Exactly. For example, university of connecticut is not listed. That school is huge, and draws a lot of high testing local students. I’m sure there are a few NMF there, even though they are not reflected in this list. Those NMF choose to attend a school that does not sponsor NMS and none of those finalists won the $2500 scholarship. NMS could mean 100s of thousand(s) of tuition, or nothing, depending on choices students make.
I have a question on declaring 1st choice college, college-sponsored NMF scholarships, and the one-time NMSC $2,500 scholarship award. My d received a full-ride scholarship at a university that awards competitive, college-sponsored NMF scholarships. From their website, it appears they do not offer anything to NMSF- only to NMF. My d received her scholarship offer in December. There is no wording in the scholarship that being named NMF is a requirement for receiving her scholarship. We received notification letter at our home from NMSC verifying that d has made it to finalist standing. As of this date, d has declared her 1st choice college with NMSC as “undecided”. She will be accepting the full-ride scholarship offer from this university and withdrawing all other applications shortly.
Questions:
- Is it safe to assume that although the University does sponsor NMF scholarships, hers is not related to those offers and for the University scholarship it is not really necessary to declare this university as her 1st choice to get the full-ride scholarship?
- Assuming the answer to the question above is yes (she does not have to declare the University her 1st choice) , is there any reason to not go ahead and declare her 1st choice college as this university with NMSC?
- Should she go ahead and declare this University as her 1st choice so that she would be eligible for the one-time NMSC $2,500 award?
While this matter may seem simple, I just want to make sure I am viewing this correctly and do not want to make any costly mistakes. Thanks in advance for any help 
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You know what they say about “assume”. Since the school is her choice and she is going to withdraw other offers, why not call the school’s financial aid office, explain that she is accepting their offer, and walk through their scholarship offer and what it represents? That is the best way not to make mistakes.
@momofsmartdancer I would not assume that the offer was for her pretty resume stats totally unrelated to NMF status–especially since they give nothing to NMSF. @wandlmink is right. Call the FA office. Then you might also call the NMSC office to get answer to your #3.
@RedbirdDad My son is CS and it looks like he will go to Baylor. We visited Baylor, SMU and A&M. His dad is CS - with a BS from TA&M and a masters from UT Austin. In his software field, he works with a lot of EE and CS PhDs from a lot of different schools, and he took the CS tours with my son.
SMU had a really cool program that has kind of a Maker type workroom to involve a variety of engineering students together. It looked interesting to my son, but he was really interested more in pure software than engineering, so he wasn’t sure how much he would use it. They also seem to not offer as much on scholarships (he missed the early deadline for them and we still haven’t heard.)
A&M won’t let you take any computer science classes your freshman year; if I remember correctly you take general engineering. And my son wants to TAKE classes where he CODES every year :), so his dad’s alma mater moved down on his list.
At Baylor, he liked the approach to programming, emphasis on C++, engineering dorm, and summer internships. And CS will be moving into the renovated Business school building next year; bigger building than they were in. (Business school is moving to a new building.)
(I am not the software engineer in the family, so I hope I got all that correct!)
Update - DS received his finalist notification today! The appeal worked (#226 in thread).
@Susieknits Congratulations to your DS! So nice to see that the appeal process worked out for him.
Still no mail or word in Arizona. . .
Congrats @Susieknits!! How exciting!
Thanks for posting the results of the appeal. I am sure future NMSFs will appreciate it.
Ok finally got word in Arizona at home - daughter is a finalist!!! WOO HOO!!!
Got word in South FL via mail. Finalist even with more than one C on transcript, but they were tough classes. So glad!
@momsdeals , Did you get the notification in mail today or heard from school?
In the mail - haven’t heard anything from the school as of yet.
Received notification of finalist status in SoCal today! No word from the school though…
Received DD’s National Merit Finalist notification in mail at home in Pasadena, CA area. School did not receive certificate yet. What a relief!
Got finalist letter in FL today… 3.2 UW, 3.6 W, C’s in Spanish 2 and Algebra 2. Suppose I slipped through the cracks.
Letter received in CA.
The college my kid listed at first choice is not a “Sponsor College” should he change it to another school?
@Susieknits congrats!
My DD got her notification in the mail today (central Florida). Still no word from her school
Finally got the letter at home in WI today, still nothing at the school. Feeling very relieved!
Do you think that it would be a good idea to notify your RD schools of NMF?