Colleges enrolling the most National Merit Scholarship winners

[Anonymous]

An interesting list. Why is UVA so low?

[Anonymous]

Schools decide whether to court these students or not. DC is high stats NMF and got lots of extra mail from schools with congratulations and offers of merit aid when NMSF announced in September, including from some T20s. Many were not schools that officially offer NMF scholarships.

UVA was not one of them. Waitlisted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Schools decide whether to court these students or not. DC is high stats NMF and got lots of extra mail from schools with congratulations and offers of merit aid when NMSF announced in September, including from some T20s. Many were not schools that officially offer NMF scholarships.

UVA was not one of them. Waitlisted.

Wow. With the 75% SAT score of 1540 for UVA, your NMF winner must have some holes in his application? GPA? EC's? I imagine the acceptance rate is north of 80% for anyone with a 1550 or above.

[Anonymous]

DC had 1550+ and legacy, top GPA and top rigor. That’s just the landscape.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Schools decide whether to court these students or not. DC is high stats NMF and got lots of extra mail from schools with congratulations and offers of merit aid when NMSF announced in September, including from some T20s. Many were not schools that officially offer NMF scholarships.

UVA was not one of them. Waitlisted.

Yield protection.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:An interesting list. Why is UVA so low?

Because Virginia’s cutoff for NMF is very high

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure these lists are that meaningful. The cutoff scores are so different across states. Most NMSFs in the Southern states wouldn't be competitive for Ivies, except perhaps in a test optional world. There are probably plenty of kids in the Northeast who don't make the cut for semifinalist in NY, but they outscore kids in AL or Louisiana, and the rest of their achievements reflect that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools decide whether to court these students or not. DC is high stats NMF and got lots of extra mail from schools with congratulations and offers of merit aid when NMSF announced in September, including from some T20s. Many were not schools that officially offer NMF scholarships.

UVA was not one of them. Waitlisted.

Wow. With the 75% SAT score of 1540 for UVA, your NMF winner must have some holes in his application? GPA? EC's? I imagine the acceptance rate is north of 80% for anyone with a 1550 or above.

don't think this is true at all. from listening to the dean's admissions videos, it doesn't seem like they are that focused on SATs. And the OOS admission rate is super low so maybe their DC is an OOS applicant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure these lists are that meaningful. The cutoff scores are so different across states. Most NMSFs in the Southern states wouldn't be competitive for Ivies, except perhaps in a test optional world. There are probably plenty of kids in the Northeast who don't make the cut for semifinalist in NY, but they outscore kids in AL or Louisiana, and the rest of their achievements reflect that.

This phenomenon of different regional cutoff scores doesn't impact the interest value of the trends. There are some institutions that show steady increases, some show trended decreases, and some show steep year-over-year changes. Many state flagships have interesting trends...presumably mainly among their local applicant populations.

It's impossible to prove that similarly-ranked schools are "better" than each other. That's not what this data is for. But you might be able to discern a trajectory.

[Anonymous]

Not sure why the cutoff for NMS impacts who enrolls in what college. It looks like all the top colleges, some in the northeast/mid-atlantic have a lot more winners. Maybe they do a better job of courting them. Or as others have said, maybe UVA de-emphasizes the SAT. I am not an expert in the process, but I would think that it's a nice feather in the cap to have as many winners as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools decide whether to court these students or not. DC is high stats NMF and got lots of extra mail from schools with congratulations and offers of merit aid when NMSF announced in September, including from some T20s. Many were not schools that officially offer NMF scholarships.

UVA was not one of them. Waitlisted.

Wow. With the 75% SAT score of 1540 for UVA, your NMF winner must have some holes in his application? GPA? EC's? I imagine the acceptance rate is north of 80% for anyone with a 1550 or above.

DP here. Not true. I know at least two students who had no "holes" in their application, and any school would have been more than happy to have them. Both did not get into UVA. They are both at ivy schools now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools decide whether to court these students or not. DC is high stats NMF and got lots of extra mail from schools with congratulations and offers of merit aid when NMSF announced in September, including from some T20s. Many were not schools that officially offer NMF scholarships.

UVA was not one of them. Waitlisted.

Wow. With the 75% SAT score of 1540 for UVA, your NMF winner must have some holes in his application? GPA? EC's? I imagine the acceptance rate is north of 80% for anyone with a 1550 or above.

DP here. Not true. I know at least two students who had no "holes" in their application, and any school would have been more than happy to have them. Both did not get into UVA. They are both at ivy schools now.

And both are VA residents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not sure why the cutoff for NMS impacts who enrolls in what college. It looks like all the top colleges, some in the northeast/mid-atlantic have a lot more winners. Maybe they do a better job of courting them. Or as others have said, maybe UVA de-emphasizes the SAT. I am not an expert in the process, but I would think that it's a nice feather in the cap to have as many winners as possible.

The cutoff matters because most NMSFs in AL are being outscored by the top 5-10% of many of the decent suburban high schools in this area. Why would northeastern schools want an AL semifinalist over a higher scoring kid from Maplewood, NJ who might not have made NMSF, but whose academic credentials probably far outstrip the Alabama kids who did?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure why the cutoff for NMS impacts who enrolls in what college. It looks like all the top colleges, some in the northeast/mid-atlantic have a lot more winners. Maybe they do a better job of courting them. Or as others have said, maybe UVA de-emphasizes the SAT. I am not an expert in the process, but I would think that it's a nice feather in the cap to have as many winners as possible.

The cutoff matters because most NMSFs in AL are being outscored by the top 5-10% of many of the decent suburban high schools in this area. Why would northeastern schools want an AL semifinalist over a higher scoring kid from Maplewood, NJ who might not have made NMSF, but whose academic credentials probably far outstrip the Alabama kids who did?

Because they get tons of applicants from Maplewood and only a few from Alabama. It’s icing on the cake if the Alabama student is an NMSF.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools decide whether to court these students or not. DC is high stats NMF and got lots of extra mail from schools with congratulations and offers of merit aid when NMSF announced in September, including from some T20s. Many were not schools that officially offer NMF scholarships.

UVA was not one of them. Waitlisted.

Wow. With the 75% SAT score of 1540 for UVA, your NMF winner must have some holes in his application? GPA? EC's? I imagine the acceptance rate is north of 80% for anyone with a 1550 or above.

don't think this is true at all. from listening to the dean's admissions videos, it doesn't seem like they are that focused on SATs. And the OOS admission rate is super low so maybe their DC is an OOS applicant.

This is not true. Both my kids had great test score one was a NMF the other a commended student and they both were rejected at T20 schools. We were full pay and no ED.