NMS definition?

collegealum314 · May 2, 2007, 2:50pm

To the OP: You don’t have to worry about “misrepresenting” yourself because you have won the official scholarship. You are a National Merit Scholar. The most official one is the one handed out to 2500 people in the country by the National Merit Scholarship Foundation. The 50,000 national merit finalists who get scholarships from colleges are not really national merit scholars, although they may have won a scholarship from a college due to their status as a national merit finalist.

The National Merit Scholar designation is a prestigious award and is worth mentioning to colleges, although in your list it might only tip the scales for Cornell.

I’m not sure about the corporate scholarships from pepsico and companies like that. I’ve never heard anything about that.

Anyway, the National Merit Scholarship Foundation has to do a better job at distinguishing who won the competition and who was just a finalist. When reporting to the colleges, I would make it clear that you won the $2500 scholarship awarded by the National Merit Scholarship Foundation and that only 2500 people in the country got it. That way at least the colleges will understand.

Anyway, congratulations on the award, even if no one knows what it means!

ldmom06 · May 2, 2007, 2:54pm

momfromme -

<h2>Yes, a NMF who receives one of the three “Types of Merit Scholarship® Awards”, which includes college-sponsored awards, is a National “Merit Scholar® designee”.</h2>

Also, on the question of nonFinalists who get scholarship money…

Commended students or NMSF who did not progress to Finalist, but who did receive a “Special Scholarship” don’t seem to be considered a National “Merit Scholar designee” per the NMSC website. In such a case, I would represent that student on a resume or elsewhere as a ‘National Merit Commended student and recipient of XYZ Scholarship offered through the National Merit Scholarship Corporation’. You might as well start now stressing to your students the importance of accuracy and the consequences of embellishment. The stakes only get higher.

From the NMSC website…

“Special Scholarships
Every year, some 1,500 National Merit® Program participants, who are outstanding but not Finalists, are awarded Special Scholarships provided by corporations and business organizations for students who meet the sponsor’s criteria. To be considered for a Special Scholarship, students must meet the sponsor’s criteria and entry requirements of the National Merit Scholarship Program. They also must submit an entry form to the sponsor organization. Subsequently, NMSC contacts a pool of high-scoring candidates through their respective high schools. These students and their school officials submit detailed scholarship applications. A committee of NMSC professional staff evaluates information about candidates’ abilities, skills, and accomplishments and chooses winners of the sponsor’s Special Scholarships. These scholarships may either be renewable for four years of undergraduate study or one-time awards.”

ldmom06 · May 2, 2007, 3:01pm

"To the OP: You don’t have to worry about “misrepresenting” yourself because you have won the official scholarship. You are a National Merit Scholar. The most official one is the one handed out to 2500 people in the country by the National Merit Scholarship Foundation. The 50,000 national merit finalists who get scholarships from colleges are not really national merit scholars, although they may have won a scholarship from a college due to their status as a national merit finalist. "

^^
This is completely inaccurate. There isn’t one scholarship that is more ‘official’ than the other. And those who receive the $2500 award OR the college or corporate sponsored awards ARE considered to all be National “Merit Scholar® designees”.

If I were the OP, I would definitely point out that their child is a National Merit Scholar and the recipient of the National Merit $2500 Scholarship. In my d’s case (example), she is a 'National Merit Scholar and recipient of the UNC-CH sponsored National Merit scholarship".

But also beware…in many instances you cannot collect the one-time $2500 award AND a college or corporate sponsored award. Oftentimes, those college and corporate awards are significantly higher than the one-time $2500 award from the NMSC. Great deal for those who are attending non-NMSC schools though.

collegealum314 · May 2, 2007, 3:05pm

no, if you look at post #17 by SV2 (who quotes the NMS Foundation,) it is very clear that the National Merit Scholarship Foundation only considers those who win the scholarship from the foundation as National Merit Scholars.

If you are a National Merit Finalist but don’t win the competition, you should list it on your resume’ as “National Merit Finalist.”

collegealum314 · May 2, 2007, 3:07pm

hm… i read the post by SV2 more closely. It’s kind of absurd though that they don’t make a distinction though.

ldmom06 · May 2, 2007, 3:09pm

collegealum -

I DID look at the link. First of all, post 17 is wrong…the term ‘Scholar’ IS used at the NMSC site. And WHO qualifies as a Scholar-designee is ALSO listed at the NMSC site:

<h2>Here ya go (again), EXACTLY as it appears at the website…</h2>

“Winner Selection”
“All winners of Merit Scholarship® awards (Merit SCHOLAR® designees) are chosen from the Finalist group, based on their abilities, skills, and accomplishments–without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin, or religious preference. A variety of information is available for NMSC selectors to evaluate–the Finalist’s academic record, information about the school’s curricula and grading system, two sets of test scores, school official’s written recommendation, information about the student’s activities and leadership, and the Finalist’s own essay.”

“TYPES of Merit Scholarship® Awards”
"Beginning in March and continuing to mid-June, NMSC notifies approximately 8,200 Finalists at their home addresses that they have been selected to receive a Merit Scholarship® award. Merit Scholarship awards are of three types:

National Merit® $2500 Scholarships
Every Finalist competes for these single payment scholarships, which are awarded on a state representational basis. Winners are selected without consideration of family financial circumstances, college choice, or major and career plans.

Corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards
Corporate sponsors designate their awards for children of their employees or members, for residents of a community where a company has operations, or for Finalists with career plans the sponsor wishes to encourage. These scholarships may either be renewable for four years of undergraduate study or one-time awards.

College-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards
Officials of each sponsor college select winners of their awards from Finalists who have been accepted for admission and have informed NMSC by the published deadlines that the sponsor college or university is their first choice. These awards are renewable for up to four years of undergraduate study. The published deadlines for reporting a sponsor college as first choice can be viewed on page 3 of the leaflet Requirements and Instructions for Semifinalists in the 2007 National Merit® Scholarship Program. (Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0 or above is required.)"

ldmom06 · May 2, 2007, 3:10pm

Basically…if you are Finalist and receive money (from one of three sources), you are a National Merit Scholar.

Fair or not, there it is.

SV2 · May 2, 2007, 3:26pm

Umm, gosh, there’s nothing incorrect in post #17. It is a direct quote from the NM press release; the url to the pdf link was posted in #17. It is consistent with what the NM site says as quoted in post #16 and #26.

There will be about 8,200 Merit Scholars by the end of the program this year. That would be 2,500 winners of the $2,500 scholarships from the National Merit Foundation, + the ~1,000 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship winners who were named on April 18, + the approximately 4,600 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship winners who will be announced on May 23 and July 16.

Direct from the horse’s mouth.

shoe66 · May 2, 2007, 3:47pm

Idmom,

Thanks for trying to explain this. It’s obvious from the messages that many people are confused by what constitutes a National Merit Finalist and what someone who gets a National Merit scholarship should be called.

As it was explained to me by a college financial officer, the initial 2,500 winners are, by NMSC rules, not eligible to receive scholarships from either sponsoring colleges or corporate sponsors. That usually means, it was explained to me, that the NM Finalist was accepted at a school that doesn’t offer a NM scholarship. One of the recipients goes to my D’s school. The family is very very wealthy and the student was accepted ED to MIT. The NMSC people apparently felt that this student deserved one of the 2,500 $2,500 scholarships because she wasn’t going to receive a college-sponsored one.
A lot of other NM scholarship recipients had to report their first-choice school to National Merit as a condition for receiving the college-sponsored scholarship. In more than a handful of cases, these are the biggest awards, because several of them are full-tuition or more.

But unless I, too, am completely confused, it appears that just as you said, Idmom, any student in one of the three categories – NMSC, college-sponsored, or corporate-sponsored – who receives a scholarship on the basis of being a National Merit Finalist is correct in referring to himself/herself as a “National Merit Scholar.”

ldmom06 · May 2, 2007, 3:48pm

SV - the term Scholar is used at the link you posted…that part of post 17 is incorrect. In fact, NMSC has seen fit to trademark/copyright the term…lol!

fftd · May 2, 2007, 3:58pm

ldmin06 is right (see Post #27) and I don’t understand why people think those receive the $2500 are better. Any finalist can only accept one of the three types. The College-sponsored Merit Scholarship winners were notified on 3/9/2007 and had till 3/21/2007 to “ACCEPT” or “REJECT” the award (formal announce on 4/18/2007.) Once a finalist accepted the award, he/she would never be awarded the $2500 that was announced later. MY D was awarded $10,000 in early March and why should she reject the award in order to compete for the $2500 later to be considered as a better student? The $10,000 ($2500 per year for four years) can be used in any college she attends. She is using it and other outside scholarship to eliminate all student self-help (zero work study and zero summer earning) in Princeton (already zero loans) for 4 years.

collegealum314 · May 2, 2007, 4:02pm

shoe…no, the NMS Foundation doesn’t give out scholarships based on where the person is going to college. I got one of the $2500 scholarships, and they had no idea where I was going. In fact, I wrote down some state school on their form after I was announced as a semi-finalist or a finalist just because they didn’t have my real top choices on their list.

There is some sort of stipulation that if you get the $2500 scholarship, you aren’t eligible for additional scholarship money given out by a college. I think this is what you’re getting confused about. I’m not sure what exactly this stipulation is because I went to MIT and they don’t offer any merit scholarship money.

ldmom06 · May 2, 2007, 4:02pm

Shoe - I’m reading the literature to mean the same thing as you.

One other thing occurred that I completely forgot about. Apparently our local newspaper contacted NM to get a list of NM Scholars and those names were published in the Houston Chronicle. But only 7 of our 9 NMFs were listed as NM Scholars. At first, I was confused…but then realized the two left off the list were attending non-sponsoring universities, so they were not getting college-sponsored awards. And they had not rec’d corporate-sponsored or the one-time $2500 scholarship. It does seem a bit unfair…but it corroborates what the NMSC website says…which is NMF who received scholarships from one of the three NM sources are considered NM Scholars.

Imho…they should have published the NMF’s names, not just scholars. But the point of the article was to list scholarship awards rec’d by students in our area.

collegealum314 · May 2, 2007, 4:06pm

fftd–the reason is mainly that NM finalists get automatic scholarship money from schools unless they are ivies or MIT/CalTech. The $2500 comes from the National Merit Scholarship Foundation itself and everyone who takes the PSAT is automatically considered for it.

I don’t know which $10,000 your D won–was that the corporate one? It was my understanding Princeton doesn’t give out merit scholarship money, only financial aid, so that’s why I ask.

ldmom06 · May 2, 2007, 4:13pm

The whole process is incredibly tricky. Don’t even get me started on the whole deadlines and changing first choice designation thing. Whew…I almost hope my son DOESN’T become a NMF like his sister…lol! We’ll see though…he’s already scored higher than her on the Duke TIP…much to her ‘mock’ chagrin. (She was actually very proud of him.)

fftd · May 2, 2007, 4:27pm

Collgealum314,
The $10,000 is the corporate one sponsored by my company. My point is that there is no need for someone to compare who is better by judging the type of award one receives since nobody knows the real answer. They are all “Scholars” defined by NMSC and are all good students.

Seashore · May 2, 2007, 4:29pm

Wow! This process is clearly too complicated if a bunch of smart kids and their parents can’t figure it out!

But I had to point out one error–it was not the college-sponsored National Merit Scholarships that were issued on March 9-31; those were the corporate ones. The school-sponsored ones started notification on April 25 and will continue through mid June.

But yes for all three types, the notification comes to the student from the National Merit Corportation, and for all three types, the letters use the words “National Merit” and “Scholarship.”

momfromme · May 2, 2007, 4:32pm

“The College-sponsored Merit Scholarship winners were notified on 3/9/2007 and had till 3/21/2007 to “ACCEPT” or “REJECT” the award (formal announce on 4/18/2007.)”

That date is not set by the NMS Corporation and is NOT shared by all colleges that give awards to NMF. Actually, the final deadline for notifying the National Merit Scholar Corporation of one’s college choice is the end of May.

3TNVols · May 2, 2007, 4:33pm

Some students receive the initial $2500 NMSC award…and then are rewarded by their University in subsequent years. If you accept the NMSC award your freshman year, Vanderbilt still promises to award $2000 in subsequent years (which is a pretty strong way to attract NMF’s IMO).

collegealum314 · May 2, 2007, 4:39pm

“Collgealum314,
The $10,000 is the corporate one sponsored by my company. My point is that there is no need for someone to compare who is better by judging the type of award one receives since nobody knows the real answer. They are all “Scholars” defined by NMSC and are all good students.”

Well, I don’t know much about the corporate scholarships. If the corporate scholarships are given out before the $2500 ones are, then, of course, you are correct. However, it was my impression that the college-sponsored national merit scholarships are automatic–that it is impossible not to get one if you are a national merit finalist and will be attending a school that offers them (i.e., basically every schools except ivies and MIT/CalTech). It renders the concept of the national merit scholarship as an award pretty meaningless. (BTW, do the corporate scholarships require any other criteria beyond National Merit Finalist status?)

NMS definition?

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