My top choice schools (Penn and ~tentative~ Princeton) do not offer college-sponsored scholarships, but my state flagship UMD does. I really love UMD and would be happy to attend, but it’s not my true first choice. Penn and Princeton both consider demonstrated interest in admissions as well, so would putting one of these schools as my first choice ultimately benefit me? Or would putting UMD as my first choice be the better option in case I go there so I will have a chance at a scholarship? And if I do put UMD as my first choice will the schools I apply to early see this and mark it against me?
As far as I know, putting Penn/Princeton as your first choice school would be totally pointless, since they don’t offer scholarships. Put UMD as your first-choice for NM. It won’t affect your chances at Penn or Princeton - I doubt they’d even know what you put as your first-choice, and if they did somehow find it out, they would understand that you’re putting UMD because you can actually get money from them.
Many schools that offer NMF scholarships require that you list them as your first choice.
First of all, you don’t have to name any school right now.
Secondly, if you do name UMaryland, those other schools will not even know.
OP, what do you mean by this? The only “demonstrated interest” Penn would care about would be applying ED. Don’t think Princeton considers it at all.
Thanks everyone!
@GnocchiB I remember seeing on their college data locker pages that demonstrated interest was “considered” but I guess that could have been out of date
Yeah, definitely don’t put Princeton or Penn as your first choice; since they don’t offer national merit scholarships, they won’t see it. If you are going to put down a first choice school, put down one you know offers merit for NMF. (And obviously apply there.)
I believe that demonstrated interest is a very real factor at most schools these days as most are playing the yield game to some degree these days. With students applying to so many colleges, they’d much rather admit students who are nearly certain to enroll if admitted.
When does NMSC first let colleges know which NMSF listed them as their first college choice?
If a student contacts NMSC to change their college choice, does NMSC notify the old choice as well as the new choice? When or how often to they share updates with colleges?
I know that only colleges that sponsor NM scholarships need to know which NMSF listed them as their college choice, but can anyone confirm that the NMSC does not tell any school that does not sponsor scholarships which students listed them as their first choice?
March 1st is the earliest a college could be notified.
It’s unlikely this could make any difference in admissions.
NMCorp wouldn’t be notifying the ivies since they don’t have scholarships.