Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC won merit at a top 20 (we are full pay) but decided to go to an Ivy.

Congrats! How did DC make that decision and how is it going for them? Any regrets?

Going well and no regrets. DC's career goals fit a little better with the Ivy. But I think longer term, it would have been okay either way and we could have over $400k more in our savings.

Anonymous wrote:Crème de la Crème of all graduating high school students of that year, roughly 4 million.

That’s not much crème.

Anonymous wrote:DC won merit at a top 20 (we are full pay) but decided to go to an Ivy.

Congrats! How did DC make that decision and how is it going for them? Any regrets?

DC won merit at a top 20 (we are full pay) but decided to go to an Ivy.

Anonymous wrote:Crème de la Crème of all graduating high school students of that year, roughly 4 million.

Total 2500 students out of 4 million every year are chosen as scholars.

Crème de la Crème of all graduating high school students of that year, roughly 4 million.

Anonymous wrote:Money for me and not for thee is not a great plan to subsidize education in America. Just like they blame the teachers for the poor educational of students. At the college level they blame students for the lack of planning and funding of education that comes from the state level. It starts to look like our health care and education systems are run like fraud based pass the buck scams.

can't agree more.

These aren't tied to which college you would attend or which company your parents or grandparents work at. These are purely merit based. All $15,000 finalists are considered and top 2500 are selected by a committee of college admissions counselors and high school counselors.

"The National Merit $2,500 Scholarship is a one-time award for National Merit Finalists, given to about 2,500 students annually from each state proportionally, recognizing outstanding academic achievement and potential, with funds provided by NMSC's own funds and corporate sponsors, usable at any U.S. college. To win, students must first qualify as a Finalist by excelling on the PSAT/NMSQT and completing further requirements, competing against other finalists in their state for this specific award."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:National merit scholarships are based on PSAT scores and that’s it. They are nothing. Nobody cares about them. That’s why the top schools don’t have many.

Semifinalists do but finalists and then ones who actually becomes National merit scholars and receive money from foundation itself, are pretty impressive. Only 2500 actually become scholars and they are judged on a lot more than a great PSAT score.

Most of the semifinalists become finalists. The scholarships are kind of random and depend on things like which college you choose. Not actual merit of applicant.

https://ousf.duke.edu/merit-scholarships/ab-duke-scholars-program/

You can search profiles for various scholars online.

After that, 7500 (that is, half of them) become NMS -- not 2500 that you claimed.

NP. But you misunderstood the correct statement in the prior post. Only 2500 students receive scholarships from the National Merit Corporation itself. Some of the others receive them from corporate sponsors--and almost all those corporate sponsors require that the recipients' parents or stepparents work for the corporation. So, if you have the right qualifications, and your parent works for IBM, you may get named a Scholar. Exactly the same qualifications with parents who work as a school teacher and nurse at a local hospital and you won't get a corporate sponsored scholarship. The last batch is sponsored by colleges themselves, and you have to enroll in that particular college to get it. I don't know if it still does, but Carlton College used to enroll the most Scholars, because they sponsored them. If you turn down Carlton for Harvard, you won't be a Scholar because Harvard doesn't sponsor any.

Add in the unfairness that a kid from a public high school in a poor town in Massachusetts needs a higher score than a kid from St Paul's boarding school (in New Hampshire) to qualify.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:National merit scholarships are based on PSAT scores and that’s it. They are nothing. Nobody cares about them. That’s why the top schools don’t have many.

Semifinalists do but finalists and then ones who actually becomes National merit scholars and receive money from foundation itself, are pretty impressive. Only 2500 actually become scholars and they are judged on a lot more than a great PSAT score.

No. 15,000 out of 16,000 NMSF advance to NMF, so becoming NMF is almost automatic. After that, 7500 (that is, half of them) become NMS -- not 2500 that you claimed.

Anonymous wrote:Have you read the description of the various Duke merit scholarships? In most cases, they are not based solely on academic merit but rather are looking at civic engagement and leadership potential, etc.

yes, this was my son at duke. lots of leadership within our community (which is a major city)

Anonymous wrote:Seeing the profiles of the scarce merit scholarship recipients at Duke, Hopkins, Washu etc and is anyone else underwhelmed?

They are surprisingly average and do not stand out academically. No presidential, national merit scholars even let alone top awards like IMO or IPO gold / ISEF winners.

My kid got one of these - we don't do presidential, was a national merit scholar but that wasn't listed in any bio (there are too many) - nor was his 1600 sat, he's humanities so none of this other stuff either.

Any T20 can get applicants with top scores and grades on full cost or full aid, they reserve merit $$$$$ for exceptional students.