<p>Let me try and answer some of your questions</p>
<p>[ol]
[<em>] If you look at my other posts, you will find a more detailed explanation of National Merit scholarships. Those who get the NMSC sponsored scholarships, are NM Scholarship Winners and these scholarships can come from 1) NMSC itself who give a one time $2500 scholarship) 2) Corporations and non profits who can give any amount within the restrictions of NMSC 3) Colleges and Universities also with some restrictions on the maximum amount.<br>
[</em>]In addition to the official component, colleges can give a lot of extra goodies (tuition waivers, extra money, ipods, laptops, admission to honors college …etc.) These are not official NM Scholarships but inducements by the college to attract students and give the college some bragging rights.
[<em>] So there can be all sorts of combination between different scholarships. Let us say student gets $2000 a year for 4 years from a corporation that the students parents work for. The school gives $1000 a year as the NMSC component, but $15000 as the extra inducement (for a total of $16,000). The college usually will allow the student to keep the $2000 plus take the inducement of $15,000 and so on. A lot depends on the college and the scholarship.
[</em>] NMSC has a schedule to notify schools of scholarships from NMSC and corporations and also the students first choice. NMSC sends the name of the first choice in batches, so all those who have designated a college before March 1st are sent on March 1st and so on
[<em>]So you could wait until May 31st to make your college choice as per NMSC rules. However, different colleges have their own deadlines, so you need to meet the deadline for those colleges.
[</em>] You can change your choice anytime before the school notifies NMSC that they have given you an award. So if you designate a school and you change your mind before the school makes the decision on the scholarship (not the admission decision), you are OK. Or if you designate a school and do not get accepted you can change it another school you have acceptance in.
[li]Many schools especially with good packages will work with NMSC students. So once you are close to the application process, start talking to the schools and decide which school to nominate as your first choice.[/li][/ol]</p>
<p>I may not have answered all your questions, but here is the schedule for college sponsored awards. If you have other questions and you can break them down to specific questions, I will try and answer them,</p>
<p>*
Schedule specific to college-sponsored awards:
March 1 through May 31, 2010: A Finalist who has reported a sponsor college as first choice by March 1 will be included in the first group referred to that institution for scholarship consideration. Periodically NMSC will notify sponsors of additional Finalists who have reported (by May 31) the college or university as their first choice.</p>
<p>April 28, 2010: NMSC will begin mailing college-sponsored Merit Scholarship offers.</p>
<p>NOTE: If NMSC receives notification of a change in college choice from a Finalist after mailing a college-sponsored Merit Scholarship offer to that student, the Finalist cannot be offered another college-sponsored Merit Scholarship award. This applies even if the new choice of college is one that also sponsors Merit Scholarship awards. Therefore, a Finalist who has previously reported a sponsor college as first choice but is uncertain about it may choose to notify NMSC that he/she is now “undecided”; such notification must be received at NMSC, via mail or by fax to (847) 866-5113, before April 28. The Finalist can subsequently report a firm college choice that NMSC receives by May 31.</p>
<p>May 31, 2010: Deadline date for NMSC to receive reports of a sponsor college as first choice. Because it is necessary to end the competition in a timely manner, only college choice reports that NMSC receives by May 31 will be used to identify the final group of candidates to a college or university that sponsors awards*</p>