<p>What is the median national merit sholarship awarded for a private school?
a public school?
has anyone had any experience with this?
thanks</p>
<p>Varies according to individual schools. My Ds school (a State U) offers almost a full ride (she was not a NMF but a friend of hers is). Some of the more elite schools do not offer much, if anything.</p>
<p>The Ivy League schools do not offer National Merit scholarships, nor do MIT, Stanford, Northwestern and several others that offer no merit awards at all.</p>
<p>However, many of the rest of the top private national universities do participate in the national merit program to various degrees: Vanderbilt Univ. offers all finalists who are admitted $5,000 per year (less if the student gets an additional merit award from VU); Univ. of Chicago offers $1K or $2K per year, depending on whether or not the student is eligible for financial aid; Washington Univ. offers $2K per year; I think Rice also participates. Many others, also. Check their websites. Of course, even 5K per year does not make that much of a dent in the full tuition/fees/r&b costs of these schools, but it is less to borrow, if nothing else.</p>
<p>While some public universities offer a LOT of scholarship money to finalists, especially engineering-oriented ones, many offer little, and in some cases none at all to out of state students (Univ. of Illinois, for example). Again, check websites.</p>
<p>Some of the finalists receive a one-time $2500 award directly from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, and the student receives that even if she/he attends a school that does not offer the scholarships itself.</p>
<p>are you sure that Northwestern doesn't offer anything? Because they were on the list of participating schools that was sent with the semi-finalist packet. I'm wondering because I put NW as my #1 (though it isn't) because of it being on that list.</p>
<p>^^^I'm guessing I'm wrong about that, then. In general, NU doesn't do merit aid, independent of financial need. There are a few schools that take a different approach to national merit awards than other merit awards. Sorry for the misinformation.</p>