<p>Also Mississippi State</p>
<p>It is interesting that most colleges offering top$ are in the South or Midwest. I wonder if this is because the E/NE has so many school and so many top students to choose from?</p>
<p>T</p>
<p>Wow. I’ve also been keeping a list of schools that matches USNews rank against NM opportunities. I’d never even heard of Tulsa, so I never even thought to look. It <em>is</em> interesting.</p>
<p>Adding Mississippi State-</p>
<p>If you look only at schools that offer full-rides to OOS and rank them according to USNews(for lack of a better measure) in top 200 national it’s</p>
<p>Tulsa(never even knew of them until today. Have to check it out)
Kentucky
Mississippi State
Oklahoma State
UT-Dallas
NJ Inst. Tech(they don’t appear in NMSC report, funny)
Idaho
UCF
Alabama-Huntsville
New Mexico
Louisiana Tech
U of Houston</p>
<p>Then Auburn, UMass-Amherst, and U Louisville give full ride to instate</p>
<p>And there are the schools which give substantially more than tuition, but not full ride, like Alabama, Mississippi, and Alabama-Birmingham.</p>
<p>Am I missing any more?</p>
<p>TU (Tulsa) is sort of a hidden gem. 
I don’t know why it’s not more well-known. It’s an excellent school. They give great academic scholarships, as well.</p>
<p>Because it’s a smaller school, there are many research opportunities for undergrads. My friend’s son is majoring in Chemistry. He is a Junior this year and has travelled with professors over the summers to present his research. He has a research article being published soon. </p>
<p>While TU is known for their STEM programs, it’s very strong in other areas. The music program is outstanding and I recall reading a few months ago that the business school was named as one of the top in the nation. </p>
<p>The career placement office is fantastic and they work very hard to place students in internships while they are in college and in permanent positions after graduation. As I’ve mentioned before, I used to work for a major petroleum company and we recruited heavily at TU. We gave no preference to grads from School of Mines, Texas, etc. over TU grads. </p>
<p>Tulsa is a nice place to live, as well. The downtown area is undergoing a major revitalization and there is a lot to do. My son and his friends always find plenty to do on the weekends. There’s a great music scene here. With the historic Cain’s Ballroom, the Brady Theater and the BOK, there is no shortage of great concerts from all genres. </p>
<p>It’s definitely worth a look.</p>
<p>Soonermom, you are right about scholarship #s at TU. According to NMSC, TU gave 48 scholarships 2 years ago, so maybe 50 is what they give out annually. I probably saw them in Bob’s list, but didn’t pay attention because I never heard of them.</p>
<p>Thanks for posting about that. It’s great info.</p>
<p>Celeste…I deleted that post because I saw that I missed it the first time I scanned the list. :-)</p>
<p>GoingNuts, can you share any information about your family member’s experience at OU and why it was not a good fit? Do you have any recommendations based on this experience, such as things to research further? My D is a NMSF and considering OU.</p>
<p>It’s a great place. Right in the heart of NYC. (Although not in the snobby, gentrified Manhattan.)</p>
<p>Adding University of Cincinnati.</p>
<p>Great for Engineering, Business, Conservatory, & Art/Design schools.</p>
<p>f you look only at schools that offer full-rides to OOS and rank them according to USNews(for lack of a better measure) in top 200 national it’s</p>
<p>Tulsa(never even knew of them until today. Have to check it out)
Kentucky
Mississippi State
Oklahoma State
UT-Dallas
NJ Inst. Tech(they don’t appear in NMSC report, funny)
Idaho
UCF
Alabama-Huntsville
New Mexico
Louisiana Tech
U of Houston</p>
<p>Then Auburn, UMass-Amherst, and U Louisville give full ride to instate</p>
<p>And there are the schools which give substantially more than tuition, but not full ride, like Alabama, Mississippi, Alabama-Birmingham, and U Cincinnati (in-state only, for OOS UCincinnati’s about 1/2 COA) .</p>
<p>Am I missing any more?</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-updated-compilation-56.html#post16465904[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-updated-compilation-56.html#post16465904</a></p>
<p>To be honest, I’ve never had an in depth conversation with her about why exactly she hated OU so much. My best guess is that it was a too conservative type of atmosphere for her. I think that she felt financially pressured to attend and not pass it up as her parents probably had no savings for her education. The weird thing is she left OU and completed her degree on line at a school that specializes in that type of thing. I would think that employers would prefer the OU degree. In the end she felt that the advising was terrible because she needed to pay for a course or two to graduate and instead of doing that she packed up and left. That is why finding a school that you enjoy even if you have to pay for some of it may be more worthwhile than following the money.</p>
<p>To everyone: what about schools on the East coast?</p>
<p>Celeste…where are you seeing that Auburn gives a full ride to instate?</p>
<p>[National</a> Scholars | Undergraduate Scholarships](<a href=“http://www.auburn.edu/scholarship/undergraduate/national-scholars.html]National”>http://www.auburn.edu/scholarship/undergraduate/national-scholars.html)</p>
<p>OP Here: firstly, thanks for all of the suggestions. Some of you have PM’d me and given very candid (good and bad) thoughts on colleges you have had relationships with. What has been great is the spirit of community here of suggestions, even if it is NOT the school you or your child chose. Thank you.</p>
<p>For those posting links to list of NM scholarship schools, thank you. However, my thread was/is to get a sense of schools that many NM/NA finalist ultimately choose, so I am aware of that list but wanted to get more specifics.</p>
<p>Finally, in doing this some ‘hidden gems’ have popped up such as Tulsa and that can be helpful also.</p>
<p>Thank you again.
T</p>
<p>I just want to assure anyone interested in Oklahoma that the niece of goingnutsmom’s experience at OU was not typical. In fact, my advisor emailed me a week ago with the instructions to print off my degree navigator (document that shows every major/ gen ed requirement a student has and has not taken) before coming in. When I did meet with her we spent ten minutes discussing my academic plans before even talking about which courses I’d enroll in. Supposedly, the advising for those in the honors college is even better. The niece’s failure to register for a needed class was hers alone.</p>
<p>Ended up talking with a friend who has a nephew at UA and a nephew at Auburn both, NM Finalist. Her 3rd nephew is looking at those and Ol’ Miss which apparently stacks some awards so with the NM and some other award he would have a full ride, out of State. It is the new ‘it’ school to consider at her nephews’ school for the NM/NA kids. They have several kids looking at it for next year and apparently Ol’ Miss is trying to up their ‘NM/NA’ game and is reaching out to semifinalist early to get them on board. She said the parents don’t bash any of the schools, but said there are great things, and challenges, about each and just let their boys decide. It is a house of a healthy, respectful rivalry (and happy parents with 3 kids college aid and little out of pocket $ on their end)</p>
<p>atm28vacations: Agree. What about east coast schools? Odd to me that SO many are deep south or Midwest but I suppose the east coast has SO many quality school that NM kids can go to that they end up choosing those with some cost vs. free NM colleges in locations less appealing to them maybe?</p>
<p>I am not aware of any top 200 schools on the east coast that offer NMF scholarships that are that generous. Only was listing here schools that offer substantially more than full tuition. At least tuition plus a few thousand. There may be some I don’t know of. Anyone? You can look through the NMF scholarship thread at top of that forum. </p>
<p>The best I know are Drexel and Fordham full tuition (Fordham competitive.) Until this year Northeastern offered full tuition(not fees.) They just dropped it to $30,000, about 3/4 tuition. Connecticut and Vermont have full tuition for IS according to the NMF scholarship thread. </p>
<p>Also, NJInstTech and UCF already listed are east coast.</p>
<p>In general the east coast(you mean NE coast??) schools do not use the large NMF scholarship model to attract students, for whatever reason.</p>
<p>mom2collegekids, I was just using the NMF scholarship list. Apparently the Auburn scholarship was reduced at some point to be more like the current UA offering. Have to let Bob know about that.</p>