Can he use it at any school in the country?
When/how do we find out if we received a scholarship?
Log in to the portal.
@What???!! Yes, that one can be used anywhere.
If i log into the portal and don’t see any updates what does this mean?
I marked my top choice as Yale but today I got rejected from Yale and accepted to Harvard (which I will probably attend). Should I change my college choice for NMSF to Harvard?
@16elir you can change it but I don’t believe they participate.
Does anyone know how often colleges get updates on kids that have put them down as their NM first choice?
White space, Northeastern offers a much more substantial scholarship for National Merit finalists but you have to name NEU as your first choice school through the National Merit website where you registered as a semifinalist. The scholarship is (I believe)$30K per year. You can use the $30K ONLY at Northeastern. It does not transfer to other schools.
You can have the Northeastern scholarship or the National Merit $2500 but not both.
If you were offered a different scholarship at Northeastern with your acceptance, the National Merit $30K would REPLACE the other you already received. NEU does not “stack” scholarship offers.
@whitespace If you haven’t already, you must list Northeastern as your first choice college BY APRIL 4! Otherwise you will not get the big money from NEU.
I do not believe this is true of the entire $30k per year, although it may be true for some part of it.
From the NMSC student guide description of the program:
According to this, at most $2k per year of the $30k is the official part from NMSC that may have to be forfeited by a winner of the one-time $2500 award.
My D named Northeastern as her first choice with NM, so they offered us the $30K - but took away our need-based aid. If you are getting need-based aid – be aware the NM is used to “meet” your need. It’s great if you don’t need aid, but if you do (at least, in our case), it’s pretty much worthless.
If you are a National Merit Finalist and did not get the merit aid you hoped for from your IVY League, LAC, or other “reach” college, it is not too late to apply to the University of Oklahoma; which gives all OOS National Merit Finalists $124,000.00, or more. http://www.ou.edu/content/dam/recruitment/scholarships/NMpackage_2016_NonRes.pdf
Thanks everyone ( @cazmom @STEMfamily @aacvj103 ) for the scholarship help. Unfortunately I have to turn down the $2500 - but fortunately I get the $30k/year, so I’m not too upset about that. 
I’ll still have a significant amount of need-based aid on top of that and NEU will be very affordable.
I am still trying to understand how this works. I was under the impression if you got a NM scholarship (such as the $2500) and you also got a large offer from the school itself…that the school would just reduce their amount the first year by $2500 so the total was the same (ie: freshman year @whitespace would get $2500 + 27,500 NEU = 30,000) Is this not correct? Why would @whitespace need to turn down the $2500?
It is not as simple as that. All schools have a certain amount that they donate to NMSC to participate in the NM Scholarship program. According to NMSC, the amounts for these “college-sponsored” scholarships vary from $500 to $2000/yr. This is money that the college donates to NMSC and is awarded to the student from NMSC itself. Colleges often don’t make it easy to even find out how much of their awards for National Merit Finalists are the official NMSC part. If a student has the $2500 from NMSC, they cannot also get the college-sponsored amount that comes directly from NMSC. The college is not obligated to replace the difference between the amount it awards through the NMS program and the $2500. Some, but certainly not all, do make up the difference from their own internal funds.
I’m not really trying to understand it anymore, really. I just called the fin aid office and got their advice in writing.
We were surprised to find out that Northeastern does not automatically give $30K National Merit money to finalists. We originally got a preliminary Dean’s scholarship amount coupled with a need grant for a total of more than $30K in December in connection with early action admission. We expected that to be replaced with the National Merit $30K. Although we expected the total aid to be the same, we thought we would be better having it mostly merit based as we have a family business that had a down year and another in school and figured need based aid likely would be reduced in later years. However, the National Merit amount plugged in by NEU was less than $30K. When we followed up with NEU, we were told that National Merit finalists get “up to” $30K and the full amount is not guaranteed (the “up to” language is on the website). However, we also were told that it is better to have the need grant remain in full because NEU guarantees that amount for eight semesters even if “we hit the lottery” and, unlike the merit awards, the need awards are adjusted upward each year in line with the percentage cost increase. The rep suggested that in making our final choice, we check to see if the other schools have something similar to what he referred to as the “Northeastern Guarantee.” Seems odd that need based aid would be guaranteed if circumstances improve, but o.k. with us if they stand by it. Makes me wonder if it is unusual to guarantee continuation of need based aid over four years.
Re: post# 472
The ivy’s dont give merit scholarships, Rayznhell
@BostonDadof2 I’m really not sure what to make of that situation. I’ll make sure to come back and post how much I’m awarded when I get my final fin aid package.
Today’s plot twist: National Merit called me, said Northeastern was wrong, advised me that I could take both, and said they weren’t accepting the decline until I called back. This was via voicemail, I will be calling back tomorrow.