afa81

The University of Arizona proudly offers out of state National Merit Finalists, National Achievement Program Semifinalists, or National Hispanic Scholars a scholarship package of $20,000. National Merit Finalists must name the University of Arizona as their first choice school in order to receive this award, which includes the college-sponsored, corporate-sponsored, or NMSC-sponsored scholarship award. The total value of this award over four years is $80,000.


http://www.honors.arizona.edu/Nation...rs/details.htm

OH_DAD

My son is a senior, and I offer a STRONG ENDORSEMENT of the Cincinnati recommendation. The only negative about Cincinnati is that the neighborhood surrounding the campus is downright scary; you can also infer this by the dormitory security which is prevalent. You don't just walk into a dorm there - you go past a security desk and check in. Otherwise, we were treated like dignitaries, and the faculty was impressive.

Our best experience, and most likely the school he will attend, is University of Central Florida in Orlando. He's going into Aerospace Engineering, and although UCF is absolutely NOT the best of the programs out there, the school and facilities, and neighborhood, and crew program are just great. Also the campus is large but not overwhelming, and the ratio of F/M is about 60/40, and (this may seem ridiculous, but I'm sorry, it's important to us and him) so his social prospects are enhanced. UCF wants out-of-state students badly, and they go out of their way to show it. When we visited, they paid for rental car, hotel, meals, everything - probably would have bought airline tickets too, but frankly, I felt it was important that we "met them halfway" on some of the expenses.

Finally a word about all the incessant dialogue elsewhere on this site about engineering school rankings....we've considered that, and it's my opinion as an engineer that in today's world, you're not likely to break into the top eschelon of R/D or Management with a BS anyway. Therefore, we are pretty much taking the approach of going for the NMF "Full Ride" at a school which offers it, knowing full-well that the TOP TOP TOP schools do not offer NMF rides. Who cares? Get a debt-free BS, then get the MS or PhD, quite possibly paid for by the future employer. A huge advantage of UCF is that Orlando has a thriving economy and the Research Park which links to the campus affords an inherent hiring pool which I feel is unmatched at just about any other institution. It is well known that graduates of an institution like to hire from their Alma Mater, and relative to UCF, I'm really liking the hiriing odds within 150 mile radius of that campus. Weekly maid service in honors dorm...need I go on?

jlauer95

Oh-Dad. You are soooo right. The successful engineers in my family (and there are a bunch!) all went to "regular colleges" for their b.s's AND then went to more prestigious schools for their grad degrees (and most of them got their employers to pay for those pricy grad degrees at the school of their choice). They all graduated debt free.

workingforblue

JLAUER95,
Oh-Dad is correct that Purdue offers very little merit aid to out-of-state NMF. D was in-state NMF and, when combined with other Purdue merit aid, offered about 3/4 ride. However, she looked elsewhere and is now a freshman AE/ME at Univ. Alabama at Huntsville (your back yard) and is very happy. They have a top notch engineering program in several fields and for AE majors (part of ME) both Army and NASA have huge facilities locally. This means every Aerospace contractor in the country has an office in large research park (which is across the street from the campus). Also have a great coop program (great work experience while attending school and good source of funds if merit aid does not work out). Finally, resident halls are better than any I've seen, every student gets a private room. At UAH D received full tuition plus for NMF. D also looked at GaTech, Riddle, Fla Tech, Rose. If you want more info feel free to PM me. UAH sounds very similar to description Oh-Dad gave for UCF.

jlauer95

working for blue: Very familiar with it all; hubby works in Research Park. The dorms at UAH are nice -- all brick -- many are brand new --watched them being built. Plus the school is paying for the "greek row" houses to be built. The goal is to make the school more nationally appealling.

OH_DAD

We'll give UAH a look, too. Although with apparently less than a week until decision time, we're not doing a lot more checking until we know what the NMF result is going to be.

Visirale

I was wanting to go ivy, but I realized it just wasn't fair to expect my parents to shell out that much for college. I can finish higher in the class at a more local college and be better off for law-school.

Right now I'm considering UCF.

I would get annualy:
$9880 for NMF
$2500 NMS
$3000 Florida bright futures
$1000 my parents pre-paid plan

For a school whose tuition is roughly $3000

I would get all my general ed requirements wiped (because of IB) and I would automatically be accepted into the honors college because of NMF. I think that I'm going to pursue a double major in business administration and law-studies.

Not bad. It's a good 30 minutes away from home, and my parents said I could get an apartment and share it with my best friend. They said I could also trade in my car for something sportier... so I'm thinking about getting an Infiniti G35.

I did the math and I would make around 6000 dollars a year for attending college. That is NOTHING to complain about.

There are some amazing things for NMFs to do. Up until a few weeks ago I was blinded by the "Ivy or bust" mentality. But I discovered that there are other options that are much more grad-school-expense friendly.

Just a reminder to keep an open mind.

ohnoes

Uh, why not just go to UF?

esmith2164

I don't know what other colleges offer finalists, but I know that the U of Alabama a great deal if you name them first choice. They supply full tuition, room & board, mandatory fees, a $1000 towards study abroad after your freshman year, and a laptop computer. U of Alabama has a lovely campus in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It is an hour from Birmingham, three hours from Atlanta, and 4 hours from the Gulf beaches.

U of Alabama has an excellent computer based honors program, its communication department in in the top 10 nationally, the business school is very good with an excellent accounting department, and it has a pretty good football team.

jlauer95

esmith: I just got the book on Honor's Programs and I noticed that U of Alabama was the only one that got 3 separate honors listings -- including the "computer-based honors programs" but I couldn't tell what is the difference and why one is called that. Do you know?

esmith2164

The computer based honors program is different from a regular honors track. You take several computer language courses and computer science courses your freshman year, then in your sophmore year you are paired one on one with a faculty member in your area of interest, say, international business, or engineering, and you work as a computer oriented research assistant to him or her. If he publishes, you get credited, nice for grad school. UA has a website, honors@ua.edu

BlueDragon5906

ummm, UF definitely doesnt give full tuition for national merit finalists, only 5,500 per semester, when I checked, which doesnt cover even half of out of state tuition.

Im in state, and Ill be going to FSU. the campus is better, they have great facilities, their music program is one of the best in the nation. With all the scholarships I have from national merit and a merit scholarship that they gave me (without so much as an extra application, free 9600$) ill probably be making money at college. I actually attended a dinner for national merit at UCF, if youre going into engineering its great, and it seems like an expanding school, but it just wasnt for me. The NM scholarship is pretty impressive though, and orlando is a great area.

whenwillitbeover

BlueDragon:

NMFinalist award for non-florida residents, if you select UF as first choice: $9,500/yr...PLUS waiver of non-resident fee: $13,000/yr...which brings total cost down to $3,040/yr (basically free in my book)

This is straight off of a flyer I got in the mail, twice.

juzam_djinn

in the selection for the people who will receive the $2500 scholarship from nmsc themselves, do they take into account which college the student will be going to (as in, if the school the student will go to doesn't offer full rides for nm finalists, will that help the student get the $2500)?

jlauer95

When will it: Are you a senior? When will juniors who have high enough PSAT scores start receiving such info from colleges that want them to select them as "first choice"?