Thanks to @jswani for giving us confirmation last night that our D made it with a 223 in Texas. her principal finally called me today and double confirmed it. Yee haw. D just finished the OU application and the UCF and UT Tyler aps. We’re touring UCF in November. Great time to be a dad of a confirmed NMSF !
@3scoutsmom Wow! It’s great. I have two seniors and brought them in April this year because we thought they probably make it for National Merit Semi-finalist(both 224). DS(thinking premed) loved OU but DD(engineering) hated OU. So surprised to see two opposite responds to the same school. DD will apply for in-state college which don’t give any money to her and but SS wants to save money for later graduate school. Since we got to know OU cut so much in the package for OOS, we had to omit OU in his lists which was so sad for him. Recently we found UTD and got very interested in UTD. We’ve never been to Texas so we need to visit there soon but he wants to visit later after being accepted by UTD. Well…
Thanks for replying!
@3lovingmom what state are you in? Thankfully UTD is in actually in a suburb, Richardson, and not in downtown Dallas. It’s close enough to get to the city via public transit (free with student id) I was in the area this weekend and man do they have some aggressive drivers on the highways there! Very glad you are visiting UTD because it is not a typical college, no football, but they are very proud of their chesse team:-) It is not a party school at all and very modern buildings. Best dorms I’ve ever seen on college tours!
@3lovingmom UT Tyler, and Texas Tech also offer free rides as does UCF
Does Texas offer just tuition, or is it tuition, fees, and room and board? Is it just in-state? It seems like there are a LOT of qualifiers in Texas, and I’m wondering how the schools can do it (and yes, super jealous!)
@3lovingmom, we live in OH and my D16 is a NMF who initially ignored UTD because we hadn’t heard of it so we didn’t visit until January and we missed the chance to apply for the McDermot scholarship but the NMF is nearly a full scholarship too, full tuition for OOS, cash stipends, study abroad money. She decided to go to UTD and is now a sophomore there and loves it. They gave her a really nice full day 1:1 tour, they were so nice to her, we couldn’t believe it. No other school gave her the red carpet like UTD. They give so many special perks to the NMFs. She especially likes the early registration, she gets all of the classes she wants. She also got early choice for her dorm year 2 (in the first 50, they have a ranking system), so she got a single apartment, which is really nice for her. Her dorm the first year was nice, too. I’m sure other schools give great perks to NMFs, too, but UTD is worth taking a look at if it’s in your list.
Yes, AP Scholar awards don’t come with any “extras,” but they are a nice addition to a student’s curriculum vitae.
I don’t know if it has changed but for the 2016 year UTD NMF scholarship is: cash stipend $4k per semester plus 1.5k per semester for on campus housing plus OOS tuition. You can put the cash stipend towards housing, food, books, etc. you can also apply for up to $6k study abroad NMF scholarship money. My daughter did that this summer and she got the full $6k. If you apply early enough there’s also the McDermott scholarship which is even more than the NMF scholarship. We didn’t know about it because we didn’t even consider UTD until after the cutoff. McDermott is awarded in January.
@Yas2022 we are in OH but this is just UTD I can’t speak to other Texas schools. My daughter is a 2016 HS grad.
@shelleee and @yas2022, the current UTD NMF scholarship is still the same as described in #1847. McDermott is fantastic but is also extremely competitive, with usually over 500 qualified applicants for 25 spots. The McDermott application is very involved; my son has been working on the essays (altogether about 11 I think, though they’re all short) for over two weeks now and he’s still not ready to move on. The NMF package is automatic.
Texas Tech NMF is a full ride, and other Texas schools like A&M, U of Houston and others offer full tuition or more. UT Austin offers very little merit aid in general and nothing at all for NMF.
@Yas2022 most Texas schools will give instate to OOS students that are awarded scholarships so their National Merit Scholarships are open to OOS students too. Many NMF are highly qualified to attend “prestigious” schools and ignore schools offering big money. DS has to defend his choice to go to UTD on almost a daily basis to his peers. He goes to school in a very wealthy school district. Of the kids 27 NMSF at his school only a handful will end up going to a school that offers good NM scholarships most of those seeking merit money will end up at TAMU which isn’t a full ride. The highly ranked kids go to UT Austin, Rice, Harvard, Standford, MIT, Cal Tech, GA Tech…
UTD does have ‘deep pockets’ they are very well endowed. It’s a young school, it was started by the founders of Texas Instruments as a graduate research school in the 60’s. The growth there in recent years has been crazy!
@3scoutsmom, S also has to frequently defend his choice, but he must be doing it very persuasively because now several of his friends have decided to apply to UTD after previously giving S a hard time about it. :))
@3scoutsmom, congratulations to your son! I know you were worried about it. My DD also has to defend UTD but she had a great first year and it looks like the second year is even going to be better. When she talks to her friends about their first year experience, she has no regrets and says she is the happiest with her choice. She did get to go to Florence this summer because of the NM package and that definitely gets people’s attention. Of course, I get asked all the time when she is going to transfer to UT Austin and I tell them, she has no desire to transfer and turned down UT for UTD. Of course, that is a conversation stopper as well. Sometimes, you have to think outside of the box!
@GTAustin that’s so cool she got to go to Florence this summer but I thought the scholarship said that students must be in residence 2 year before getting the study abroad stipend, is this a change or is it somewhat flexible?
My S18 (221 VA and missed NMSF) goes to a public high school that has, to my knowledge, never had a semi finalist or finalist. ( At least not since my time there as first as a student, then as a teacher.) I find this very puzzling: on one hand, I teach, among other things, an AP class there, (20 year veteran!) so I know we have some highly talented kids–a few who go on to do extremely well on their SATs. On the other hand, it’s hard to believe that our school would miss a wonderful PR opportunity by not announcing these winners–at least in-house or as part of a faculty meeting discussion. My senior year, two friends and I qualified as Commended, and the local paper ran our pictures with a very nice press release. Of course, this was a gazillion years ago! It’s been a long time since I’ve seen any recognition of this type, however. We also used to recognize, via a College Board press release, those students who earned AP Scholar designations. Again, this has fallen by the wayside–and I know for a fact we have had several AP Scholars within the past few years.
I can’t help but wonder if it’s due to a perceived competition between AP courses and Dual Enrollment courses–to the point that the local community college has waged an all-out “war” on AP courses–to the point of posting “information” on their website explaining why students should not take AP classes, highly discouraging their Upward Bound students from taking AP, and telling one of our teachers that she could no longer teach any dual or adjunct classes for them if she continued to teach an AP class as well.
I find the situation very sad. Both Dual and AP classes are important, and students need guidance into which best suits them. There should be no competition. Even sadder is the fact that we refuse to acknowledge our students’ accomplishments–evidently any press packet from the College Board is immediately trashed. I guarantee my S won’t receive any recognition for his Commended status or his AP Scholar with Distinction award.
My S18 (221 VA and missed NMSF) goes to a public high school that has, to my knowledge, never had a semi finalist or finalist. ( At least not since my time there as first as a student, then as a teacher.) I find this very puzzling: on one hand, I teach, among other things, an AP class there, (20 year veteran!) so I know we have some highly talented kids–a few who go on to do extremely well on their SATs. On the other hand, it’s hard to believe that our school would miss a wonderful PR opportunity by not announcing these winners–at least in-house or as part of a faculty meeting discussion. My senior year, two friends and I qualified as Commended, and the local paper ran our pictures with a very nice press release. Of course, this was a gazillion years ago! It’s been a long time since I’ve seen any recognition of this type, however. We also used to recognize, via a College Board press release, those students who earned AP Scholar designations. Again, this has fallen by the wayside–and I know for a fact we have had several AP Scholars within the past few years.
I can’t help but wonder if it’s due to a perceived competition between AP courses and Dual Enrollment courses–to the point that the local community college has waged an all-out “war” on AP courses–to the point of posting “information” on their website explaining why students should not take AP classes, highly discouraging their Upward Bound students from taking AP, and telling one of our teachers that she could no longer teach any dual or adjunct classes for them if she continued to teach an AP class as well.
I find the situation very sad. Both Dual and AP classes are important, and students need guidance into which best suits them. There should be no competition. Even sadder is the fact that we refuse to acknowledge our students’ accomplishments–evidently any press packet from the College Board is immediately trashed. I guarantee my S won’t receive any recognition for his Commended status or his AP Scholar with Distinction award.
@3scoutsmom, if you were on their NM scholarship last year, the requirement was 2 semesters not years. I do believe they made a mistake in the verbage but they honored it because prior to that it was 2 years not semesters. They increased the amount and when they changed the website, the length of time also changed. Now, it has been changed back to 2 years. Normally, we are not on the favorable end of these changes but we got lucky with this one.
Is there a website or a thread that discusses the NMF packages at the different schools?
@amominaz I have no idea how updated this is: http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com/
@amominaz the website @crazy4info posted is a good starting place but you need to double check each school because the scholarships change each year.