<p>The National Merit Scholarship Program just released their new Annual Report for 2010-11 and I thought I would share it with all of you since I haven't seen the results posted on CC yet.</p>
<p>Here are the colleges enrolling the most National Merit Scholarship award winners in descending order of total enrollment:</p>
<p>USNWR Top 30 Universities</p>
<p>Harvard College: 248
Yale: 194</p>
<p>Princeton: 154
Stanford: 139
University of Pennsylvania: 138 (maybe belongs in next tier since it's class size is large)
MIT: 128</p>
<p>Duke: 93
Columbia: 88
Brown: 82
University of Chicago: 81
Dartmouth College: 66 (small class size)</p>
<p>University of California, Berkeley: 74 (extremely large class size)
Cornell: 69 (large class size)
Vanderbilt: 65
Northwestern: 57
Washington University in St. Louis: 53
Rice: 49 (small class size)</p>
<p>Notre Dame: 46
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor: 42 (extremely large class size)
University of Southern California: 39 (extremely large class size)
University of Virginia: 37 (large class size)
University of California, Los Angeles: 34 (extremely large class size)
Carnegie Mellon: 33
UNC-Chapel Hill (large class size)
Johns Hopkins: 31
Georgetown: 27</p>
<p>Tufts: 13
Emory: 10
Wake Forest: 6</p>
<p>I will post an updated list recording the percentage of the student body at each school that are National Merit Scholars so schools like Dartmouth aren't negatively impacted unfairly by using the absolute amount.</p>
<p>Frankly, these results are very surprising to me. The difference between Vanderbilt and Emory/Wake Forest is pretty staggering.</p>
<p>It's pretty clear who the contenders and who the pretenders are though.;)</p>
<p>Goldenboy,
USC has 254 scholars, not 39. I dont know where you got that figure from…</p>
<p>USC enrolls MORE NMF’s than any other college except U of Chicago.</p>
<p>"*An asterisk indicates that Merit Scholars whose scholarships are sponsored by the institution are included; the number sponsored by the college is shown in parentheses."</p>
<p>Actually that NMSC Annual Report just got posted on 1/21. Before then it was still the 09-10 Annual Report. Sadly, I’d been waiting for the new one ;)</p>
<p>As for buying top scorers, Vanderbilt’s NMF amount is only $5000. When tuition, room & board is $53,880 at Vanderbilt vs. $52,440 at Emory vs. $52,986 at Wake Forest, in my world that $5000 isn’t doing much. However, VU did go to a no loan policy back in 2008 so their FA is very good. Perhaps they market to NMSF’s better than Emory or Wake Forest does and that along with the FA beyond the NMF merit money entices students.</p>
<p>I wondered what the rationale was for selecting only these schools until I realized you were only looking at USNews ratings. Meh. Why did you take out college sponsored NM scholarships? U Oklahoma enrolled 204 total, 42 non-college sponsored.</p>
College sponsored National Merit awards are contingent on the school determining what students it grants NMS status while the actual National Merit Scholar awards are handed out by the National Merit Corporation in a standardized and centralized manner.</p>
<p>The idea here is to get a snapshot at which schools enroll the strongest students in an objective way. That is indeed an impressive showing by U of Oklahoma though.</p>
Sorry, that’s total BS. The only true scholars are the ones recognized by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. The rest are just given out freely by schools who want to attract strong students and they have much lower standards so they can’t be included.</p>
<p>The idea here is to see objectively which schools enroll the strongest student bodies and the only legitimate way to do that is to only count the non-college sponsored awards.</p>
<p>Princeton: 154
Stanford: 139
University of Pennsylvania: 138 (maybe belongs in next tier since it’s class size is large)
MIT: 128</p>
<p>Duke: 93
Columbia: 88
Brown: 82
University of Chicago: 81
Dartmouth College: 66 (small class size)
Caltech: 36 (extremely small class size)</p>
<p>University of California, Berkeley: 74 (extremely large class size)
Cornell: 69 (large class size)
Vanderbilt: 65
Northwestern: 57
Washington University in St. Louis: 53
Rice: 49 (small class size)</p>
<p>Notre Dame: 46
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor: 42 (extremely large class size)
University of Southern California: 39 (extremely large class size)
University of Virginia: 37 (large class size)
University of California, Los Angeles: 34 (extremely large class size)
Carnegie Mellon: 33
UNC-Chapel Hill (large class size)
Johns Hopkins: 31
Georgetown: 27</p>
<p>Tufts: 13
Emory: 10
Wake Forest: 6</p>
<p>
This is the brand new report and Vanderbilt enrolled 65 non-sponsored National Merit Scholars which is very impressive and puts it well ahead of any Southern university besides Duke.</p>
<p>I don’t think VU’s National Merit money of $5,000 really influences decisions.</p>
<p>goldenboy - I disagree. If a student is strong enough to make it to the NM finalist round, they ARE strong students. Simply because the student opts for better funding opportunities to avoid debt does not mean the standard is lower.</p>
<p>It’s on page 38. This is data to consider when my DS makes a choice in April. Although not foolproof, of course, it is indicative of the size of one peer group.</p>
Longhaul, I don’t think you’re understanding what I’m saying here. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation decides independently after a review process that looks at all Finalists which ones deserve the final award from the organization. So if you win the main award, you’re automatically counted as a National Merit winner before you even win the school money.</p>
<p>Look, if all the Ivies and other top schools just gave all NMFs money like Chicago and Rice do, then Harvard would have well over 1,000+ National Merit winners. The only fair way to look at this data is to exclude the college-sponsored winners since there is already an independent determination of who the true winners are.</p>
<p>So you’re making a distinction between non-sponsored NMs’s and sponsored NMS’s who received some type of merit $$? (Side note: I always thought that NMF’s who didn’t get one of the college or NMSC sponsored scholarships remained NMFs. The report only mentions the attendance of 8,330 NMS’s, not all NMFs. Don’t they keep track of where ALL NMF’s go?)</p>
<p>If we’re being honest about the socio-economic makeup of who makes NMF, then the kids whose families can most likely be full pay for places like VU also have the best chances for making NMF anyway because they’ve grown up with educational advantages. I’m not really sure if I’m understanding your angle.</p>
<p>The only true scholars are the ones recognized by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. "
And ALL 8330 Scholars ARE NMScholars. That is what NMSF calls them. </p>
<p>What you are mixing up is that many NMF’s are sponsored by colleges or corporations. And about 1800 who are not otherwise sponsored are awarded one time NMF scholarships directly from NMSF. That money, by the way ,comes from the Fees that NMSF charges the participating colleges and corporate sponsors. That does not make those 1800 any different than any of the 8330 NMF’s who are sponsored in other ways. They are ALL still considered NM Scholars. Call NMSF yourself if you dont believe me. </p>
<p>"*An asterisk indicates that Merit Scholars whose scholarships are sponsored by the institution are included; the number sponsored by the college is shown in parentheses."</p>
No, that is incorrect. You are considered for the main award given through the NMSC independently of whether you are attending a college that sponsors NMFs or not. If you win the main award, then you are a National Merit Scholar. Some schools like the University of Chicago give money to all NMFs who name them their first choice so they become National Merit Scholars according to the definition of the site but they are no the true winners.</p>
<p>Congratulation to all the college sponsored winners but my goal here is to see how strong the peer group is among American universities as assessed independently by another organization through a holistic process. The only equitable way to do that is to exclude sponsored college winners from the main winners.</p>
<p>A school like the University of Chicago has both sponsored merit winners and non-sponsored winners (top 10 in country). The sponsoring by NMSC comes first before the college or company endorsement.</p>
<p>You do realize that a good number of the NMS awards are provided by companies to children & grandchildren who have gotten to NM commended, NMSF or NMF status, right? So just because mom or dad works for UPS or 5/3 Bank, the student is in contention. If the mom or dad worked for DHL or Bank of America, they wouldn’t be.</p>
<p>If you read carefully the title on page 38 of the annual report cited above you will see
</p>
<p>This means only the awardees are accounted here. The awardees are the ones who either get the one-time $2500 or the sponsorship amount given by the NM participating colleges. The annual report does not account for NM finalists who did not get any award. This means the numbers for the participating colleges are higher here.</p>
<p>If you substract the number of NM awardees from the total number of NM finalists you will see the difference.</p>
<p>This has been discussed and concluded two years ago.</p>
<p>Don’t they keep track of where ALL NMF’s go?
No they only keep track of where the Scholars - all 8330 of them, let them know where they are going to college.</p>
<p>by the way, every year, somebody tries to identify the “pure” NM scholars from those that are sponsored, as if being sponsored means that a student is not as smart as those who are not sponsored. It often only means that an equally smart NMF accepted a scholarship because they dont have the $$ to pay for college without one. And every year, they find out that NMSF calls ALL 8330 students “Scholars”.</p>
<p>“If you win the main award, then you are a National Merit Scholar.”
again, that is NOT what the NMSF says. All 8330 are NMScholars. </p>
<p>Coolweather has it right. </p>
<p>“Colleges and universities enrolling the 2011 entering class of Merit Scholar® awardees.This means only the awardees are accounted here. The awardees are the ones who either get the one-time $2500 or the sponsorship amount given by the NM participating colleges.”</p>
<p>and by the way, Chicago’s NMS scholarship is only $1000/ year. Do you REALLY think that small amount is enough to get a student to enroll there instead of HYP? Right…</p>
<p>but I wont continue trying to reason with a brick wall.</p>