<p>@bsmom123 Short answer: Yes, your second paragraph is correct as far as NMSC is concerned. The only danger would be if those other schools also decide on a first come, first serve basis (USC guarantees their Presidential scholarship for every NMF that is accepted to USC, as long as they applied by the priority deadline.).</p>
<p>Explanation:
Apparently Santa Clara requires you to be in an early pool of “first choice” applicants but I could not find this requirement anywhere on their website. A few schools do this because their National Merit scholarship is competitive so they want to be able to make decisions and notify students by the time RD acceptances start rolling out. Or maybe because it really is first come, first serve as you suspect. Regardless, the official NMSC college-sponsored scholarship offers do not get mailed to students until May 1st or after (they come directly from NMSC, not the school). Therefore, you can be in the early pool for a school that requires it, but then if you later (before May 1) decide to attend a different school, you can still change your “first choice” with NMSC and be in the running for the other school’s official NMSC scholarship (as long as the latter does not also have a requirement to be in an earlier pool or run out because they are also first come, first serve.)</p>
<p>So Santa Clara may make a decision on their own National Merit scholarship now, but it won’t be an official award offer from NMSC until May 1st or later and up until then it does not preclude you from changing to a different first choice to get an different unofficial offer of that school’s scholarship. The one official offer you will get from NMSC is the one for the school listed as first choice on May 1st.</p>