<p>Do most National Merit Semifinalists become finalists? I've heard that most semi-finalists become finalists but that doesn't mean you'll get scholarship money. The process does not seem very transparent, and any help would be appreciated!</p>
<p>[url="<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Merit"]Wikipedia[/url">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Merit"]Wikipedia[/url</a>] is a good place to start. What it could be more clear about is that many colleges and universities have special scholarships for finalists, and only a few have them for semifinalists. In some cases (example, UKentucky) the award is for tuition, room, and board, so it’s a very big deal.</p>
<p>Thanks. I guess sometimes the wealth of information on these forums make me forget the obvious!</p>
<p>Usually, only around 1000 of the 16,000 NMSF cannot make it to NMF due to school performance (too many C or lower grades), disciplinary record, or no SAT score verification. Among the NMF, Still, many NMF do not receive any NM scholarship.</p>
<p>I think that by far the biggest reason that eliminates semi-finalists from becoming finalists is grades. More than 2 C’s or even one D or f. If a finalist does not recieve a scholarship, that is really by choice. There are many automatic big dollar scholarships for finalists who simply select the schools that give them. Some choose to leave that on the table and attend a school that does not give NM scholarships. Not us by the way, my son has seleceted a school that gives full tuition for the NM and since his SAT was above 1500 (math and C.R) they throw in another 4k toward room and board. </p>
<p>What school is that, brawny77?</p>
<p>Baylor</p>
<p>This particular forum (National Merit) on CC has the info you’re looking for. Look at the FAQ/NM Process and Automatic NM Scholarship threads. Scholarships for finalists are there for the taking, as brawny said. Finalists who don’t get NM scholarships have chosen schools that don’t give them. But ALL Finalists CAN choose to take automatic scholarships.</p>
<p>More than 90% of Semifinalists become Finalists. Finalists have done their paperwork on time, gotten good recommendations from their schools, gotten above the minimum required SAT score (1960) and sent those scores to the NM program. Finalists have consistently excellent grades throughout high school, ( some semifinalists have been disqualified with only one C on the transcript) no disciplinary problems. </p>
<p>My son chose a school (OU) that has a great package that is offered to all NMF. (BTW, their package is even better this year.) So for him, the difference between NMSF and NMF is coming out of college with student loan debt vs. coming out debt-free. </p>
<p>The thing I really like about OU is the tuition waiver part of the scholarship is for 5 years and I am sure a lot of kids are like mine and will have 40-50 credit hours accepted by OU so it is pretty easy to graduate in 3 years and get free tuition for 2 years of grad school. I gotta beleive that a large % of NMF go on to grad school.</p>
1 Like