Putting a school as first-choice on National Merit Finalist?

STEMFamily
Sat, 21 Feb 2015 17:20:35 +0000

I must disagree with the first part of @mom2collegekids’s post. Schools who offer college-sponsored NMSC scholarships will see that you have them as First Choice beginning around the 1st of March. That is the date that NMSC sends the first batch of names to First Choice sponsoring colleges. Then they continue to send batches of names until May 31st.

This is from the back of the Finalist letter:

** March 1 through May 31, 2015: ** A Finalist who has reported a sponsor college as first choice by March 1 will be included in the first group referred to that institution for scholarship consideration. Periodically NMSC will notify sponsors of additional Finalists who have reported (by May 31) the college or university as their first choice.

Note that it is only sponsoring schools that ever get these lists. According the the NMSC list of sponsoring colleges, Duke does not sponsor an NMSC scholarship. Therefore they will never receive notification that you have designated them First Choice. In this case, I totally agree with @mom2collegekids that you should list the college that is the highest on your list that is a sponsoring college. Here is the list for 2015

http://www.nationalmerit.org/Merit_Sponsor_Leaflet.pdf

Colleges don’t see anything at all of your NM application. All they ever see is your name on their first choice list and even then only if they are a sponsoring college. You could however, notify the colleges in writing on your own that you have become a National Merit Finalist. That contact alone would probably say more about your interest.