National Merit Finalist vs National Merit Scholar

mathyone
Fri, 18 Mar 2016 14:19:37 +0000

Well, perhaps it has changed. I was a National Merit Corporate Scholar. My award never said that I was a National Merit Scholar, and I was careful to make that distinction on my resume in college.

The college-sponsored and Corporate recipients do not have to pass the final competitive round of screening. They are not chosen by National Merit in their process to determine National Merit winners. So while those scholarships are indeed administered by National Merit, they are University or Corporate scholarships and have instead met the requirements of those sponsors. In many cases it’s as simple as enrolling or parents being employed.