National Merit $2500 award

MidwestParent
Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:11:36 +0000

spenier - I am not an authority, but I don’t think naming a school that gives out NM awards has anything to do with whether or not you get the one time $2500 award from NM. I have always believed that the $2500 awards were given to the students who had the highest post-PSAT SAT scores. I might be wrong, but that is how it has always seemed to pan out.

Case in point - Two years ago, my nephew named his first choice school 3/1 as a place that was offering him a four year free ride (due to NMF status). He did this because the school was sort of “implying” they would only give this offer to the first however many who listed them as a first choice. He did it to secure the $130,000 they were offering “just in case”. AFTER naming that school, he was given one of the $2500 awards from NM. He then changed his #1 choice school to Northwestern (the school he attends) by the May deadline. Like WashU, Northwestern extends the award for the next three years.

You can call them and ask, I always found NMC very agreeable to answering any questions we had.