Which University did the National Merit finalists go to

[Anonymous]

Does Alabama has honors college dorms so I bet the honors students are spending a significant amount of time together.

[Anonymous]

UofFlorida offers an awesome deal for NSMF. It is probably the best bang for the buck in all of education.

[Anonymous]

Awarding a scholarship for academic achievement beats giving out a scholarship for rowing a boat and jumping over hurdles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Awarding a scholarship for academic achievement beats giving out a scholarship for rowing a boat and jumping over hurdles.

Agree but that’s it’s own thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Awarding a scholarship for academic achievement beats giving out a scholarship for rowing a boat and jumping over hurdles.

We are talking about Alabama…they award plenty of those too, in fact starting next year all of their athletes will receive a free ride for every sport (if the NCAA settlement is approved).

Now…it will be yearly scholarships, so you better not get hurt or get cut.

[Anonymous]

Let's assume that NMF proportion is best correlated to NMSC Merit Scholars proportion of enrolled. in 2023-2024 out of ~15,000 NMF's there were 7,165 total scholars and thus 7835 NMF that didnt go on to win a scholarship. this is 3.1x the 2,500 NMSC Merit Scholars. If we scale with that factor, MIT would be predicted to have a freshman class of 29.5% NMF and Alabama would be 4.1% (7 fold difference).

Bottom line is that even though Alabama has more than double the Merit Scholars that MIT has, you have a 7x higher probability of buming into NMF at MIT than Alabama.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does Alabama has honors college dorms so I bet the honors students are spending a significant amount of time together.

For first years, from what I gather.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A ranking of schools that don't specifically give scholarships to NMF students, particularly per capita, might be meaningful. When listed with schools that are giving scholarships, it isn't very meaningful.

+ 1 Took the words right out of my mouth! For instance, Vanderbilt, Emory, and Northeastern do; UVA, Michigan, ND do not.

Pretty sure all these schools offer some form of very competitive academic scholarships for extraordinary students. And none of them are based on a PSAT score. You are spreading nonsense for whatever reason.

The national merit finalist distinction is not the cause of a scholarship at schools such as Vanderbilt, Emory, Michigan, UVA or Notre Dame. It might be one part of the entire application, but scholarships are awarded for a lot more than that. Whereas some schools like Alabama, UT-Dallas, Tulsa are gunning specifically for students with that award and awarding scholarships accordingly. And I say, great. Good for them.

If national merit finalists are reflective of the academic quality of a college's students, then the only measure that matters is the percentage of students with that distinction. So looking at the list, that would be MIT, Vanderbilt, Harvard, Stanford, USC, Yale, Princeton, Rice, Duke, Emory, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, Florida, and UT-Dallas, which are the only schools that have more than 4 percent of students with that distinction.

Have you found a list that shows how many finalists?

I think there are three categories here.

1) Schools like Oklahoma and UTD that offer major scholarships linked to National Merit Finalist status. At these schools, every finalist becomes a scholar, so the listed number of scholars is the same as the number of finalists. Also, at these schools there may be a gap with a fairly high number of finalists, and then few kids who came close to but didn't quite make it.

2) Schools like Vanderbilt that offer a small scholarship. While this scholarship probably isn't the reason why NMF's choose the school, it does mean that every Finalist becomes a scholar. At these schools the NMS students are probably more representative of the larger population.

3) Schools like MIT that don't offer any scholarship. At these schools the number of NMF's may be much higher than what is reported on that list, because there will be plenty of kids who didn't get a corporate or other scholarship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let's assume that NMF proportion is best correlated to NMSC Merit Scholars proportion of enrolled. in 2023-2024 out of ~15,000 NMF's there were 7,165 total scholars and thus 7835 NMF that didnt go on to win a scholarship. this is 3.1x the 2,500 NMSC Merit Scholars. If we scale with that factor, MIT would be predicted to have a freshman class of 29.5% NMF and Alabama would be 4.1% (7 fold difference).

Bottom line is that even though Alabama has more than double the Merit Scholars that MIT has, you have a 7x higher probability of buming into NMF at MIT than Alabama.

That's a bizarre assumption. At a school like Alabama or Vanderbilt there won't be any NMF's who didn't become scholars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A ranking of schools that don't specifically give scholarships to NMF students, particularly per capita, might be meaningful. When listed with schools that are giving scholarships, it isn't very meaningful.

+ 1 Took the words right out of my mouth! For instance, Vanderbilt, Emory, and Northeastern do; UVA, Michigan, ND do not.

Pretty sure all these schools offer some form of very competitive academic scholarships for extraordinary students. And none of them are based on a PSAT score. You are spreading nonsense for whatever reason.

The national merit finalist distinction is not the cause of a scholarship at schools such as Vanderbilt, Emory, Michigan, UVA or Notre Dame. It might be one part of the entire application, but scholarships are awarded for a lot more than that. Whereas some schools like Alabama, UT-Dallas, Tulsa are gunning specifically for students with that award and awarding scholarships accordingly. And I say, great. Good for them.

If national merit finalists are reflective of the academic quality of a college's students, then the only measure that matters is the percentage of students with that distinction. So looking at the list, that would be MIT, Vanderbilt, Harvard, Stanford, USC, Yale, Princeton, Rice, Duke, Emory, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, Florida, and UT-Dallas, which are the only schools that have more than 4 percent of students with that distinction.

Have you found a list that shows how many finalists?

I think there are three categories here.

1) Schools like Oklahoma and UTD that offer major scholarships linked to National Merit Finalist status. At these schools, every finalist becomes a scholar, so the listed number of scholars is the same as the number of finalists. Also, at these schools there may be a gap with a fairly high number of finalists, and then few kids who came close to but didn't quite make it.

2) Schools like Vanderbilt that offer a small scholarship. While this scholarship probably isn't the reason why NMF's choose the school, it does mean that every Finalist becomes a scholar. At these schools the NMS students are probably more representative of the larger population.

3) Schools like MIT that don't offer any scholarship. At these schools the number of NMF's may be much higher than what is reported on that list, because there will be plenty of kids who didn't get a corporate or other scholarship.

DP. Many kids who actually need a scholarship to attend will get excellent need based aid at top-tier schools. Sure, UMD kept offering more money and Alabama would have been a full ride, but as a family making under 150k annually (who was also able to save in a 529 over the years), what the Ivy League schools offered was affordable and a much better fit for our kid. So lots of middle class NMF getting good grant aid at top schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A ranking of schools that don't specifically give scholarships to NMF students, particularly per capita, might be meaningful. When listed with schools that are giving scholarships, it isn't very meaningful.

+ 1 Took the words right out of my mouth! For instance, Vanderbilt, Emory, and Northeastern do; UVA, Michigan, ND do not.

Pretty sure all these schools offer some form of very competitive academic scholarships for extraordinary students. And none of them are based on a PSAT score. You are spreading nonsense for whatever reason.

The national merit finalist distinction is not the cause of a scholarship at schools such as Vanderbilt, Emory, Michigan, UVA or Notre Dame. It might be one part of the entire application, but scholarships are awarded for a lot more than that. Whereas some schools like Alabama, UT-Dallas, Tulsa are gunning specifically for students with that award and awarding scholarships accordingly. And I say, great. Good for them.

If national merit finalists are reflective of the academic quality of a college's students, then the only measure that matters is the percentage of students with that distinction. So looking at the list, that would be MIT, Vanderbilt, Harvard, Stanford, USC, Yale, Princeton, Rice, Duke, Emory, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, Florida, and UT-Dallas, which are the only schools that have more than 4 percent of students with that distinction.

Have you found a list that shows how many finalists?

Something like 90% of finalists become scholars.

Scholars by school starts on p38 of their annual report.

https://www.nationalmerit.org/s/1758/images/gid2/editor_documents/annual_report.pdf?gid=2&pgid=61&sessionid=b24b35da-0cb1-4748-9664-c5d933f196fa&cc=1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A ranking of schools that don't specifically give scholarships to NMF students, particularly per capita, might be meaningful. When listed with schools that are giving scholarships, it isn't very meaningful.

+ 1 Took the words right out of my mouth! For instance, Vanderbilt, Emory, and Northeastern do; UVA, Michigan, ND do not.

Pretty sure all these schools offer some form of very competitive academic scholarships for extraordinary students. And none of them are based on a PSAT score. You are spreading nonsense for whatever reason.

The national merit finalist distinction is not the cause of a scholarship at schools such as Vanderbilt, Emory, Michigan, UVA or Notre Dame. It might be one part of the entire application, but scholarships are awarded for a lot more than that. Whereas some schools like Alabama, UT-Dallas, Tulsa are gunning specifically for students with that award and awarding scholarships accordingly. And I say, great. Good for them.

If national merit finalists are reflective of the academic quality of a college's students, then the only measure that matters is the percentage of students with that distinction. So looking at the list, that would be MIT, Vanderbilt, Harvard, Stanford, USC, Yale, Princeton, Rice, Duke, Emory, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, Florida, and UT-Dallas, which are the only schools that have more than 4 percent of students with that distinction.

Have you found a list that shows how many finalists?

Something like 90% of finalists become scholars.

Scholars by school starts on p38 of their annual report.

https://www.nationalmerit.org/s/1758/images/gid2/editor_documents/annual_report.pdf?gid=2&pgid=61&sessionid=b24b35da-0cb1-4748-9664-c5d933f196fa&cc=1

The report you linked said that out of 15,929 finalists, there were 7.902 scholars. That's almost exactly 50%.

Over 90% of semi-finalists become finalists. Is that what you're thinking of?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A ranking of schools that don't specifically give scholarships to NMF students, particularly per capita, might be meaningful. When listed with schools that are giving scholarships, it isn't very meaningful.

+ 1 Took the words right out of my mouth! For instance, Vanderbilt, Emory, and Northeastern do; UVA, Michigan, ND do not.

Pretty sure all these schools offer some form of very competitive academic scholarships for extraordinary students. And none of them are based on a PSAT score. You are spreading nonsense for whatever reason.

The national merit finalist distinction is not the cause of a scholarship at schools such as Vanderbilt, Emory, Michigan, UVA or Notre Dame. It might be one part of the entire application, but scholarships are awarded for a lot more than that. Whereas some schools like Alabama, UT-Dallas, Tulsa are gunning specifically for students with that award and awarding scholarships accordingly. And I say, great. Good for them.

If national merit finalists are reflective of the academic quality of a college's students, then the only measure that matters is the percentage of students with that distinction. So looking at the list, that would be MIT, Vanderbilt, Harvard, Stanford, USC, Yale, Princeton, Rice, Duke, Emory, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, Florida, and UT-Dallas, which are the only schools that have more than 4 percent of students with that distinction.

Have you found a list that shows how many finalists?

I think there are three categories here.

1) Schools like Oklahoma and UTD that offer major scholarships linked to National Merit Finalist status. At these schools, every finalist becomes a scholar, so the listed number of scholars is the same as the number of finalists. Also, at these schools there may be a gap with a fairly high number of finalists, and then few kids who came close to but didn't quite make it.

2) Schools like Vanderbilt that offer a small scholarship. While this scholarship probably isn't the reason why NMF's choose the school, it does mean that every Finalist becomes a scholar. At these schools the NMS students are probably more representative of the larger population.

3) Schools like MIT that don't offer any scholarship. At these schools the number of NMF's may be much higher than what is reported on that list, because there will be plenty of kids who didn't get a corporate or other scholarship.

DP. Many kids who actually need a scholarship to attend will get excellent need based aid at top-tier schools. Sure, UMD kept offering more money and Alabama would have been a full ride, but as a family making under 150k annually (who was also able to save in a 529 over the years), what the Ivy League schools offered was affordable and a much better fit for our kid. So lots of middle class NMF getting good grant aid at top schools.

What you say is absolutely true. If doesn’t change the fact that a kid who chooses Princeton over Oklahoma won’t be reflected on that list. Princeton might offer just as much tuition reduction as Oklahoma but it will be coded as need based so the kid won’t show up on the list of National Merit Scholars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A ranking of schools that don't specifically give scholarships to NMF students, particularly per capita, might be meaningful. When listed with schools that are giving scholarships, it isn't very meaningful.

+ 1 Took the words right out of my mouth! For instance, Vanderbilt, Emory, and Northeastern do; UVA, Michigan, ND do not.

Pretty sure all these schools offer some form of very competitive academic scholarships for extraordinary students. And none of them are based on a PSAT score. You are spreading nonsense for whatever reason.

The national merit finalist distinction is not the cause of a scholarship at schools such as Vanderbilt, Emory, Michigan, UVA or Notre Dame. It might be one part of the entire application, but scholarships are awarded for a lot more than that. Whereas some schools like Alabama, UT-Dallas, Tulsa are gunning specifically for students with that award and awarding scholarships accordingly. And I say, great. Good for them.

If national merit finalists are reflective of the academic quality of a college's students, then the only measure that matters is the percentage of students with that distinction. So looking at the list, that would be MIT, Vanderbilt, Harvard, Stanford, USC, Yale, Princeton, Rice, Duke, Emory, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, Florida, and UT-Dallas, which are the only schools that have more than 4 percent of students with that distinction.

Have you found a list that shows how many finalists?

I think there are three categories here.

1) Schools like Oklahoma and UTD that offer major scholarships linked to National Merit Finalist status. At these schools, every finalist becomes a scholar, so the listed number of scholars is the same as the number of finalists. Also, at these schools there may be a gap with a fairly high number of finalists, and then few kids who came close to but didn't quite make it.

2) Schools like Vanderbilt that offer a small scholarship. While this scholarship probably isn't the reason why NMF's choose the school, it does mean that every Finalist becomes a scholar. At these schools the NMS students are probably more representative of the larger population.

3) Schools like MIT that don't offer any scholarship. At these schools the number of NMF's may be much higher than what is reported on that list, because there will be plenty of kids who didn't get a corporate or other scholarship.

There are no small scholarships at schools like Vanderbilt, Duke, Rice, Chicago, Northwestern. You either get a very difficult to get scholarship for the full ride, or you don't. What a lot of students get is financial aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A ranking of schools that don't specifically give scholarships to NMF students, particularly per capita, might be meaningful. When listed with schools that are giving scholarships, it isn't very meaningful.

+ 1 Took the words right out of my mouth! For instance, Vanderbilt, Emory, and Northeastern do; UVA, Michigan, ND do not.

Pretty sure all these schools offer some form of very competitive academic scholarships for extraordinary students. And none of them are based on a PSAT score. You are spreading nonsense for whatever reason.

The national merit finalist distinction is not the cause of a scholarship at schools such as Vanderbilt, Emory, Michigan, UVA or Notre Dame. It might be one part of the entire application, but scholarships are awarded for a lot more than that. Whereas some schools like Alabama, UT-Dallas, Tulsa are gunning specifically for students with that award and awarding scholarships accordingly. And I say, great. Good for them.

If national merit finalists are reflective of the academic quality of a college's students, then the only measure that matters is the percentage of students with that distinction. So looking at the list, that would be MIT, Vanderbilt, Harvard, Stanford, USC, Yale, Princeton, Rice, Duke, Emory, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth, Florida, and UT-Dallas, which are the only schools that have more than 4 percent of students with that distinction.

Have you found a list that shows how many finalists?

I think there are three categories here.

1) Schools like Oklahoma and UTD that offer major scholarships linked to National Merit Finalist status. At these schools, every finalist becomes a scholar, so the listed number of scholars is the same as the number of finalists. Also, at these schools there may be a gap with a fairly high number of finalists, and then few kids who came close to but didn't quite make it.

2) Schools like Vanderbilt that offer a small scholarship. While this scholarship probably isn't the reason why NMF's choose the school, it does mean that every Finalist becomes a scholar. At these schools the NMS students are probably more representative of the larger population.

3) Schools like MIT that don't offer any scholarship. At these schools the number of NMF's may be much higher than what is reported on that list, because there will be plenty of kids who didn't get a corporate or other scholarship.

There are no small scholarships at schools like Vanderbilt, Duke, Rice, Chicago, Northwestern. You either get a very difficult to get scholarship for the full ride, or you don't. What a lot of students get is financial aid.

Vanderbilt gives $2K to $6K to every NMF who is accepted and chooses them. This scholarship is specifically for NMF and receiving it makes one a NMS. That is different from most or all the schools on your list.