Not everyone gets the award. Each College has only a few to give out. Rutgers, The State University of
New Jersey, (15). The .pdf page tells you the amount each college can only give… http://www.nationalmerit.org/student_guide.pdf
@karen27… I did not know that. I guess I had better not count my chickens before they hatch. We will keep our fingers crossed. 
Yeah I found it on their website in that .pdf file. My son also is going to Rutgers Honors College and NMF.
@Karen27, it says that is the minimum number of scholarships the NMSC expects the college to award. Some colleges do limit, so perhaps Rutgers is one of those. But many schools do not have a limit on number of NM awards. Many schools (OU, UCF, TAMU, UH, to name just a few) guarantee their NM scholarship to all NMFs.
The numbers in parentheses is actually the minimum number of awards a college or university expects to give out. They are not bound to give that many, but it’s not a cap either.
@Barfly I hope so… Thanks
Those of you with kids that qualify as “bright slackers” will appreciate this one:
Several months ago when we were all waiting for NMF results, I noticed all of these scholarships from different organizations and companies – some for $500, $1,000, $5,000, etc. So I told my son that he should put in for some of them & his response was that it was too hard – “dad, they want transcripts, essays, blah, blah.” Like many others of his kind, DS is innately intelligent, but his organizational skills are just not there yet, his writing skills are a bit weak, and his motivation to do any kind of work is lacking.
Then we have the same old talk about how he needs to show some interest in this stuff, how college is expensive, blah, blah, and I basically made him do the essays and answer the questions for a bunch of these scholarships. To his credit, he did these tasks without too much resistance – guess he knew he wouldn’t win that fight. I then did all of the administrative stuff & told him when to pick-up transcripts from school or when to get a teacher recommendation, etc. I edited his work, put together the packages, and mailed them out. Same old story – I probably did 80% of the work.
Last night at dinner, we opened two letters addressed to him. One said he was a finalist for a $1,000 scholarship and that we needed to send-in a couple more bits of information. The other said he has been awarded a $5,000 scholarship that will be mailed to him in August. He looked at me and said, “we did it dad,” “can I buy a laptop?”
I congratulated him and told him that I was proud of him, and silently rolled my eyes…….
Good work and congrats LMHS73!
Congrats @LMHS73! That is awesome. We too encouraged D to apply for additional scholarships beyond NMSC, and her biggest hang up was going back to people for copies of the letters of rec they had written for her. She didn’t want to pester them. Ugh! It took awhile for me to convince her that they had already gone to the effort of writing them. All she needed to do was ask them to print it and seal it in an envelope. Sure enough, they were all happy to do it - they knew she had earned every word of their praise and were not going to be put out by a request that took 2 more minutes. We’re still waiting to hear if the fruits of that labor paid off, but it’s nice to hear that it worked for your “bright slacker.”
Can someone please tell me if they know if all winners have been notified? The NMSC site says winners will be notified through June but this doesn’t make sense. My son checked his portal and there was no news. Thank you.
@Nicemummy The winners of the $2500 awards and the NM Scholar Corporate awards have been notified. The winners of the official college sponsored awards won’t be notified until May. (Which, come to think of it, isn’t too far off…)
But since May 31st is the last deadline for specifying first choice, there may be some college-sponsored award notifications that go out in June.
@STEMFamily But if the school’s deadline is April 31, wouldn’t the offers of those college-sponsored awards go out in May?
Fun news on my son’s college portal today - the university added the NM package (at least the unofficial part - not yet the official college sponsored award). So nice to see it in print!
@Barfly I’ve been awarded my NMF award from WSU too. Nothing on the official award yet though.
@albert69, congrats! Isn’t it fun when it’s “official”? All that work has paid off for you (and your family)!
S3 will be excited to see the increase in $ on his college portal when he gets home from school today!
@albert69 If you have your first choice designated on May 1st, then you should be in the first batch of college-sponsored notifications that NMSC starts mailing on May 1st. But someone who is either listed as undecided or lists a non-sponsoring school on May 1st has until May 31st to list a sponsoring school and be eligible for a college-sponsored award (IF that school has some left to give or did not itself set an earlier date.)
NM Story:
At a weekend function, several parents of HS sophomores and juniors were discussing PSAT, SAT and ACT, and I overheard someone say the PSAT doesn’t mean anything and there is no reason to prep for it. I was torn - do I jump in and say ABSOLUTELY PREP FOR THE PSAT BECAUSE NM IS AWESOME! Or would that be obnoxious? LOL! Fortunately, someone else jumped in and said essentially that (sans the capital letters). That “someone else” is the parent of a kid who had a great score as a sophomore, but then did not study and did not make NM.
I am sorry to know … may I know which state?
@Barfly I would have jumped into that conversation if someone else hadn’t. It’s been my mission to educate people about National Merit and the need to prep for the PSAT. Our local high school doesn’t tell the kids anything about National Merit and the homeschool community is pretty test adverse to begin with, most of my homeschool friends think I’m nuts but people need to know that for some kids the PSAT can be very important.
I only found out about National Merit by chance here on CC, information I am very thankful for! There is no way my daughter would have gotten the PSAT score that she did had she not not prepped for the PSAT.