<p>Two or three months ago, I came across a posting that recommended a strategy for naming the two colleges the student might be interested in. The gist of the suggestion was to mark “undecided” at first (during junior year) and then change later on after the student is more sure of where he or she wants to go to college. Does anyone remember this advice? I tried searching, but there are so many threads on National Merit scholarships, and some of them are so long! Thanks for any help!</p>
<p>The college that your child chooses to put on the NMF form can be changed any time until the mid April deadline of their senior year, so he/she might want to use the early choice strategically. There are many schools that don’t give a hoot whether the child is NMSF or not (Ivy Leagues, e.g.), so listing them first is a “waste” of the choice. If there is a college on the child’s list that is actively recruiting NMF, then listing them early (before application season) could be helpful in both admissions and, especially, in determination of merit aid, even if they do not give the actual NMF scholarship of $2500. If the child later decides to attend another school that gives the actual scholarship, then the college listed can be changed by filing a form up to mid April. So, say you need lots of merit aid (not eligible for FA or your EFC is high) and your kid is applying to HY, Arizona State U (a school actively searching out NMF), and P. HYP does not give merit aid and does not award NMF scholarships. Listing ASU would be the strategic move, since your child, with appropriate credentials, could be offered a large scholarship there to recruit him or her. If they later decide to attend H, they can change the school to H and could be offered the general NMF scholarship which they could use at H. Hope that is clear (as mud).</p>
<p>You are talking about 2 different things here. All students who are meet the qualifications to at least be commended has the chance to have their names sent to 2 colleges. This does not have anything to do with the scholarship portion as most of these students will be not be named semi-finalists. It is a good way to let schools know that you are interested in them but carries no weight in admissions. In September, those who are named semi-finalists will be able to choose one school to name as their first choice school. This is the process guiltguru refers to in Post #2. Don’t confuse the 2 things. You can have your name sent to 2 schools in the spring of junior year and chose an entirely different school as your first choice school if you become a semi-finalist.</p>
<p>We were also kind of strategic about this. S did not choose his prospective ED1 or ED2 school for this designation, under the assumption that by applying ED those schools would by definition know of his strong interest. Rather, he listed his top choice RD schools.</p>
<p>Follow Quiltguru’s advice. Our D was a semifinalist and she named NYU as her choice, even though her real first choice was Yale. That way if she didn’t get into Yale she would have a chance at an NYU National Merit scholarship. But she did get into Yale ED. And she also got a National Merit Scholarship not from Yale, which doesn’t give them, but from my husband’s employer at the time. She had no difficulty at all designating Yale as the place where she was going to use the scholarship.</p>