Best I remember from my older kid, some (not all) colleges will not allow you to use their own national merit scholarship if you have taken any from the national merit scholarship corporation. Therefore if the college’s own scholarship is greater than the $2500 (or whatever you were awarded) then you would refuse and take your college one instead. This is why I am pretty convinced that first-choice designation factors into who and how they award the scholarships, even though the website makes it sound like distribution is purely based on merit.
I haven’t got a dog in this fight though, I don’t have a current senior. I came over here to see what the latest big school-sponsored national merit scholarships are, since my junior likely qualified.
My understanding is that you can’t refuse one NMS scholarship because you want a different one.
For example, USC offers a half tuition scholarship to NMF. That is not a NMS scholarship. The USC college sponsored NMS scholarship ($4K) is awarded to NMF who did not receive a NMS scholarship from either NMSC or a corporation. That USC college sponsored scholarship is stacked on top of the half-tuition NMF Presidential scholarship, but you can’t refuse the NMSC NMS scholarship and receive the USC NMS scholarship. You basically get what you get.
I assumed because you can only get one and if you are eligible for corporate or college, you may want that since they tend be more $, not sure if that’s how it works. Secondly if someone goes to WestPoint etc. they cant use this money.
Please call NMSC to confirm whether or not you are eligible to receive a second NMS scholarship if you decline the NMSC $2500. In past years, people on this forum have posted that NMSC told them they can’t do that. I don’t want to mislead people, so call for yourself.
Interesting. Were their full rides NMF-based too? I might not have been clear enough because I meant the school’s NMF scholarship specifically and the NMSC award wouldn’t stack. I have checked with 2 schools now and one says it would have no impact on general merit award - so $2500 will stack and reduce our OOP - and another that said they would reduce general merit so it DOES change our OOP (whomp whomp). Truly seems to vary from school to school.
I’m clueless on how this works. Please advise. D24 got a finalist letter a few weeks back, and of the 10 apps she had in, only one had a NM scholarship (1k per year). She put that school first, and did get admitted … but she has several admits, and may not end up choosing that school. I don’t think she’s heard anything from the. What are the possibilities from here, based on that info?
Bowdoin is the only one that offers a particular NM scholarship, so she moved them to #1 a while back. The other accepts don’t seem to have one. If she chooses another of her accepts, is she still in line for $2500? Or perhaps nothing?
I am really not an expert either. But, if your child didn’t receive either a corporate-sponsored scholarship (usually via parent’s employment or geographic location) or one directly from NMSC in the past week or so, I think it’s unlikely there will be any further merit NMF opportunities to the schools that don’t offer a NMF scholarship.
S24 got the $2500 NMSC money. He intends to attend a school that does not participate in the program. Should he change the first choice to the intended school so that NMSC will wire the money to the financial aid office of that school for his benefit? If yes then what’s the deadline to do so? Thanks!
There should be instructions with his award on how to notify them where to send the funds. That is a different process than listing a school as first choice.
Am I making this up or what? I am no longer seeing NM as a seperate catergory within CC. Rather it’s been thrown into the financial aid pot? Or am I just totally missing things??
@lkg4answers, yes. I worked with a group of community experts to restructure the Financial Aid & Scholarships to be the more inclusive Paying for College category. Merit aid is now under the Financial Aid subcategory. I’m working to put together more P4C resources and will post an updated announcement some time next week.
