Anonymous wrote:I am puzzled by how few Cornell and NYU have? Is there a reason for that and not just "it's a rich person's school'?

+1

Why is Cornell such an outlier with respect to the other Ivies?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a National Merit Scholarship finalist, my opinion is this is an utterly meaningless metric, other than singling out some of the schools that are willing to buy the attendance of some kids based on a PSAT score from Fall of junior year, factoring in what state they live in (since the selection index varies widely by state)

How on earth is $2500. "buying" anything?? LOL.

DP. My guess is the PP was not referring to the $2500 NMSC ones, but to big merit money for NM from some colleges.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a National Merit Scholarship finalist, my opinion is this is an utterly meaningless metric, other than singling out some of the schools that are willing to buy the attendance of some kids based on a PSAT score from Fall of junior year, factoring in what state they live in (since the selection index varies widely by state)

How on earth is $2500. "buying" anything?? LOL.

I don’t think they are referring to $2500 offered by NMF. A couple of these schools are full rides (tuition, room and board). Alabama and UF for in-state just looking at the first couple.

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a National Merit Scholarship finalist, my opinion is this is an utterly meaningless metric, other than singling out some of the schools that are willing to buy the attendance of some kids based on a PSAT score from Fall of junior year, factoring in what state they live in (since the selection index varies widely by state)

How on earth is $2500. "buying" anything?? LOL.

I am puzzled by how few Cornell and NYU have? Is there a reason for that and not just "it's a rich person's school'?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a National Merit Scholarship finalist, my opinion is this is an utterly meaningless metric, other than singling out some of the schools that are willing to buy the attendance of some kids based on a PSAT score from Fall of junior year, factoring in what state they live in (since the selection index varies widely by state)

Finalist or winner?

Why does it matter? Top schools may have more NMF than NMS because they don't offer the merit that turns the NMF into a NMS.

Not how it works. Winners are chosen by the NMO.

I understand that NMSC awards scholarships for $2500 to 2500 NMFs and that about another 5k NMF receive corporate- or college-sponsored scholarships, making somewhere around 7500 National Merit Scholars. So, to clarify, "winner" is not NMS? Winner specifically refers to those receiving the scholarship from NMSC?

Yes sorry you are correct, I was (at least partially) incorrect. I was only speaking of the $2500 NMS winners, and NMF who get scholarships from sponsor colleges are excluded from that but technically NMS also.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a National Merit Scholarship finalist, my opinion is this is an utterly meaningless metric, other than singling out some of the schools that are willing to buy the attendance of some kids based on a PSAT score from Fall of junior year, factoring in what state they live in (since the selection index varies widely by state)

Finalist or winner?

Why does it matter? Top schools may have more NMF than NMS because they don't offer the merit that turns the NMF into a NMS.

Not how it works. Winners are chosen by the NMO.

I understand that NMSC awards scholarships for $2500 to 2500 NMFs and that about another 5k NMF receive corporate- or college-sponsored scholarships, making somewhere around 7500 National Merit Scholars. So, to clarify, "winner" is not NMS? Winner specifically refers to those receiving the scholarship from NMSC?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a National Merit Scholarship finalist, my opinion is this is an utterly meaningless metric, other than singling out some of the schools that are willing to buy the attendance of some kids based on a PSAT score from Fall of junior year, factoring in what state they live in (since the selection index varies widely by state)

Finalist or winner?

yes

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a National Merit Scholarship finalist, my opinion is this is an utterly meaningless metric, other than singling out some of the schools that are willing to buy the attendance of some kids based on a PSAT score from Fall of junior year, factoring in what state they live in (since the selection index varies widely by state)

Finalist or winner?

Why does it matter? Top schools may have more NMF than NMS because they don't offer the merit that turns the NMF into a NMS.

Not how it works. Winners are chosen by the NMO.

SLACS and others:

Amherst 10, [Freshmen 467, 2.1%]
Bowdoin 25, [Freshmen 508, 4.9%]
Cal Tech 23 [Freshmen 224, 10.3%]
Claremont McKenna 8 [Freshmen 322, 2.5%]
Colby 13 [Freshmen 557, 2.3%]
Colgate 2 [Freshmen 812, .2%]
Denison 1 [Freshmen 683, .1%]
George Washington 4 [Freshmen 2,941, .1%]
Grinnell 15 [437 Freshmen, 3.4%]
Harvey Mudd 26 [Freshmen 237, 10.9%]
Haverford 3 [Freshmen 411, .7%]
Holy Cross 4 [Freshmen 903, .4%]
Kenyon College 11 [Freshmen 531, 2%
Lehigh 12 [Freshmen 1,511 .7%]
Macalester 19 [Freshmen 601, 3.1%]
Oberlin 22 [864 Freshmen 2.5%]
Pomona 11 [412 Freshmen 2.6%]
RPI 33 [1,322 2.5%]
Roch. Inst. Tech. 25 [Freshmen 3,202 .7%]
Smith College 3 [Freshwomen 619 .5%]
SMU 21 [Freshmen 1,639 1.2%]
Syracuse 1 [Freshmen 4,108 .02%]
Villanova 13 [Freshmen 1,778 .7%]
Washington & Lee 8 [Freshmen 476 1.7%]
Wellesley 8 [Freshmen 586 1.3%]
Wake Forest 2 [Freshmen 1,412 .1%]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a National Merit Scholarship finalist, my opinion is this is an utterly meaningless metric, other than singling out some of the schools that are willing to buy the attendance of some kids based on a PSAT score from Fall of junior year, factoring in what state they live in (since the selection index varies widely by state)

Finalist or winner?

Why does it matter? Top schools may have more NMF than NMS because they don't offer the merit that turns the NMF into a NMS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:35 at UVA seems low.

Some states have considerably lower criteria for NMS -- VA, MD, DC always have very high bars--within the top 5.

MD threshold is higher than UVA, and UMD numbers are also higher than UVA.

False. NEck and neck at 222 and 221 projected. https://www.compassprep.com/national-merit-semifinalist-cutoffs/

it is "higher". 222 > 221. That wasn't false.

+1
yes, MD is higher than VA.

I guess this is kind of interesting, but of all the metrics people use to judge schools, I'd care about this one the least. Does it really matter that a highly regarded school has less than one full percent National Merit Scholars, as is true of several on this list?

Rutgers is the school suffering most from a high in-state bar.

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a National Merit Scholarship finalist, my opinion is this is an utterly meaningless metric, other than singling out some of the schools that are willing to buy the attendance of some kids based on a PSAT score from Fall of junior year, factoring in what state they live in (since the selection index varies widely by state)

Finalist or winner?