<p>I have received my PSAT scores and I have enough to qualify for National Merit semifinals.</p>
<p>I was just wondering what individual colleges tend to do in general in order to recruit more National Merit scholars. I heard that some offer full ride but I cannot find anything of that nature on College Board, National Merit, or college websites.</p>
<p>Congratulations! Although students who took the PSAT in 2007 as juniors will not know anything officially until next August/September, I assume you know the trends in your state's cutoff scores and must be above the last few year's minimum scores. My daughter also probably exceeded her state's cutoff for this year by a safe margin and we are very excited.
Although there are many posters who believe this system is unfair, and I will not argue with them, this will not answer your question.
I think being named a NMSF and hopefully a finalist should certainly make you eligible for merit based aid at many, but not all schools and if your grades and EC are good, it will hopefully make you competitive for admission to a higher number of schools. Only about half of the NMF actually get the small $2500,but many who do not get this award may get merit aid that far exceeds this paltry sum and for all 4 years, not just a one time award.
Good luck with your college search and competition for NMSF</p>
<p>Many schools do offer very generous scholarships for NMF's. You can make a search on this site or do a google search for: Full ride for national merit finalists. The other benefits will be the automatic admittance to Honors Colleges and the perks that come with it.</p>
<p>Schools who are participants in the NM program very often give substantially more merit than the $2500. Daughter benefited from that perc.</p>
<p>Check on the NM website for a list of participating schools.</p>