I think this could be different school by school, so note YMMV. DS is close but still hasn’t quite made a decision between two schools (Kentucky and Louisville), both of which have large automatic merit for NMFs. Additionally both are sponsor colleges. What I needed to know was not designating a school before March 1 could keep DS from missing out on one of the small college sponsored scholarships.
I called UK this morning and was told that there are not a finite number of college sponsored awards at UK. As long as DS’s name is on one of the five lists UK receives from NMSC between March 1 and May he would receive at least a college sponsored award from UK of $2k (paid out $250 per semester over four years). This is in addition to and doesn’t reduce any portion of the Patterson scholarship.
I am guessing works the same at many of the big merit schools commonly discussed here, but of course verify.
So for us there isn’t a need to designate first choice by 3/1. We are going to leave first choice as undecided until after Merit Weekend at UK on March 9 & 10th.
For my son, his top choices happened to be sponsor-colleges. One them requires they be listed as first choice by 3/1 so he will change from undecided now that he has received his official letter. Another school only cares that they receive notification from NM by May 1 so if that schools become his top choice he will change it before May 1. A third school he hasn’t heard if he has been admitted yet. We will see if they become part of the mix or not. My advice for kids with multiple sponsor-college choices would be to call the schools directly and verify what they require and by when.
@jcmom716 I reread this thinking about your situation:
May 1, 2018: NMSC will begin mailing college-sponsored Merit Scholarship offers.
NOTE: 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 change in college choice
will not be processed and 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 or she is
now “undecided” to prevent being made an offer from a school he or she is uncertain about
attending; 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.
At first I was thinking you could run into a problem if your original first choice made you an offer before you decided to change to the second or third school. But rereading this it sounds like that won’t happen as long as you change before May 1. Do you agree?
@LOUKYDAD I think so. When I called NMSC they said they mail out communications in four rounds beginning March 1-2 so if a school requires a student to be on that list by March 1 the student needs to list it as first choice before March 1. They also said they have many students undecided and change to another as their decisions become final. In our case my son won’t be making any changes after May 1. And he will not be changing from College A to College B and later back to College A. (I didn’t discuss this situation with NMSC.) He is hoping Admitted Student Days will bring clarity. If he is admitted to the third school and he thinks that will rise to the top, he plans to change from College A to College C prior to May 1 or whatever date is required by them. Has been a bit confusing for sure!
In this era of big data, has anyone seen a summary of the colleges and number of NMF in the class of 2021- it would be interesting to see the distribution of NMF between elite schools and schools offering significant scholarships
D’s school still has not made an announcement. Thankfully we did receive the letter at home. In past years the school has announced the NMF standing and taken a picture. I’m wondering if the letter got lost or if they are changing their handling of it. I don’t want to be that parent, so I’ll probably just stay quiet about it. Had we not received notification directly, I’m sure I would not be as strong.
Anyone else with schools that haven’t mentioned it?
myDD’s school hasn’t said anything. they did take a photo of semifinalists and made them sit through an entire school board meeting to receive certificates. not a peep about finalists or presidential scholar candidates…
I doubt it. The big event is the Semifinalists. There will be three widely-spaced announcements of the three types of scholarships, which usually get reported in small local press.
@quinntheeskimo it looks like the next media notification is for the 7500 that win NMSC awards:
"7,500 Merit Scholarship® winners. Beginning in
March 2018, NMSC will notify winners of the three types
of National Merit Scholarships:
» National Merit® $2500 Scholarships
» Corporate-sponsored scholarships
» College-sponsored scholarships
…
"NMSC releases announcements of Merit Scholar® designees to news media nationwide:
April 18 Corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship winners
May 9 National Merit $2500 Scholarship winners
June 6 and July 16 College-sponsored Merit Scholarship winners"
HELP!!
So I saw a letter from nmsc to my DD on informed delivery. and what do you know? i’ts not in the mailbox. we have a locked mailbox. I have no idea what the letter says.
DD already indicated her first choice college when applied, and it hasn’t changed. Does she need to do anything?
Thank you in advance.
