Rice discontinues new National Merit awards

By Andrew Ta     10/21/13 7:00pm

The National Merit Scholarship Finalists in this year's incoming class were the first to not be offered National Merit Scholarships funded by Rice University since the program's inception at Rice, according to Vice President of Enrollment Chris Munoz. The $1,000 scholarship, renewable annually, is no longer listed as a possible merit scholarship on Rice's website. Students who matriculated in previous years and received the scholarship will continue to receive it for their remaining years at Rice, according to information available on Esther.

"This year, there are over 100 [students] in the entering class that are National Merit Finalists," Munoz said. "We still have National Merit award students. There are three different funding sources: the first is corporations, the second is the National Merit Scholarship Foundation and the third is colleges. [Rice is] no longer providing a college one."

Munoz said the discontinuation of the Rice-funded National Merit Scholarship was considered for multiple years and was ultimately carried out because the criteria for awarding the scholarship were not representative of how Rice recognized merit among its students.

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"It's too one-dimensional," Munoz said. "Awarding a scholarship merely on the basis of how well a student scored when they took a test when they were a junior in high school isn't really who we are. When we admit a student, [it's] on the basis of holistic review, which includes their academic performance in high school, the rigor of the courses [they] took and their test scores. But there are other parts of the variables based on how the students present themselves and what other attributes they would bring to Rice. It's multidimensional."

Munoz said typical incoming classes contained 80 to 100 National Merit Finalists and that many of those students received financial awards from other sources and scholarships.

 "That's $400,000 to $500,000 dollars over four years we would be able to reallocate," Munoz said. "[Cost] was a factor, but the biggest [factor] that drove the discontinuation was ... [that] we were using Rice dollars just to recognize students for doing well on a single test."

According to Munoz, the money saved from the discontinuation would be allocated to other scholarships, both need- and merit-based.

"Over the last five years, Rice has increased [its] profile of students in terms of socioeconomic status," Munoz said. "Rice is known to have a significant portion [of its students] from low-economic backgrounds. These dollars can be used for need-based aid."

Munoz said he believes the decision to stop offering college-sponsored National Merit Scholarships will not disadvantage Rice in comparison to its peer institutions.

"Not very many [of the] universities that students who apply to Rice would be considering have [college-sponsored] National Merit Scholarships," Munoz said. "We were the exception."

Duncan College junior Jordan Bley said he felt the lack of a college-sponsored National Merit Scholarship at Rice would discourage applicants from choosing Rice.

"I feel like the presence of scholarships tends to play at least a partial role in where high-achieving students elect to pursue their undergraduate degrees," Bley said. "Many gifted students [take the PSAT, and] it's a well-established fact that top-tier schools like Rice are expensive. For many students, the scholarships they receive ultimately determine where they spend the next four years. Eliminating a scholarship could be detrimental to the ideal student for Rice."

Brown College freshman John King said that while he was surprised when he learned he would not be offered a Rice-sponsored National Merit Scholarship, it did not affect his choice to attend.

"The money they used to give out wasn't a great enough sum to make Rice competitive with some other schools I applied to in terms of scholarship money," King said. "The other things I loved about Rice couldn't be tarnished by having to pay an extra 4 percent or so."

Jones College freshman Andrew Chen said the important point was that the money went toward other scholarships.

"I don't think it's that big a deal since the money is just being used for other scholarships," Chen said. "Some people might complain that they deserve money for their hard work, ... but that can be said for everyone who goes to Rice."

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