<p>With thanks to two other posters (bkwrm655 and standrews), I was able to compile the following information from a thread in the Financial Aid. For students doing their college search and looking for where National Merit Scholars are attending, I thought that the following might be helpful in identifying where these top students are matriculating and also provide some insight into which schools might be more aggressively using their scholarship dollars to attract top students.</p>
<p>Rank, School, % of undergrads who are NMS </p>
<p>For National Universities</p>
<p>1 Rice 18.4%
2 Harvard 17.5%
3 U Chicago 16.3%
4 Yale 14.0%
5 Cal Tech 13.4%
6 MIT 13.1%
7 Wash U StL 13.1%
8 Princeton 12.9%
9 Northwestern 9.7%
10 Stanford 9.5%
11 Vanderbilt 8.4%
12 Duke 7.5%
13 Dartmouth 6.8%
14 Brown 6.3%
15 USC 4.9%
16 Case Western 4.9%
17 Columbia 4.7%
18 U Penn 4.1%
19 Tufts 4.1%
20 Brandeis 4.0%
21 Georgia Tech 3.4%
22 U North Carolina 3.4%
23 Emory 3.1%
24 U Florida 2.9%
25 Georgetown 2.9%
26 J Hopkins 2.8%
27 NYU 2.8%
28 U Texas 2.7%
29 Notre Dame 2.7%
30 U Rochester 2.0%
31 Cornell 1.9%
32 Carnegie Mellon 1.5%
33 Tulane 1.3%
34 UC Berkeley 1.2%
35 Wake Forest 1.1%
36 Boston College 1.0%
37 Lehigh 1.0%
38 Rensselaer 1.0%
39 U Illinois UC 1.0%
40 U Michigan 0.9%</p>
<p>kyledavid,
I was responding to a request on another thread about the concentrations and thus the original presentation. Here are the absolute numbers in rank order:</p>
<p>For National Universities</p>
<p>1 Harvard 294
2 U Florida 257
3 U Texas 250
4 Wash U StL 241
5 USC 206
6 Northwestern 198
7 U Chicago 196
8 Yale 186
9 Princeton 153
9 Stanford 153
11 NYU 145
12 U North Carolina 144
13 Rice 140
14 MIT 135
15 Vanderbilt 134
16 Duke 118
17 Georgia Tech 106
18 U Penn 100
19 Brown 94
20 U Illinois UC 76
21 UC Berkeley 70
22 Dartmouth 69
23 Cornell 64
24 Columbia 62
25 U Michigan 58
26 Notre Dame 56
27 Emory 51
27 Tufts 51
29 Georgetown 50
29 Case Western 50
31 U Washington 43
32 Brandeis 33
33 J Hopkins 31
33 U Virginia 31
35 Cal Tech 29
36 UCLA 25
37 U Rochester 24
38 Boston College 23
38 Penn State 23
40 Tulane 22
41 Carnegie Mellon 21
42 U Wisconsin 20
43 Rensselaer 13
44 Wake Forest 12
44 Lehigh 12
44 UC SD 12
47 W & M 10</p>
<p>Hawkette - you are including school sponsored National Merit Scholars. This is very different from regular National Merit Scholarships, and most selective colleges do not have school-sponsored national scholars. To get the actual number of National Merit Scholars, use the annual report list (<a href="http://www.nationalmerit.org/06_annual_report.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.nationalmerit.org/06_annual_report.pdf</a>) and subtract the number in the parenthesis next to the school name.</p>
<p>At least for LACs this seems surprising, unless something has changed.</p>
<p>Carleton used to be a major player in "college-sponsored" National Merit awards, providing up to $5,000 to semi-finalists. That's how they got the big #s of reported National Merit Scholars, as of a few years ago.</p>
<p>To "keep up with the Joneses", regional competitors Macalester and Oberlin did the same thing. (Maybe Grinnell too, don't know since D did not apply).</p>
<p>So, when my D1 was applying, Macalester and Oberlin also had relatively large contingents of college-sponsored National Merit scholarships, and showed up prominently on these lists.</p>
<p>Since then , the College Board seems to have changed the wording of these other awards to make them more distinct from the non-sponsored scholarships. And this might have had some effect on school merit aid practices.</p>
<p>If the situation has indeed changed such that the last two colleges have dropped off the National Merit map, or the college-sponsored scholarships are no longer included in the count, I find it surprising that Carleton would still have the same #s as previously. Which is what the above would indicate.</p>
<p>BTW, it's for this same reason that several big state schools ranked high in NMS winners, several years back. They were giving semi-finalists college-sponsored NM scholarships. Free rides, actually, in a number of cases. Not sure if this is going on in your current list or not.</p>
<p>This list only includes real National Merit Scholars, and not college-sponsored scholarships. The number of NMS in a class reflects on the strength of student body.</p>
<p>Hawkette's list had school sponsored scholarships, which are partial or full rides given out to students who were semi-finalists or otherwise did not win one of the National Merit sponsored scholarships.</p>
<p>The number of National Merit Scholars does not reflect on the strength of the student body, as much as it does performance on SAT scores and going to the school you listed as your top choice.</p>
<p>I agree with thethoughtprocess school-sponsored scholars should not be included. According to this press release <a href="http://www.nationalmerit.org/nmsc_07_colscholars.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.nationalmerit.org/nmsc_07_colscholars.pdf</a> school-sponsored NM scholars should really be called One of the 15,000 NM finalists who received at least 500$ in merit aid from the school they listed as their top choice. Be aware that of the 15,000 NM finalists, only 8,000 are scholars, including school-sponsored, so that leaves another 7,000 NM finalists who dont show up on this list at all, and are likely concentrated in schools that dont provide school-sponsored scholarships (ie most elite schools).</p>
<p>A better list would be total NM finalists by school, or else, as thoughtprocess says above, NM scholars excluding school-sponsored ones, which for the top 25 USNWR LACS would be:</p>
[quote]
most selective colleges do not have school-sponsored national scholars.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is not correct. MOST selective universities do indeed offer national merit stipends, ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars per year. They are awarded to National Merit finalists, not semi-finalists, who have not been offered--or who have not accepted--National Merit Scholarships from the National Merit Corporation or a private corporation. The few highly-selective schools that offer no merit aid do not constitute "most" selective colleges.</p>
<p>midmo, we are arguing about semantics. Most "most selective schools" don't offer school-sponsored national merit scholars. Is that better?</p>
<p>Unalove - NMS is a very prestigious award for a HS senior, and it certainly does mean that the student is very strong. Winning a National Merit Scholarship has to do with SAT scores, PSAT scores, class rank, EC's as well as an essay. Which in turn, means that number of NMS scholars in a college class reflects on the strength of the student body.</p>
<p>The agrument for excluding school sponsored winners makes little sense. I don't think state universities should somehow be "punished" for sponsoring NM Scholars from their own state. That should essentially be their DUTY as institutions founded first and foremoest to serve the citizens of their own state by providing an incentive to their brightest students. All manner of merit scholarships are already given by these institutions, including athletic scholarships. Why should NMS sponsorship be any different? The argument that institutions are trying to somehow "buy" NMS winners if they sponsor them only applies if they are either a) private institutions (which likely are trying to "buy" prestige) or b) public institutions that recruit NMS winners heavily out of state for the same reason. Otherwise to exclude these winners who choose to enroll in their home state public is completely irrational.</p>
<p>JWT86 - school-sponsored NMS are not actual National Merit Scholarship winners though. The NMS program, on the list they provide in their annual report, mentions who is an actual NMS winner. These students also get full-rides or similar preference from state universities. The number in paranthesis indicates those who are not actual National Merit Scholarship competition winners, but those who won a school sponsored award.</p>
<p>If there was no difference, the NMSC wouldn't provide separate numbers.</p>
<p>thethoughtprocess,
My impression is that the list that I provided is a fair reflection of the NMS scholarships that are awarded. Scholarships are awarded by three groups: NMS program itself, colleges, and corporations. The numbers are quite impressive:</p>
<p>1.4mm juniors took the PSAT
Commended Students by State are selected (about top 3%)
16,000 Semi-finalists are selected and asked to submit more data beyond the PSAT score including high school academic record, school recommendation, qualifying SAT score, and personal essay.
15,000 students qualified to go to the Finalist stage or barely 1% of the initial test-takers</p>
<p>It is from this group of 15,000 that the 8000+ NMS scholarships are awarded, some by NMS itself and some by colleges and some by corporations. The competition for these students is very keen and historically, these students would have been expected to go the colleges with strong academic histories and high prestige. While that pattern continues today, it is certainly less so than in the past as these students are now being wooed by a number of (mostly private) colleges who are looking to attract the best and the brightest and are putting their money where their mouth is. Whether a direct NMS scholarship winner or not, all of these 15,000 Finalists and the 8000+ who get scholarship money are extremely talented students and any school would be delighted to have them. </p>
<p>Some schools have historically targeted this group of students for merit aid. It is not unexpected that the schools with the historical prestige would try to minimize those who received college scholarship money, but let’s not lose sight of who is in play here. We are talking about some of the best and the brightest in the country. The Ivies and other elites may scoff at their efforts, but they college-sponsored scholarships can have an important impact on matriculation patterns. IMO the schools that are using their own money to attract these NMS Finalists should be applauded and recognized for their efforts and their success in attracting these students.</p>
<p>Yeah, but a National Merit Scholar is much harder to get then one that is sponsored by a college. I guess having multiple lists taking into account both numbers would be fairest.</p>
<p>I have always wondered how Carleton attracted so many NM scholars. They do offer a $2000/yr scholarship (their only merit aid) and will pay half the cost to fly in for accepted students weekend, but that's it. Still, my NM daughter did choose to go there. I have read that the admissions office tries very hard to be one of the first colleges to contact these students - as soon as the names are made available, they are sending out emails and letters.</p>