Thank you very much. @snicks1234 …I agree 100%. I will never regret my helicopter ways I just wish someone would tell him that having a helicopter mom is a good thing. I know ONE day he will look back and remember that I was all about helping him anyway I could. For now I get the…".Awww Mom really" a lot… He is letting me go to State competition(win…win for me) however I can’t yell… just clap. I might be able to take a picture or two if I get lucky. lol
@Tgirlfriend I can totally relate. My son doesn’t like to talk about himself at all,much less be bragged on or fawned over. An admirable trait, but I would like to see that he’s proud of his accomplishments,but when I asked him if he was he looked at me and said" Dad,you don’t get it ,I expect it".Lol! No hubris,he just studies and prepares hard and expects good results. But like you,I have to celebrate his successes under my breath.
@itsgettingreal17 I guess what I have is the same PDF you can find at http://www.ou.edu/content/dam/recruitment/scholarships/NMpackage_2016_NonRes.pdf with Tyler’s notes of $6500/$8000 (est. first year out-of-pocket/est. each add’l year out-of-pocket). So the thread @Tgirlfriend linked above is probably where you want to go (or the OU website) to see yearly costs before the scholarship is applied. We also have a sheet of additional scholarships but you have to apply by Dec. 15 to be considered. The sheet says you cannot receive more than one academic award, and NMF is by far the most generous, so if your C is a NMSF, I wouldn’t worry about those.
That probably wasn’t as helpful as what I intended. I would encourage you to call the NM office at OU though – they were completely open about the program and what it entails, and I’m sure they would be happy to answer any questions you have about how the final out-of-pocket is calculated and whether it’s close to actual costs to students. (For example, students may spend less on books on average than the official book cost, or off-campus housing for upperclassmen means they spend less than the estimated amount on that. I know we talked about it, but I don’t recall all the details – they all tend to blend together after a while, don’t they? – and I figured we could get down to the real nitty gritty if S made NMF and chose OU.)
We got on the OU website and requested the National Merit package. It had the costs all nicely lined out. I have to say that OU is probably the most forthcoming and transparent of the schools we have looked at for NMF scholarships. ASU Barrett Tempe campus probably has the best honors college housing we’ve seen (best housing period).
@Tgirlfriend Thank you! Distance is a big consideration, as is size of school. With an engineering major wanting merit, we’re mostly looking at public uni’s, but smaller campuses seem to appeal to S more. We’ve thought about UT Dallas and may still try to visit there in the fall. To me, the biggest plus is that it would be easier to get him back and forth in some way that doesn’t involve many hours of solitary driving. OU offers about the same advantage there, but I’m not sure about Bama or some of the other NMF schools. Our S is not a kid who would come home often during the semester, but I worry myself sick with D14 driving herself home from her college 5 hours away at Chrismastime. I can’t imagine if he goes 10+ hours away. It’s hard to walk away from those NMF packages though, especially in combination with good engineering schools.
My Daughter has qualified for the presidential scholarship at BAMA. It pays all tuition so you still owe Room and Board. etc. The NMF would get you room for a year buy you would still owe board and Room board after that. I figured it was ~15K. IF you make NMF at A&M you get 4500 for sure so that would get you to $17.5. If you are looking at Engineering the Mechanical Engineering department at Bama is very heavy into automobile since they have a great partnership with Mercedes. It was a nice school but not for my daughter.
I have been reading some of the posts here, please forgive me if it has already been posted, I have a DD freshman at BAMA on NMF package, (although we visited and liked UKy and OU as well) and Just wanted to chime in to suggest when comparing NM scholarships, be aware of whether the schools include credit hours over 15 credits per semester as part of the package, if that is relevant to your student, And what dorm style might be included in the package…some schools could have very high class fees. FYI DD is happy at Bama, it was a good choice for her, but no school is perfect. She almost chose OU but distance was a factor.
My son is at UCF for NMS, and we are all very happy. Feel free to message me if you have any questions about their program. I checked yesterday, and their GPA cut is 3.2. I believe they have both an honors course cut and a regular cut, but I’m not sure about the honors cut. I think I remember that as being 3.0. My son is finishing up his freshman year there (computer science).
Thank you parents who have kids in these schools that collect NMF. We are considering a few and it is nice to get reviews and notes.
I hear that U. of Chicago aggressively seeks nmf’s. Has anyone else heard that and do they give any merit scholarship money?
^ They do offer merit money but admission rate was less than 9% this year so getting in and getting merit on top of that is a long shot.
@snicks1234 they guarantee a $4,000 scholarship in total due to NMF.
My guess is that the admit rate at U. of Chicago is higher than 9% for NMF students. I’d be curious to know what it is. My wild guess is that having NMF status doubles your chances for admission relative to similar students who aren’t NMF.
I was referring to the non NMF merit awards that range from 15K on up to somewhere around 25-35K. There’s a recent thread on this somewhere.
Do most of the schools that offer the big money for NMF allow you to “stack” additional scholarships you may receive?
My son applied to U of Chicago this year. He is a NMF, 35 ACT, 4.0 UW GPA, 11 AP classes. He was not accepted. He was waitlisted. I agree that NMF status probably increases your chances of acceptance, but I bet that a lot of NMFs do not get accepted.
Some school allow stacking of scholarships including NMF, some do not and will reduce the amount the school offers based on the outside scholarship. Best to check with specific schools.
D3 just got something from Univ. of Cincinnati (not even on her radar . . . . ) - did anyone else get this? Says the following:
“Your strong PSAT score indicates that you may be considered for the Cincinnatus Scholarship Program, our cornerstone scholarship program for incoming freshmen. In addition, please let us know if you’re selected as a National Merit Semifinalist in the fall, as you could become a recipient of the Cincinnatus Excellence Scholarship that funds in-state tuition and on-campus housing - a value of more than $72,000.”
So I guess UCinn is another opportunity for the NMF’s. Looks like there are only 10 Presidential scholars awarded every year (full tuition, fees, room & board and book allowance) but the Excellence Scholarship will give $18,000 per year plus $1,500 one-time plus automatic invite to Honors. Small print also says that $3,000 OOS scholarship will be added for OOS students not eligible for reciprocity. GPA requirement for renewal is 3.2 plus - WHAT??? - 30 hours of community service apparently.
I don’t look carefully at any mailings from schools that aren’t on D’s list so may have missed this one. I looked at UC briefly at the beginning of my research, but the scholarship isn’t the greatest for out-of-state students.
@KCEdition Ouch! It is posts like those that make me think there must not be any rationality left in the world.