Well it comes directly from National Merit org and they have to get the college sponsored info from the college themselves. I don’t what you mean by rigged, but if you think they are, then it’s the colleges doing it. National Merit only knows the total number of awards, so if their list is off, then it’s the colleges that are being deceptive, which wouldn’t be the first time. Wiki has nothing to do with it, if you were implying that.
ALL NMF automatically get instate tuition rates.
UNM’s instate costs are
$9222 for tuition & fees (based upon 16 credits/semester)
$10,396 for a traditional dorm room (double occupancy) and the required freshman meal plan
TOTAL direct costs: $19,621
That leaves ~$400 for books.
Plus NMF get free summer tuition.
NMF can also stack any outside scholarships they receive.
NMF used to get a free iPad–though I don’t see it listed on the current awards page.
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Not a big deal?
BC → Catholic, BU → kind of Jewish; all meant w/humor, of course.
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Sorry - I missed the joke.
For the record, while BC, according to Hillel it has 350 Jewish students.
While BU has a larger population, I wouldn’t label it as something with 1/5 of students being that something.
So - yes, as a Jew, I don’t get the humor. And yes, this is why we have bigotry and other things in the country. Yes, I know not your intent - but it’s why.
Not sure why the comment was made - don’t see anything leading to it. Nonetheless, the joke fell flat.
You responded to a ranking comment - and last I checked we don’t rank religions. Well some do…but then that’s what causes issue in society.
Maybe i’m too serious - but iys, my family has been through enough bigotry in life, especially living in the south - that yes, it matters.
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No not Wiki, colleges paying to get them the designation then boasting high scholar enrollment. If same kids by choice pick colleges like Harvard, MIT, Stanford where there are no merit scholarships, those colleges can’t boast.
To become semifinalist you only need to score high enough on PSAT but to become finalist, you do need to have a solid resume. To get picked as actual scholar by the merit foundation, distinguished accomplishments are needed.
Chicago’s NMF scholarship was $2k per year for the class that graduated in 2021. Given that UChicago’s tuition is higher than just about everyone else, nobody was choosing it over other schools just due to the scholarship.
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Looking at a National Merit spreadsheet that I’ve compiled, Alabama had 258 National Merit Scholars enroll in 2019 (last year NMSC has released full information for), up from 185 in 2018 and 134 in 2017. (Most of that seems stolen from Oklahoma, which dropped from 317 in '17 to 87 in '19). So with four years of National Merit Scholars on campus (more or less), 940 seems a very plausible number.
Caltech Is usually in the top 10
As noted, 940 is the total enrolled at Alabama - so four year’s worth, plus those who may take an extended time to graduate. That total is certainly plausible with 281 being enrolled in the most recent year.
“National Merit Scholar” is the title for anyone receiving a scholarship through the program. The 2,500 number noted above is the number of scholarships directly from NMC, another 1,000 scholarships are offered by corporations to children of employees, and the largest number, 4,000, come directly from Universities
I have no idea what Alabama’s mix is, but it’s theoretically possible that all 281 had students applied to/listed Alabama as their first choice and were given scholarships by Alabama, making them National Merit Scholars, with no scholarships from Corporations or NMC.
Many of the other listed “top schools” don’t offer NM-scholarships. So the 200+ scholars at Harvard, just to pick one, received scholarships directly from NMC, or the employer of a parent, not from the school.
I suspect Alabama is very aggressive in University-based NM scholarship offers.
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I believe the NMF students have until sometime in May to change their 1st choice college, so they can wait until their decisions are in, then change it to Alabama (or whatever school) if needed. They don’t have to stick with whatever 1st choice they selected back in Nov/Dec and then are stuck with it.
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No college makes the top 10 on all ranking lists because they use different arbitrary criteria. However, the more frequently referenced lists tend to choose weightings that keep high endowment per student colleges near the top, so HYPSM are almost always near the top of such lists (HYPSM are the 5 highest endowment per student “national universities”). . Seeing HYPSM on top gives the lists more credibility among readers. The lists look right, so readers are more likely to purchase.
That said, there are some exceptions. For example, Forbes changed their rankings this year in such a way to put UC Berkeley on top. Under Forbes new rankings, HYPSM still compose 5 of the top 7, but Caltech (#40), Chicago (#23), Duke, and various other familiar names are not among the top 10.
I’m not sure if Washington Monthly counts as a “worth their salt” list, but Princeton and Yale (#17 and #18) were not among their top 10 of their 2021 list. In earlier years before they changed their weightings to better favor high endowment per student colleges, none of HYPSM were among the top 10. For example, in one of their earlier years, the top 5 were;
Old Washington Monthly Rankings
1 . UC San Diego
2. UC Riverside
3. Texas A&M
4. Case Western
5. UC Berkeley
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Re: BU vs. BC
I think they’re about even overall. Both are strong academically, though you can study more things at BU. The settings are wildly different and BC has smaller classes. So it’s a bit like comparing a university and a LAC. It just depends on what the kid wants.
Is this the ranking that has Princeton #8? That’s… off. For undergrad overall, i don’t think there is a better university than Princeton. They care about their undergrads and put more emphasis on them than the rest of HYPSM.
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I don’t think ranked #8 in USA is bad. However, Princeton’s emphasis on undergrad is a key reason why Princeton is ranked below HYSM. For example, Princeton is the highest endowment per student college in the USA by a wide margin. Specific numbers from a previous year are below.
Princeton – $3.3m per student
Yale – $1.9m per student
Stanford – $1.6m per student
Harvard – $1.6m per student
MIT – $1.5 m per student.
With this high an endowment per student, one might expect that Princeton would be #1 in the WSJ/THE “resources” category which counts for a high 30% of overall ranking. However, instead Princeton ranked 1.7/1.8 below Harvard/MIT in the resources category. I suspect that Princeton’s emphasis on undergrad is hurting them in the publications per faculty component of the resources ranking (resources is 11% finance per student, 11% SF ratio, and 8% pub per faculty). If Princeton ranked as high as Harvard in resources, then Princeton’s ranking would jump from #8 to #4, such that the top 5 would HSMPY.
However, the category that hurts Princeton the most is not resources. It’s the student survey. If Princeton students answered as high as Harvard students did on the student survey and no other changes, then Princeton would again jump from #8 to #4. To get higher than #4, Princeton would both need to improve their publications per faculty and student survey, rather than just one or the other.
Of course, these weightings are arbitrary and unmeaningful, rather than an accurate measure of which college is best. While Princeton is a fine college, it is by no means the best college in the USA for all students or even for a large portion of individual students, and this would be reflected in weightings of what particular students value in colleges.
I admire a ranking that includes national universities and liberal arts colleges on the same list. Lots of reasons why this makes sense IMO.
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We can’t fully account for the kids who answered (and those who didn’t answer…) that student survey. Maybe mostly negative kids were surveyed. Whether the survey was open and voluntary or the surveyed group was selected, well, it’s pretty hard to make that measure valid and reliable unless all students have access to it, time to do it (maybe the happy kids were busy…), questions are equally applicable to schools without bias, etc.
I don’t know if the survey was done when Princeton students were not happy with the administration’s grade deflation policy. And it wasn’t really even grade deflation, it was just not inflating grades, however the Princeton students said that companies wouldn’t understand grading policies and just compare GPAs and see a lower one from Princeton. Needless to say, the grade deflation policy was ended.
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https://reachhighscholars.org/college_endowments.html
Why does Grinnell rank so highly in endowment per student (#11 in above list)? It’s been a prep school feeder for a long time but I thought it was similar to Kenyon which has 1/4 the amount. Does Grinnell have a unique endowment characteristic, like Emory with Coca-Cola?
Warren Buffet was a trustee and continued to advise the endowment managers long after he finished his term. How tiny Grinnell College’s endowment outperformed the Ivy League - MarketWatch
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Grinnell was also one of the initial investors in Intel. Robert Noyce was a member of the class of ‘49.
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