Full ride scholarships -- what does it take to get one?

[fiftyfifty1]

@NiceUnparticularMan

The most notable exception is full ride National Merit scholarships. Even those have gotten very scarce, and may depend on state residency. But that would be the other possible route if you are a Finalist and are interested in any of the colleges where you would qualify.

Yes, there are definitely fewer than there used to be, but full-ride scholarships for National Merit finalists are still out there. There are a few families here on CC where 2 or even 3 of their kids have attended college on National Merit full ride scholarships!

To have a National Merit full ride scholarship work out for a given student, a couple of factors need to be in place:

1. The student needs to be interested or at least willing to attend a school that offers full rides for National Merit, and the school needs to have decent programs in the major/s the student is considering.
2. the student needs to make the cut-off score (aka selection index) on the PSAT/NMSQT for the state where they attend school. This cut-off score varies by state, but in general it is about the top 1% of test takers. The PSAT is not like the SAT where there are multiple testing dates per year. Instead high schools offer it just once a year in a big mass testing, usually (but not always) done at a student’s own high school in October of their Junior year (PSATs done in other years don’t count.) The PSAT is usually explained to students as being a “practice SAT” so many students don’t take it seriously at all. But if your child is generally a strong test taker (say consistently testing at the 90th or 95th percentile or higher on standardized tests) they may be within striking range of the Selection Index cutoff. So if that is the case, they might (or might not of course) decide to prep for the PSAT in the summer between 10th and 11th grade. Very few students deliberately study for the PSAT, so this can be a chance for a student’s studying to really pay off. And the other benefit is that since the PSAT and the SAT are so similar, prepping for the PSAT also automatically preps you for the SAT. Some of the CC families that have had multiple kids go to school on National Merit full rides have done this.

For anybody interested, here is a thread that describes some of the schools that offer full rides (or close to it) for National Merit scholars:Big merit NMF/NMSF schools and their specialties