My senior child is a National Merit Finalist. He applied to USC as a RD candidate. Does he need to send NMSC a note saying USC is their first choice school before being considered for the merit scholarship? Thanks in advance for your help!
There is no “consideration” for the NM presidential scholarship at USC. If you are admitted to USC and you list USC as your first choice with the NMSC, you get it. Your son should have already identified a first choice school and, if it isn’t USC, he can change that now or after admission decisions. I think the deadline is May 1, but you may want to check with the NMSC about that.
As for USC’s admission decisions, there is some debate as to whether or not listing NMSF is a good idea or not. But, as I understand it, listing USC as your first choice with NMSC has no bearing on admission decisions. FWIW, my kids listed USC as their first choice from the get-go and included NMSF on their applications. All 4 were admitted and one was admitted the equivalent of EA (interviewed for Trustee.) Also, as I recall, the Presidential Scholarship takes a while to show up on your first bill, so don’t panic if you don’t see it right away.
Best of luck to your son!
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If your child is a Finalist, they should have received notification and instructions from NMSC earlier this month. There are instructions on how to log on and indicate that a college is their “first choice.”
Your student should have an account with a username and pw info. See page 4 of the NMSC leaflet.
Notifying NMSC of a student’s first choice should have no bearing on USC’s admission decision. As was discussed above, NMSC does not notify colleges of students’ first choice until March.
If a college wants to know, it is easy to find out who is a NMSF or NMF. NMSC issues press releases that are public. Some schools (ex. Cal Poly SLO), award NM scholarships without a student notifying either the campus or NMSC.
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when are we expecting decisions?
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thank you!
Last year was 25th on a sunday. So it is a Sunday then ?
Last year was Friday, March 24 around 3 pm. Rejections came first.
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Last year, some BFA students reported receiving their acceptances on 3/24; March 24, 2023 was, I believe, a Friday. The prior year, some BFA students reported receiving their acceptances on 3/25. Again, I believe that March 25, 2022 was a Friday. There is speculation that this year’s decisions will be released on 3/22 (also a Friday), although I do not believe that there has been any definitive indication of that date from the school.
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The past few years, USC has been good about posting the date in advance on social media.
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Oof. Were there any admits besides BFA on that day, or did most acceptances come on a different day?
If you click on the link in my post, it will take you to the post when people first started sharing their results.
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Do you mean link to the podcast?
Podcast???
The words in blue above are a hyperlink.
Alternatively, you can click below.
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For a decade+ it has been the Friday that falls around the 22nd-24 of March. So best guess is 22nd.
They should post the date this week.
Love that scholarships came out earlier than than they have in the past many years - wish they would push RD results up too!
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Oh my goodness! I get PTSD just revisiting that thread!
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One of friends D an international student tried to take virtual session…couldnt as she was getting a very odd hours 2am/3am…Admission advisor of the course… connected her through mail …asked she wanted a zoom call…she posted some great questions on the subject …she replied with a big mail …and now they are planning a zoom call for further clarifications and details…i simply loved the approach from the college…do you guys think this is a good sign
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I do. Let us know what happens!
Can you expand on this statement? Rejections came first, but do acceptances come on the same day just staggered by a few minutes/hours?
Same day, rejection came out just one hour earlier.
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I was just stating what happened last year. Every year is different.