This is inaccurate – many non-Ivy colleges do not participate in NMF, and among those that do, the number of scholarships may be limited, so the award is not automatic. For example, if a LAC sponsors 8 scholarships but there are 12 NM Finalists who enroll there, they will pick only 8 for the NM award.
True, but the college-sponsored scholarships are also administered by NMSC. That is, the NOTICE that the award had been granted comes from NMSC; and the paperwork accepting it and renewing it in subsequent years is submitted to NMSC; and the check to the college comes from NMSC – though I think college-sponsored means that the college pays NMSC money to fund the awards - amounts paid & amounts distributed might not necessarily be equal. </p>
<p>(I don’t know - maybe someone involved in administering college financial aid would know more about how the sponsorship funding works.)</p>
Yes, but Vandy’s award of $2000 is not coming from NMSC. Similarly, colleges like Arizona State or USC (Calif) which promise full or half tuition scholarships for NM Finalists are paying out of their own scholarship funds, supplementing whatever comes from NMSC. So in that case it might <em>look</em> like a “National Merit” scholarship, but in reality be the college’s own scholarship. An “official” college-sponsored NM Scholarship is never more than $2000/year (though it could be less).</p>
<p>There are some complicated circumstances out there.</p>
<p>For example, in Maryland, all National Merit Finalists are automatically designated Maryland Distinguished Scholars (along with a bunch of other people who were accepted on different criteria), and all Maryland Distinguished Scholars get an automatic $3,000 per year renewable merit scholarship from the state that can only be used at Maryland colleges. So in this instance, even if a student doesn’t get money from the NMS program itself, they do get some money (provided that the student is willing to go to a Maryland college, which a lot of them are not, since Johns Hopkins isn’t for everybody).</p>
<p>Calmom is absolutely correct in post #41. For instance, my son is going to attend the University of Michigan and they are not a sponsor - boohoo.</p>
<p>Commended is the top 50,000 out of 1.4 million this year. So, doing the math that is the top 3.6% nationwide.The top 16,000 by state index scores are semifinalists. Some states have lower index scores then others so some kids are commended in one state who would be semifinalists in another. Doing the math the top 16,000 is the top 1.2%. Also, in our school the commended and semifinalists are often not the top students and actually a surprise usually. Perhaps this is because the science/math strong, but english weaker kids can’t get the scores because it is 2/3 english and 1/3 math. </p>
<p>Our high school and local newspaper publish both the commended and the semifinalist names. It’s nice. </p>
<p>My DD will be commended and missed only 6 on the whole thing. If the index score stays the same she will have missed NMSF by one point. Too bad, but I am proud of her and you can bet she will put a one liner-national merit commended- on her college apps. The be NMSF you have to have missed only a couple questions. </p>
<p>$2,500 is practically nothing when it comes to college costs and I wouldn’t choose a college for that amount of money.</p>
<p>Im really confused. I would assume that the top schools are full of these kids NMSC. When naming your two top schools ,is it worth it to list Ivy’s? They dont give you any $. Would it be better to list your safetys where there maybe a chance of receiving some merit money? I know the letter states list your two top picks so that they may communicate directly with you. What if your top picks are already communicating with you? Dont know what to list???</p>
<p>^ I would never list a non-NMSC college as a top choice. But schools other than ‘safeties’ offer NM college-sponsored awards. For example, Rice and UNC-CH are two highly selectives that offered college-sponsored NM awards and other merit scholarships. I’m sure there are more.</p>
<p>Check with the NMSC website or your h.s. counselor’s office to find out which colleges sponsor merit scholarships through the National Merit program.</p>
<p>It makes no sense to list any school that does not participate in the program. As I understand it, no Ivy participates. You can check individual schools’ websites with the words “national merit” to see if they are institutional sponsors of the NM program.</p>
<p>Is anyone aware of a master list of colleges that do participate in the NM program?</p>
<p>Per the NMSC website, NMSFs receive a list of college sponsors in their packets. HOWEVER, our school counselors ‘confiscated’ those packets and we never saw the list. Our school only gives our NMSFs COPIES of certain pages of the packets, even though the packets are addressed to the students. (NMSC does not like this.)</p>
<p>Agree wjb…I think it’s some sort of ‘control’ issue that evolved at our h.s. years ago to make sure SF don’t blow off the required paperwork to progress to F. But I take issue with a package addressed to my d not being delivered to my d. We didn’t even know a list of colleges offering NM money existed until after my d completed all her applications. We never even rec’d the instructions that I linked in #50.</p>
<p>The list of colleges comes on the back of the letter of congratulations dated April 17, 2007. Just look at the list! Personally, I would talk to that school that gives copies of the letters. The envelope has a window that shows the students name and address through it. There is no reason to make a copy. They send them to the school so that the school will know which of their students did well. I am sure it is also to save on postage since the NMS envelope has no postage on it. They rely on the school to give it to the student. My DD was called out of class to get hers and the principal was there to congratulate her and give her the envelope. They did the same with the other students. Every year our school has between 3 and 7 NMS semifinalists and about 8-12 commended out of a class of 625 students.</p>
<p>citrus and wjb - your kids are currently juniors, am I correct? This is a letter rec’d before the SF letter in Sept of senior year and the Finalist letters in Feb of senior year, that you are both talking about, right? I just pulled my d’s NM file, and there is no list of colleges on the back of her junior year letter either. There are just a bunch of career codes.</p>
<p>Yes, ldmom, my son is a junior. Sounds like the letter he got is the one you’re talking about. No list of colleges that sponsor the NM program. Just a bunch of career codes.</p>
<p>Is the information on page 18 outdated? I googled “merit aid NMS PSAT” for those colleges and nothing came up. I think these colleges might have remove these types of merit aid already. Last year, when I googled for the same thing for Harvey Mudd, I found some information but not this year. Any idea?</p>
<p>Thanks to all the parents here, I have a much better idea about NMS. I have a Junior, who received one of these letters that needs to be sent out by May 31st. For college choices, would it be better to write “Undecided” and then next year after April 1 when child knows where she is going, we could let them know our college choice?</p>