<p>Two NMF here. One went to Eastman School of Music, part of University of Rochester and got $2000 / year from the school. Other went to Oberlin and got $2000/yr. from that school as well.</p>
<p>HOPE is the instate tuition scholarship offered to GA students who attend a GA college/university and have/maintain a 3.0 GPA. It covers tuition (about $3k) plus some univ fees and books. Total value is approx $4k/yr. Unfortunately the program is bleeding money and is expected to be cut back soon. </p>
<p>Both of my sons were NM scholarship winners. Older s’s school (Rice) gives differing amounts based on need. He only received $750/yr . Younger s gets $2k/year at Tulane. Both had some other merit money, but you asked about NMS so I will limit my response to that.</p>
<p>I read somewhere that the University of Tulsa had quite a few NMF’s.</p>
<p>My son accepted a National Merit offer at Alabama, where he receives full tuition, honors housing, study abroad/research money ($2000), a laptop and a $1000 stipend each year. He got NM offers from USC, Arizona, Arizona State, Michigan State, the U. of Central Florida, Oklahoma and several others, but he liked the various honors programs that Alabama offers. The school also accepted all of his AP credit, so he has a chance to triple major and get his masters all in four years. He knows several other NM scholars at Alabama. Like him, they had many offers from many fine schools (including the Ivies), but most have the same story as he does. Liked the honors programs. Plan to graduate debt free and head to grad, med or law school.</p>
<p>Since this thread might be seen by a lot of parents of NMFs, here’s a little tip: If Northwestern University is on your child’s list, read their policies very, very carefully. NU gives their own 4-year scholarships to National merit scholars, but NOT if the scholar gets the one-time $2,500 NMSC scholarship. Since the Northwestern scholarship is a 4-year scholarship, in the long run, your scholar could end up with less total $$ simply because he/she was chosen by NMSC.</p>
<p>Thanks to the person who gave the tip about the annual report. I am quite amazed at how many national merit scholars end up at places like HYP- which give them not one dime in merit aid. I guess many of those scholars are still getting sizeable need-based aid.</p>
<p>Many of the top schools give little or no money for NMF, but they still attract a lot of NMF due to reputation and academic rigor. </p>
<p>There are also schools that offer good deals for NMF. There are threads for that in ohter sections. For example, Northeastern in Boston offers full tuition scholarship for NMF… and I think I read that they have 85 NMF in the freshman class.</p>
<p>Many of the NMFs are from families that can pay for HPY without aid.</p>
<p>Phillips Andover Academy’s graduating class averages about 10% NMF’s.</p>
<p>I wonder how public and private secondary schools compare regarding percent of NMFs?</p>
<p>My NMF daughter #1 got full tuition scholarship at Baylor bc of being NMF. She graduated in May and now is teaching 5th grade in Tulsa through “Teach For America”.</p>
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<p>This is typical for National Merit. You can only take one award: the $2500, your school’s scholarship, or a corporate scholarship. (Winners of the $2500 are given an opportunity to decline before the May announcement. I assume afterwards National Merit goes and redistributes the remaining scholarships.) The wrinkle is that at some schools–Alabama comes to mind–only part of their NMF scholarship is an official NM school scholarship. That portion can’t be more than $2k/year; the rest is awarded directly by the school and isn’t subject to these restrictions. Generally.</p>
<p>On that note, there are also schools which will not stack their NM scholarship and need-based aid. I, ah, almost found that out the hard way.</p>
<p>S#1 was 2006 finalist, but did not receive an award from NMSC. He graduated from Thomas Aquinas College (CA)–which offers no merit aid. Oklahoma was his 2nd choice. Other schools also offered full rides/near full rides–including Hendrix (Governors Scholar), Tulsa, Arkansas,etc. He made this choice for social/cultural/religious reasons. S#2, HS junior, has a qualifying score. We will be looking for big $. (UTD, U.Dallas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Tulsa, Alabama, Auburn. . .) Considering our finances, I still feel it was a mistake for S#1 to turn down the scholarships.</p>
<p>They go all over the place, besides “big name” schools. Find the thread with the list for schools that give full ride to NMFs.</p>
<p>University of Cincinnati, for example, has had 50 scholarships each year for NMFs. That means there are close to 200 of them on campus (allowing for transfers or whatever.) Next year they have allotted 60 scholarships for NMFs.</p>
<p>University of Arizona has been doing this for longer than UC. I once knew the figures but there are a ton of NMFs there.</p>
<p>U of Oklahoma at one time had the greatest number of NMFs at a public U due to its great merit aid. Not sure if they still do.</p>
<p>My son was a NMF and attends USC film school. He gets the half tuition Presidential Scholar award and an extra $1000 per year for National Merit, plus another $2500 per year merit award that they surprised him with. Total value for 4 years will be around $90k, and we’re happy campers :)</p>
<p>Only about 1/3 of NMF get a schoraship from them. Therefore NMS corp won’t have the data on most students. The lists of NMS at schools won’t include those 2/3 of NMF either. </p>
<p>I was a NMS eons ago- went to UW with a one time award. Will always wonder if i had ranked UW as my #1 choice if I would have gotten the 4 year one like a HS classmate and a college friend did ( I wanted to leave town, the only way was via a scholarship so aaI listed another school… so naive).</p>
<p>Son was a NMF. Did not encourage him to list UW since we have the money- won’t know if he could have gotten one from them. Better that someone else got the money. He also may have been more grades driven if it meant getting needed scholarship money (could have had an unweighted 4.0 if he wanted to).</p>
<p>Answer to the question- just about anywhere. And while the money helps it doesn’t make all colleges affordable for everyone.</p>
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Amen to that.</p>
<p>My dd is at UCLA now. She received lots of offers, the highest from Northeastern for their pharmacy program valued at over 200K.</p>
<p>For UCLA, we pay full tuition and room and board. Did not make a dime out of NMF…</p>
<p>I received the $2500 scholarship from National Merit, and WashU will pay $2500 for the next three years. It didn’t affect my decision, but it’s nice just to change that first digit from a 5 to a 4, at least psychologically.</p>
<p>There are some good threads in National Merit section (from “Financial Aid” link)
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/</a></p>
<p>Example
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-updated-compilation.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-updated-compilation.html</a></p>
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<p>I would check this carefully with the school. It is hard for me to believe that this is accurate.</p>
<p>WUSTL (which is very similar to NW in many ways, and attracts many of the same students) has similar $2,000/year award for NMFs. However, kids who get the $2,500 from NMC, get the NMC scholarship as freshmen, then WUSTL continues with $2,500/year for the remaining 3 years. (So the U ends up paying $7,500 instead of $8,000, but the student gets $10,000). I bet NW’s system is similar.</p>
<p>Last year I had a meeting with the admissions officer at Northwestern. Yes it is true, if you take the one time 2500, you won’t get the 4-year deal… </p>
<p>Maybe it’s different this year…</p>