<p>Its still worth $2500 and lots of intrinsic satisfaction. A freshman can rightly say they bought their own laptop or whatever.</p>
<p>Yeah…seems like some colleges are letting the cat out of the bag a little early. Got a letter in the mail today from UT-Austin to the effect of ‘You will soon be receiving word of your designation as a National Merit Finalist…blah blah blah’. Way to take the wind out of my sails of suspense.</p>
<p>It’s only worth $2500 if you’re allocated one of the NMF grants from your state. None of the kids I know who’ve been NMFs have ever received one (including my own S).</p>
<p>S also had a C+ junior year, so we’ve been wondering about NMF too. His first SAT was 2030 or thereabouts, but his retake was 2210. I think that’s kind of odd about kids who didn’t make it being notified, but since we haven’t heard, I guess that’s good.</p>
<p>Chalk up another information advantage to being on CC!</p>
<p>I’m confused. Assumed NMF based on PSAT, not SAT</p>
<p>Also, I thought students wrote an essay to move to finalist, and student let the organization know where to send the check (if moved ahead)</p>
<p>Does anyone have any insights about what it takes to move from being a finalist to actually being selected for a (non-corporate) scholarship?</p>
<p>bookworm</p>
<p>Semifinalist status is based on PSAT; then you send in SAT scores, transcript, an essay and a rec from the hs. We have heard nothing, but I expect we will soon. Though none of my son’s schools give a lot of $$ for NMF, some really like to say how many NMF’s they have, so it’s a tip toward admission.</p>
<p>I don’t know what moves you ahead to a non-college-sourced, non-corporate-sourced scholarship.</p>
<p>If I remember my numbers correctly, there are 12,500 NMFs, of which only 2500 get the $2,500 scholarship (one time only) from the National Merit Corporation. Most monies come from either corporate scholarships (recepient has parent who works for a sponsoring organiation), or directly through the school. Announcements are made in 3 stages, I believe, and released to newspapers, which is really confusing. The National Merit scholarship itself is the last one released.
We were very happy that my daughter received one of the $2,500 scholarships since her school did not award Ntl Merit money. From what I could see from local kids who received the award, it was very stats driven (super high SAT, combined with high GPA). Unlike some reward designations, ECs did not appear to come into play.
Hope this helps.</p>
<p>What is the timeframe for receiving this notification (specifically the one-time $2500 award)? Does anyone know when it was released last year?</p>
<p>I am not sure, but believe it was late spring, maybe May??</p>
<p>According to the Carleton website, the “National” and corporate awards happen in March and the college-sponsored ones in April. I seem to recall reading about awards later than that last year, but maybe the actual awards were given earlier.</p>
<p>National Merit site shows the press release date for the National scholarship to be May 2, which is what I remember. I recall being notified by mail only a couple of weeks prior to the press announcement, although that was a very busy time and I could be wrong.
<a href=“http://www.nationalmerit.org/press_releases.php[/url]”>http://www.nationalmerit.org/press_releases.php</a></p>
<p>I could be really, really wrong about this but my observation about the kids in our area who were awarded the one time $2500 Natl Merit scholarship were kids who were going to schools that typically do not offer the college sponsored ones. Of course, they were all very high stats kids, but most kids who make Natl Merit are high stats.<br>
I do think the Natl Merit folks like to see as many kids as possible get some $'s for achieving Natl Merit. So my observation is if your first choice school has a college sponsored Natl Merit award or you qualify for a corporate award, you would automatically be out of the running for the Natl Merit one.</p>
<p>One more question - how do you change your first choice school? I put “undecided” at the time but have since been accepted at my first choice school.</p>
<p>Go to the NMF website…there’s info there. I believe you have until March 1 to make any changes.</p>
<p>Our public magnet usually has several dozen NMF (of a class size of about 140) and usually the kids who get the non college, non corporate scholarship are very heavy into science. Could just be a fluke, but humanities oriented kids never seem to get the money. Still nice for them to know that they are the brightest of the bright, I guess.</p>
<p>I’m getting nervous because a full ride from my state U depends on it. Here’s an email I got from Vanderbilt after inquiring about designation deadlines: </p>
<p>There are 2 deadlines to be aware of - the first is in mid-April (I
think it’s April 18th this year, but check the National Merit paperwork
to be sure) and the second is May 31st. Between being named a Finalist
and that mid-April deadline, you can designate a first choice school at
any time. You can also change that first choice designation at any time
before that mid-April deadline by writing to the National Merit
Corporation. On that day in mid-April, though, you become locked into
receiving a scholarship offer from the university that you have listed
as your first choice. So if you change your mind the next week and
decide to attend a different university, you won’t be able to receive
their National Merit scholarship offer because you can only receive an
official offer from one school.</p>
<p>However, if you’re not sure which university you’ll attend and you want
to give yourself the maximum amount of time to decide, you can list
“undecided” as your designated school choice. By being “undecided”, you
have until May 31st to designate a first choice school. Since you’ll
have to accept an offer of admission somewhere by May 1, you’ll be able
to definitively list the school where you’ll be attending and receive
their scholarship offer.</p>
<p>As far as Vanderbilt is concerned, designating us by that May 31st
deadline is fine - our scholarship money will still be there. It gets
tricky, though, when you’re looking at other schools with earlier
internal deadlines for designating because they have a limited number of
National Merit Scholarships. You may find that it’s to your advantage
to designate another school as your first choice initially so that you
don’t miss out on being eligible for their offer and then switch your
designation once you have all your acceptances and financial aid
packages in hand in early April.</p>
<p>I’ll go public, it’s not like I haven’t posted WashDadJr’s story before. With a single-test SAT (for the NMS people – his second test was higher) score of 1490/2100 and a GPA (UW) of 3.1, he was NOT selected to be a Finalist. This was with strong endorsement from his high school, too. So, we have a data point – 3.1 with a 2100 is not high enough.</p>
<p>
No, NMC sponsored $2500 scholarship recipients are selected first - before the corporate or school sponsored ones. DD got one, even though she was planning on attending a school that offers NMScholarships. I called and asked about this specifically. :)</p>
<p>I heard that this year they are looking for a 1300 CR + M and a 51 on the writing multiple choice, not a 2000.</p>