The number of national scholars at UNM has more than doubled each year since 2007, according to the UNM Admissions Office.
There are 77 national scholars enrolled at UNM, which is up from 38 in 2008 and 14 in 2007. “National scholars” is an umbrella term that covers National Merit Scholars, National Hispanic Recognition Scholars, National Achievement Scholars and National American Indian Scholars.
These scholarships are awarded based on a combination of the practice SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test score and high school academic performance. The National American Indian Scholars use the ACT as their standardized test.
In fall of 2008, the UNM President’s Office set up the National Scholars Scholarship, which gives $13,875 per year to national scholars. For in-state students, the average cost of attendance is almost $13,000, and it’s almost $24,000 for non-residents.
On top of offering the scholarship, UNM follows “an aggressive communication plan that includes professional graphics and targeted messages in e-mail, letters and post cards (to recruit national scholars),” said Corine Gonzales, associate director of Admissions.
UNM President David Schmidly and his administration have said national scholars are coveted students for the University.
“UNM’s goals for enrollment management — recruiting greater numbers of National Scholars and graduate students — are important ones, not only in meeting state funding formulas but also in fulfilling our unique role as part of a higher educational system,” Schmidly wrote in a June 6 guest column in the Albuquerque Journal.
The credit hours that national scholars take are factored into UNM’s state funding calculations. National scholars also tend to bring higher participation in classrooms, Gonzales said.
Zach Gillooly, a freshman and National Merit Scholar, said UNM’s recruiting campaign showed him that the University values students who worked hard in high school.
“UNM was also the only school that corresponded frequently with me about scholarships and reasons to attend,” Gillooly said. “The scholarship office worked diligently to get me to come to UNM.”
Though the campaign got the word out about the University, Gillooly said the scholarship is what ultimately tipped the scale in UNM’s favor.
“(UNM) is one of the few schools that I applied to that gives large monetary scholarships to students who became National Merit finalists,” he said. “The other schools that I applied to, including University of Pittsburgh and Oklahoma University, gave little or no money to Merit Scholars. I chose UNM primarily because of the scholarship opportunity.”
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Cassily Cobos, a national scholar, said the large scholarship opened her eyes to a university she would have otherwise overlooked.
“The scholarship was the only thing to do with (my decision to come to UNM),” she said. “I never would have thought about coming out here if the school hadn’t sent me an offer.”
The 114 national scholars recruited by the University in the last two years are eligible for the scholarship as long as they maintain a 3.2 grade point average while taking 30 credit hours in their first year. The scholarship is renewable for up to four years, as long as scholars maintain a 3.5 grade point average in following years.
However, national scholars that started school before the new administration arrived in fall 2008 are not eligible for the scholarship.
