No Ivy League College Sponsors a National Merit Scholarship, 137 Other Colleges Do, Oriel Admissions Finds

The University of Alabama alone lists 250 expected National Merit awards a year, more than the 13 sponsors among the 50 most selective colleges combined

NEW YORK CITY, NY, UNITED STATES, October 21, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Oriel Admissions, a college admissions consulting firm serving families nationwide, has counted the colleges that sponsor National Merit Scholarships, ahead of the first release of PSAT/NMSQT scores to students on October 22. The sponsor list printed in the Fall 2026 PSAT/NMSQT Student Guide names 137 colleges and universities. Not one of the eight Ivy League colleges is among them, and neither are Stanford, MIT, Duke, the University of Chicago, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Rice, Caltech, Notre Dame, Georgetown or Washington University in St. Louis. The count concerns National Merit awards only, not the broader financial aid those colleges provide; none of them pays for the National Merit title. The full Oriel Admissions guide to the scholarship is at https://orieladmissions.com/national-merit-scholarship/.

What the title pays depends on where the student enrolls. A college-sponsored National Merit Scholarship carries a stipend of $500 to $2,000 a year, renewable for up to four years, and goes only to Finalists who name a sponsor college as their first choice. Several sponsors add institutional packages of their own. The University of Alabama's published package for qualifying Finalists who list it as their college of choice with the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) covers the value of tuition for up to five years, four years of on-campus housing and a $4,000 a year supplemental scholarship for four years, subject to the university's stated conditions and deadlines. A Finalist who enrolls at Harvard, Princeton, Stanford or MIT receives no National Merit money from the college. That student remains eligible for the one-time National Merit $2,500 Scholarship, of which about 2,500 are awarded each year, or for a corporate-sponsored award, and neither depends on the college.

"For a family aiming at Harvard, Princeton or Stanford, National Merit is an honor on the application, not a scholarship from the college. The money sits at a different set of universities," said Rona Aydin, founder of Oriel Admissions. "Families should know which of the two they are chasing before the scores arrive, and before they build a college list around it."

Of the 50 most selective colleges that Oriel Admissions tracks across its indices, 13 sponsor National Merit awards: Harvey Mudd, Emory, Tulane, Vanderbilt, Boston University, Tufts, Davidson, Claremont McKenna, Pomona, Bowdoin, Colby, Northeastern and the University of Southern California. The other 37 do not.

The guide prints beside each sponsor the minimum number of awards NMSC expects that college to offer each year. Those expected minimums total 1,898 awards across the 137 sponsors, against the roughly 3,500 college-sponsored awards NMSC expects to offer in all, and they are concentrated at large public universities:

• University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa: 250
• Texas A&M University: 110
• University of Texas at Dallas: 100
• Arizona State University: 85
• University of Oklahoma: 80
• University of Kentucky: 60
• University of Arizona: 55

The top three alone account for 24% of the expected total. The 13 sponsors among the 50 most selective colleges list 147 expected awards between them, fewer than the University of Alabama on its own. Sixty-two of the 137 sponsors list three, the lowest figure on the list. In New Jersey, Rutgers lists 15 and Princeton is absent; in New York, Stony Brook lists 15 and Columbia and Cornell are absent.

The stakes are set by the scale of the competition. More than 1.3 million juniors enter each year by taking the PSAT/NMSQT, more than 16,000 become Semifinalists in September of senior year, more than 15,000 advance to Finalist, and roughly half of Finalists win an award. For the Class of 2027, the Semifinalist cutoff was 223 in New Jersey, the highest of any state, and 220 in New York and California, against 208 in Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming, according to the state cutoff tracker published by Compass Education Group. College Board releases fall PSAT/NMSQT scores to students on October 22, November 5 or November 12, depending on when the school submitted answer sheets. Juniors tested this month enter the 2028 competition, and their Semifinalist standing will be announced in September 2027.

Oriel Admissions counted the sponsor list and the expected award figures printed in the Fall 2026 PSAT/NMSQT Student Guide, published by College Board and the National Merit Scholarship Corporation for the 2028 National Merit Scholarship Program, on October 14, 2026. NMSC describes the list as about 140 colleges and notes that neither it nor any sponsor is obligated to offer the awards in future years. The 50 most selective colleges are the set used in the Oriel Admissions College AI Policy Index.

Oriel Admissions also publishes a guide to National Merit Semifinalist standing and state cutoffs, and a guide to PSAT score release dates.

About Oriel Admissions

Oriel Admissions is a college admissions consulting firm serving families nationwide on elite university admissions strategy, with offices in Princeton, New Jersey and New York. Its founder, Rona Aydin, has discussed admissions on the NPR program 1A and in The Hechinger Report. Oriel Admissions also publishes the College Admissions Transparency Index and the College AI Policy Index.

Rona Aydin
Oriel Admissions
hello@orieladmissions.com