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<p>this is simply incorrect. </p>
<p>1) richmond enrolled nine national merit scholars in 2006, seven of them institutionally sponsored. davidson enrolled eight, only three of them institutionally sponsored; bucknell enrolled 12, 11 of them institutionally sponsored; and wake forest enrolled 12, only four of them institutionally sponsered.</p>
<p>2) institutional sponsorship can have a big impact on the number of national merit scholars a school reports. bucknell and richmond, like many schools, offer small scholarships to any national merit finalist who lists the school as his first choice. in contrast, wake forest only offers four such scholarships, davidson three. since it is relatively difficult to earn a non-institutional national merit scholarship, bucknell and richmond boast inflated numbers relative to wake forest and davidson. </p>
<p>note: some of those receiving institutional scholarships may have won non-institutional scholarships had they not gotten them from their schools. so you cant just look at non-institutional scholarship totals, either.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nationalmerit.org/06_annual_report.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nationalmerit.org/06_annual_report.pdf</a> (i just realized there is a 2007 report available. the data are similar.)</p>