She is estimating numbers of students who enrolled, not who were admitted or who were offered a scholarship but decided to attend another school.
Last year, USC received 80,808 applications. They admitted 8094 students. 3633 of the admitted students enrolled.
NMF students go up against all other applicants, not just other NMF students.
I read someone posting on a different forum that chances of getting trustee scholarships are somewhat linked to demonstration of financial need i.e. merit scholarship and financial need could be lumped together, lowering the chance for those seeking merit only. Any truth to that ?
Absolutely none.
Yes, thank you, CADREAMIN’s post was crystal clear. But I think my point still stands.
Interested in how many NMFs apply. Anyone see stats on that anywhere?
No idea about number of applicants, but you can find info on enrollment numbers and sponsored scholarships in the NMSC Annual Report. You might also be interested in this thread about which schools enroll the most NMS
Isn’t it also about how your child fits in with the well-rounded and varied cohort of students they are trying to build? I know it’s a hard concept for some people to accept, but sometimes there are some things you have no control over, such as college admissions. You can prepare your child to be what you THINK will be the perfect candidate, but at the end of the day, none of us KNOWS what will make them the perfect or right candidate.
For example, your child could be a basketball player who is the best 3-point shooter in the country, but if a team already has five players who are superstar 3-point shooters but no players who are good defenders, your child probably won’t make the team because they need a superstar defender to round out their team.
I think this is rather opposite. I think USC is leveraging this as well in their own holistic way. If someone qualifies for large financial aid and another kid doesn’t, yet they are both fantastic candidates then rather the second will compete with presidential scholarship as at the end their net to pay may be the same….
So, you’re saying it’s all about quotas based on some mix deemed important by the administration and not merit?
University scholarships are not need based. There is no truth to that.
USC is need blind. Merit scholarships are awarded without the student’s financial need considered. Admissions does not know the status of the student’s financial need because that information is not shared by Financial Aid with Admissions.
Not quotas but admission depends on the institutional priorities of the school. If a school needs a point guard and not a forward, then the point guard will be admitted over the forward. Institutional priorities are driven by the need of the school for the year. Merit of students is always the most important criterion, but when you have many applicants with similar high stats, then school will admit students to build a well balanced class.
Here is a model to estimate the question of admission rates for NMF students, for fun.
Data:
Using 2022 matriculated #s from NMSC, there were 198 Presidential + NMF (merit scholars funded by USC) and an additional 64 students who were NMF scholars and enrolled at USC who did not have USC merit (corporate scholarships vs trustee?)
From USC data, there were 107 Trustee and 405 Presidential awardees who enrolled in 2022 and an overall yield of 41.2%
Assumptions:
If 1/4 of all 15K NMF applied to USC, assume the denominator for applicants for this scenario is 3,750 and 2/3 apply EA (2,500).
Using reported estimates of # of offers of merit from the thread above, assume 2/3 of the ~300 Trustee offers were NMF (200 offers were to NMF EA for Trustee only)
Since 198/405 presidential scholarship matriculates are NMF, estimate that 1/2 of the presidential scholars enrolled from EA are NMSF. Using a yield here of 41%, that gives ~241 offers (99/.41) in EA.
Similarly, for the RD round, this assumption would leave 241 offers to NMF who received the Presidential merit offer.
The tricky part is what to do about the 64 who matriculated who did not receive the Presidential college sponsored scholarship. Could some of these be Trustee awardees who are not counted as “merit scholars” sponsored by the institution or are there some additional corporate sponsored awardees that should be factored in? Let’s assume all these are Trustee, since 2/3 of 100 is close to 64 anyway.
Results:
200 (trustee offers to NMF) + 241 (presidential to NMF) = 441 offers/2,500 NMF in EA = acceptance rate of 17.6%.
That leaves 2,059 deferred EA NMF for the RD pool + another 1,250 who apply RD for a denominator of 3,309 NMF in the RD round.
If an additional 241 offers are made to RD students, the acceptance rate for that pool becomes 7.2% (241/3,309). Overall being NMF would have an acceptance rate of 18%.
Lots of assumptions here of course, but a big driver of the acceptance rate remains the # of NMF scholars who apply.
It’s not one or the other. It’s both.
If anyone is willing to share it may be interesting to ask: how many recipients of merit letter are also financial aid applicants?
Be careful when comparing data. Are you looking at NMF or NMS numbers? The process is NMSF → NMF → NMS. Some schools (ex. Tulsa) offer NMSF scholarships. USC’s Presidential scholarship is a NMF scholarship.
If a NM Finalist does not receive a scholarship from NMSC or a corporate entity, they remain a NMF. If they receive either the NMSC $2500 scholarship or a corporate scholarship, they become a NM Scholar.
NMF who are admitted to USC are guaranteed a Presidential scholarship. Some receive a Trustee scholarship. Neither scholarship converts a NMF to NMS. If any of the admitted NMF do not receive an outside scholarship (from NMSC or corporate) that changes their designation to NM Scholar, USC will award an additional $4000 ($500/semester) on top of the Presidential or Trustee scholarship to change that student’s designation from Finalist to Scholar. *Note, $4K has been the historical amount. It may change.
What do you mean, “need a point guard”? Why would they need point guards and not forwards? Are you talking about basketball? I don’t understand because only 1 point guard plays at a time. So, that means 1 is the right number for every 5, which is a quota.
My kid is not applying for Fin aid but is a finalist. I will also add that USC seems to spread out the awards among the different colleges. A certain number for engineering, a certain number for Dornsife, etc. My bio kid is not necessarily competing against engineering students with crazy amounts of college math classes, she’s competing against others in similar fields.
As a side note, a lot is made of NMSF but it is literally just an award for one test. There are kids who have devoted years of their lives to things and had major accomplishments that may be equally or more deserving of merit awards. There a lot of outstanding kids out there that bring unique experience to a college. I’m mot sure you can simply look at NMSF numbers and draw conclusions.
Yes to this. I suspect that there are many NMS, NMF, NMSF students, along with peers who just missed a PSAT cut-off and are “only” NM Commended status, or did one-sitting tests that were just below a Presidential Scholar threshold.
In short, a lot of applicants that won’t have a Scholar designation (National Merit or Presidential) but that are within a few points of that range, which may not show on an application - unless a test score is provided.
But their application has interests, pursuits, activities etc. that demonstrate mastery and commitment. So one supposes the interviewers are spending the 30 minutes or so to get the students to flesh out their applications, while also getting the sense of a student as a person.
It was a figurative example and not a literal one. Let’s try to find a better example. If there are 10 positions open for violin on the school orchestra due to graduation/attrition (students transferring schools or changing majors) but only 4 for cellos in a specific year, then less cello students will be admitted. There is no specific quota, just what the orchestra needs each year. Is that a better example?
so, they’ll pick a violinist even if they’re a poor musician because they want have a certain number of violins in their orchestra?