefit from this thread.</p>
<p>One thing I've learned by Googling is that there are many colleges that provide scholarships to National Merit commended students. I posted about this last week on either the SAT or the scholarships board. Most of the colleges were very small places, but one was St. Olaf, a very well respected liberal arts school in Minn.</p>
<p>It's nice to know that students who miss out on National Merit may still have a chance for some other merit money related to their PSAT scores.</p>