S is a Jr. at competitive catholic school. Has the exact score needed for NMSF if score stays the same as last year. In KS educated opinion is it will. Who knows. He has 4.0 and 4.5 out of 4.5, all honors, 3 sports fresh & soph yrs, 1 sport Jr.yr. Extensive community service. SAT 1460. ACT 34 but will keep taking to get goal of 35.
If he gets NMF (which high schools counselor thinks he will) he wants to go safety route to Arkansas, OU, Alabama, U of Kentucky. Honors school if poss. Even if not NMF what chances of merit scholarship at those or other schools. We’re above ave. income with little savings (self employed). Ideal would be Marquette, Miami U, Purdue, Clemson, Auburn, Univ of South Carolina but need strong merit aid. Wants to study engineering. Not sure if he should settle for safety school or apply at numerous - hate the costs of applying at 10+ schools. Help!!
One thing I learned with DS18 this year that I didn’t appreciate is how much time and effort goes into chasing competitive merit scholarships. One school will often have separate essays for admission, their honors college, and the scholarship. Multiply this by 10 schools and he has created a lot of work for himself, deadlines to keep up with, and ultimately extra stress. DS doesn’t enjoy writing essays so the application part wasn’t his favorite season of life. Similarly, if you make the cut to finalist many times there are interview weekends that require travel and can be a bit of a gauntlet. It isn’t unheard of they could fall on the same weekend and you would have to choose.
My point is process fatigue alone may cause him to eliminate many schools on the list if in reality he doesn’t prefer or would want to attend compared to other options. Especially if you have options with automatic merit awards for NMF that he actually prefers.
Also prepare him mentally for the long odds associated with some of the competive merit awards. DS applied for one at a school/program that I wouldn’t consider to be nearly as competitive or selective as Clemson National Scholars. There was a 31 ACT requirement to apply, but they still received over 300 applications for 10 spots. When you get to the interview/finalist stage of things, everyone is going to be very polished and it becomes about who puts their best foot forward that day. To put yourself out there like that and then to find out you didn’t get it after all that energy and emotion expended can be a tough thing.
@ksmom48 I can share our family’s experience as one whose kids have to seek merit for college attendance.
Our oldest is a chemE who did not attend a state flagship, but a state’s tech U which is very small compared to the flagship. But equally, we knew that the U was highly respected in industry and students were recruited for employment. (His dad is a chemE, so he looked at the Unfrommthat perspective.) Ds had multiple job offers at graduation even though he graduated during the recession (2011). (He also worked as a co-op recruiter for his company his first few yrs after he started working there.) He knows that the reason he received multiple job offers while friends did not are bc he had a high GPA (3.5 was the threshold when he was recruiting for co-ops; his was higher, so he knows that 3.5 matters.) He participated in UG research on-campus. He co-oped for a yr (the only students who had job offers in his graduating class were the students who co-oped) So, my recommendation no matter where your ds attends is to maintain high grades, to participate in dept research, and to co-op.
We have a sr at Bama. He attended on multiple stacking scholarships. (Bama is awesome that way. They allow dept and other scholarships to stack on top of their admissions scholarships.) He is part of what was formerly CBH but was recently renamed as Randall Research Scholars. I highly recommend applying to that program. (Only 40 students per yr are accepted, so he should approach that process accordingly.) Bama has had numerous Goldwater Scholars that have been engineers/RRS students. Our ds is a physics/math double. He participated in UG research starting his freshman yr. He applied to grad schools this fall and has been accepted to several top competitive programs. So, students from schools like Bama can be extremely successful if they use the opportunities available to them on campus to their fullest.
I have a freshman Top Scholar at USC. She is an IB major, so I don’t know anything about sciences at USC except that the majority of her friends are STEM majors. She loves USC. They constantly have speakers, career fairs, and other opportunities for students to speak to professionals in there areas of interest.
Fwiw, my kids do cast a wide net in order to receive the most merit. (7-10 schools is about their norm.) They start their applications during the summer and submit as many as possible very early on. (Common App essays for next yr’s applicants will be posted soon if they haven’t been already.) My kids focus first on the schools where they have the highest probability of merit and competitiveness. Then, they move down the list toward the more competitive merit. We approach it that way bc they have to have a truly affordable option. Application fatigue is REAL. Do not underestimate just how sick of applications and essays they get. When applying for competitive programs and competitive scholarships, slapping together an application and essay will not be successful. (USC, for example, emphasizes the importance of the essay. If he wants the HC, tell him not to underestimate that essay’s importance bc could be what makes or breaks his application.) Finishing as much as possible before their classes start in the fall is a huge advantage bc they can give their applications greater attention.It also gives them more freedom to add new schools that they become aware of later on in the process bc their main applications are already finished. Those new interest schools’ applications can be given appropriate focus bc they aren’t busy slapping together 8 applications simultaneously.
Fwiw, I highly recommend dept visits. We visited the physics dept at one of the schools on your list and ran the other direction. They were incredibly condescending and dismissive toward the UGs in their dept. Not an attitude you want to see.
Of that list, South Carolina and Alabama are going to be hard to beat for merit and opportunities. If he gets NMF, he should also look into the Florida state schools, particularly UF for engineering. The governor is hopefully about to sign a bill giving all OOS NMFs accepted to Florida state universities a full ride (tuition, room/board, fees, and more).
If you are a NMF with high stats, I am sure you can find one or two Honors Colleges which will give full rides: UCF, UNLV and full tuition or more: Univ of South Carolina, U of Arizona, Kentucky etc. The world is your oyster. Just make sure you pick the right oyster for your kid. Each Honors College seems to have the area they are strong in.
http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com/ is an older list of National Merit based scholarships, but you should check on college web sites, since some have changed since then.
Thank you this is very helpful. We may need to look at a school based more on grades and scores and NMF if he gets that. He’s pretty introverted and has not really found a group of kids with his interests/maturity. He’s not a complete “nerd” (terrible for a mother to say but his dad and I are very social and in careers that are too). Good athlete, well liked but he’s the most mature person in our household Old soul.
I should mention, essays will be his strong suit. Interview - not so much. Doesn’t want to be in fraternity. I will heed your advice on narrowing down the application list - he’s already dreading. Plus, I told him we can’t do a road tour across the country to see all of these schools. Maybe pick 3?
@ksmom48 UAH is university of Alabama- Huntsville. Huntsville is known as “Rocket City” and there is a very strong aerospace/engineering presence in the city. Very nice small city. The school has fantastic merit and if NMF a full ride. Just went to visit with S19. Great smaller campus, strong STEM with very strong internship/Co-Op programs. Nice honors college and great dorms. If you think your student would do better in a smaller setting, I would check it out. My S19 would definitely go there if he weren’t looking for a bigger school. He enjoyed his visit and was impressed.
@mommdc - just recently found out that UAH also has higher scholarships for NMF. If you scroll down on their scholarship page, you will see it. Funny enough, not well publicized. Never mentioned during our visit.
National Merit Awards
Platinum Award of Academic Distinction
Students who are selected as National Merit Finalists, National Achievement Finalists, or National Hispanic Recognition Program Scholars qualify for the Platinum Award of Academic Distinction. This 4-year award is valued at full tuition (up to 18 credit hours per semester), and also includes a course fee stipend (up to $1000), an on-campus housing allowance, and a meal plan allowance. Renewal is based on satisfactory academic progress and full-time student status.
Gold Award of Academic Distinction
Students who are selected as National Merit or National Achievement Semi-Finalists qualify for the UAH Gold Award of Academic Distinction. This 4-year award is valued at full tuition (up to 18 credit hours per semester) and also includes a course fee stipend (up to $1000). Renewal is based on satisfactory academic progress and full-time student status.
*To receive a National Merit Award, students will need to submit an official copy of the award letter from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation to the Office of Financial Aid. These awards replace any UAH Merit Tuition Scholarship of equal or lesser value.
@ksmom48 as far as interviews go, he may surprise you and it may depend on format.
DS went into Brown Fellows interview weekend at Louisville leaning toward UK, having good automatic merit at both schools due to NMF status. I was wondering if he would even put any effort into the interview. He isn’t a wallflower but isn’t extroverted either. It turned out to be a life changing experience. It was a series of eight one hour sessions over two day period. They were in groups of four to six kids and it was a group discussion on different topics. It seemed they wanted to see who was articulate and could add something to an intellectual discussion with peers and a faculty member. He ended up really enjoying the experience. He loved the kids he met and left there really wanting to be a part of the program. A week later and after the good news he was accepted, he is now on a whole different path.
Advice on strategy above from mom2aphysicsgeek, on how to prioritize schools and opportunities, was very good I think. DS decided he wanted to stay close to home and therefore only applied to 4 schools (U of L, U of K, Bama and Centre), and really only finished and focused on two (U of L and U of K), which made things easier. It was still a fair amount of work on applications between the honors colleges and scholarship applications. Having a strategy like she suggests is a good idea.
Loukydad . . .that is good advice from you and mom2aphysicsgeek. You are correct that he may do better in small group interviews of that nature. I didn’t realize they were like that. He does well in that type of setting. If they were all one on one - who knows. But he’s going to have to get over it at the level of academics he wants. We keep telling him that there are ALOT of smart kids with impressive grades, test scores etc. and he’ll be in a whole different ball game than high schools at home.
Anyone know anything about OU? His college counselor said they have large number of NMF and maybe pushed it because it’s close to home. Thinking we’ll schedule tours at Alabama, UK and U. of South Carolina. And then OU.
Old soul.