Schools Enrolling Most 2018 National Merit Scholars

Paying for College
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why such opposing policies?<<<<<<<<<<

Really? UTD is not UT Austin. That is pretty straightforward. Desirable schools don’t need to buy high stats students. The auto merit schools do.

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Nevertheless, University of Texas-Dallas has a great location for serving a large portion of the state’s population as well as for internships & job interviews.

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Yep, @Publisher, and their honors programs offer a lot of perks.

It’s a win-win.

BTW, @Sybylla, UTD and UT-Austin actually have about the same 75-25 ACT percentiles. UT-Austin gets high performing students simply through the top 6% of every TX school that is offered automatic admission (and offering the complete college experience with big time sports, parties and Austin) as well as a few select merit scholarships. UTD has to be generous with scholarships to high-acheiving students (funded by a few generous benefactors) to get that student body composition, but in terms of quality of the student body, they end up about the same place.

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  UT might well argue the automatic 6% rule brings down their standards, so I am not sure what point that makes, UTD is terrific if UTD is what works for a family. Many top students won't be top 6% because it is not numerically possible. The top magnet high schools bottom 6% might be stronger students than another school's top 6%, but that is for another day LOL.
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@Sybylla, possible. Regardless, UTD and UT-Austin have the same 75th and 25th ACT percentiles.

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Some comparisons with five years ago:

Biggest absolute increase, ‘13 to ‘18:

  1. Florida, 208 (23 to 231)
  2. Purdue, 113 (20 to 133)
  3. UT-Dallas, 80 (95 to 175)
  4. UCLA, 59 (18 to 77)
  5. Alabama, 54 (131 to 185)
  6. Cincinnati, 47 (30 to 77)
  7. Arizona State, 31 (120 to 151)
  8. North Texas, 28 (4 to 32)
  9. Boston University, 26 (34 to 60)
    10 Maryland, 26 (62 to 88)

Biggest absolute decrease, ‘13 to ‘18:

  1. WashU, -178 (223 to 45)
  2. Harvard, -126 (321 to 195)
  3. Vanderbilt, -103 (285 to 182)
  4. Princeton, -102 (192 to 90)
  5. Yale, -100 (224 to 124)
  6. Northwestern, -87 (259 to 172)
  7. Chicago, -84 (333 to 249)
  8. Georgia Tech, -71 (176 to 105)
  9. MIT, -65 (212 to 147)
  10. UIUC, -64 (88 to 24)

Biggest relative increase (≥25 in ‘18):

  1. Florida, 904% (23 to 231)
  2. North Texas, 700% (4 to 32)
  3. Purdue, 565% (20 to 133)
  4. UCLA, 328% (18 to 77)
  5. Cincinnati, 157% (30 to 77)
  6. Missouri, 142% (12 to 29)
  7. UT-Dallas, 84% (95 to 175)
  8. Boston University, 76% (34 to 60)
  9. Rutgers, 67% (24 to 40)
  10. Johns Hopkins, 48% (33 to 49)

Biggest relative decrease (≥25 in ‘13):

  1. WashU, -80% (223 to 45)
  2. UIUC, -73% (88 to 24)
  3. St. Olaf, -69% (29 to 9)
  4. Miami (Fl.), -61% (62 to 24)
  5. Carleton, -56% (71 to 31)
  6. Miami (Ohio), -56% (27 to 12)
  7. Pomona, -54% (28 to 13)
  8. Princeton, -53% (192 to 90)
  9. Tulsa, -52% (50 to 24)
  10. Tennessee, -49% (41 to 21)
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^ Seems like more kids are taking the money.

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Watching this thread closely. My 10th grader: 1590 SAT, top 1%, goal of NMF will be going for a huge merit package. On our list to tour: Ok State, USF, UCF, UF, UA, UAH. Maybe Tulsa if she could get their competitive NMF full ride. Any suggestions for other schools to look at? Major: Engineering

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@BingeWatcher: UT-Dallas

Known for STEM. IMO, it’ll be seen as the UCSD of TX in a couple decades.

WSU gives a full-tuition scholarship for NMS if she wants a western option.

UF, USF, and UCF but no FSU?

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@PurpleTitan - My NMF was rejected by Penn, Princeton, Duke and Hopkins. It’s possible the elites are rejecting more NMF too.

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@tpike12, that is most certainly a possibility as well.

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@PurpleTitan no FSU because their engineering school is a joint program with Florida A&M… Also no UTD. She has toured and taking 3 coding camps there. I agree it is an amazing school but she wants schools with sports for the school spirit. Will check out WSU, thank you!

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I can’t help but think that regional differences in testing result in certain colleges/universities receiving more/fewer NMF applicants, resulting in more/fewer of them enrolling.

Here in the Midwest, most students take the ACT and few bother with the SAT. I suspect fewer here also ever take the PSAT, which is what qualifies the student to receive a National Merit Scholar. Consequently, these regional differences in testing would show up – to a varying extent – in the enrollment of NMFs. Ideas about this?

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@MinnesotaDadof3 - your idea has some merit, in fact, the National Merit Foundation will begin accepting the ACT along with the SAT next year.

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: I can’t help but think that regional differences in testing result in
: certain colleges/universities receiving more/fewer NMF applicants,
: resulting in more/fewer of them enrolling.

I did a quick computation of the ratio of NMSFs from last year to under 18 population of each state. There are some differences – although some will have to do with the granular nature of the selection index. (You could never make every state exactly equal.)

The outliers at either end – numbers are NMSF per 10,000 17-year-olds:

Lowest:

Nevada - 25.8
West Virginia - 28.5
Utah - 28.7
Arizona - 29.7
Georgia - 31.2
Texas - 31.5
Idaho - 31.8
South Carolina - 32.4
Arkansas - 32.6
Washington - 33.1

Highest:

District of Columbia - 70.0
Vermont - 55.7
New Hampshire - 53.7
Maine - 50.5
New Jersey - 45.7
Pennsylvania - 45.0
Michigan - 45.0
Illinois - 44.2
Massachusetts - 44.1
Rhode Island - 43.4

The top four highest have very small populations, so I wouldn’t read too much into those.

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I had to check that (using the common data set info), and it is fairly close.
UT-Austin: 26 to 33
UT-Dallas 25 to 32

SAT scores are also close.

However, GPA (using Class rank as a proxy) isn’t . At UT-Austin, 74.4% of admitted freshman are in the top 10% of their class, while it’s 37% at UT-Dallas. More interesting, at UT-Dallas it’s only 66% that are in the top quarter of their class, which means we can discount the “top 6%” factor.

An interesting comparison to UT-Dallas would be to the University of Central Florida (UCF) which also offers a COA NMF scholarship.

Number of NMF is 175 vs 83 (UCF). UCF was founded as a STEM school (to support NASA), but has since expanded into other fields (especially Health related fields).

UCF has almost 4 times the number of undergraduates, so the NMF’s don’t have as much of an impact on it’s stats as UT-Dallas.It does offer a large number merit based scholarships and like UT-Dallas, it’s in a state with a large, growing population.

UCF’s Composite ACT range is 25 to 29 (average is 27).
UCF has 34% in the top 10%, and 73% in the top quarter.

Graduation rates (another indicator of student quality) are about the same at both schools, in the 67% to 69% range.

USF is very similar to UCF (offers the same NMF scholarship), in test scores, GPA, etc.

UAH fits the same mold, as a primary STEM school.
UAH Composite ACT range is 25 to 31
UAH has 33% in the top 10% and 66% in the top quarter.

UT-Dallas, UAH, UCF and USF have a lot in common, based on student characteristics, while still being four very different schools/regions. It’s good to have choices…

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The more selective universities don’t need to offer NMF scholarships to recruit high performing students. Instead the financial aid funds can be redirected to “need” based aid.

UF is something of an exception, in that they don’t feel they have to offer a NMF scholarship, but the State of Florida went ahead and did it themselves. That’s why it’s the only top 10 public university to offer one (it doesn’t, the state does). On the other hand, UF awards about 300 Machen Florida Opportunity Scholarships a year to first time in college, low income students. These are full COA scholarships/grants. Other very selective schools have similar need-based programs/grants.

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@mdpmdp: Note that your proportional NMSF numbers per state population show that none of the lowest-10 states are located in the Northeast or Mid-Atlantic states, and only Michigan and Illinois are among the top-10 states. I’ve always considered Chicagoans to be (personality-wise) the “New Yorkers of the Midwest”! So, this geographical disparity is starting to fit, for me at least.

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I think a lot of the kids that are “taking the money” are kids in engineering and/or computer science. I think the message of “find an ABET accredited program” (for engineering) and “it’s not where you go, it’s what you know” (in CS) is slowly sinking in.

I also think that some of the kids who know they want to do graduate work are looking to knock out undergrad at a low cost in a setting where they can stand out.

The kids making these choices are fine with full or near-full rides to UTD, Alabama, UCF over having to pay at UT or comparable schools, especially if the family is judged to be full pay (no need-based aid). When it came down to it, my son’s final two choices were CU Boulder and Alabama, with CU being more than $100,000 more expensive over 4 years (and we are in-state!) He happily accepted the NMF scholarship at Alabama. He was accepted at schools with much higher prestige than CU or Alabama, but he found it hard to justify spending hundreds of thousands more.

If a school wants to give big scholarships to attract some of these kids, then it must be worth it for them.

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It is worth it for the state universities for two main reasons: It brings talent to the state or retains talented residents, and it attracts top employers to campus.