(07-30-2013 09:45 AM)JMU Wrote:  

(07-30-2013 09:37 AM)ODUalum78 Wrote:  Indeed. Alabama is the only public in the top 5.

For 2012:
1. University Of Chicago (303)
2. Harvard (268)
3. Southern Cal (263)
4. Alabama (241)
5. Northwestern (236)

http://www.nationalmerit.org/annual_report.pdf

See my last post. Agree it was only public universities. Your list above confirms. Thanks. Interesting JMU only has 1. One.

One? Geez....it's worst than I thought. Now this is an area where a little "vision" could help...and a strong connection to the Alumni efforts at giving and the Honors Program (you with me Ham?). Tell folks that JMU is going to raise funds to enroll 100 NMFs (or whatever number we want to shoot for...100 might be high, but heck, why not go big?).

Cursory look at the CAA

103* Northeastern University (84) 19
12* Stony Brook (9) 3
10* College of Charleston (7) 3
8* University of Maine (7) 1
7* University of Richmond (6) 1
6 College of William and Mary
5 Drexel University
1 James Madison University
1 Elon University
1 University of Delaware

*An asterisk indicates that Merit Scholars whose scholarships are sponsored by the institution are included; the number sponsored by the college is shown in parentheses.

Note that W&M has the highest total for a school that does not actually sponsor NMSs, but Northeastern still has 19 above those that it actually sponsors.

(07-30-2013 06:36 AM)atljmualum Wrote:  

(07-29-2013 07:37 PM)JMU Wrote:  FYI. Alabama has the most national merit scholars than any other university in the country. They attribute the increasing quality of its student body due to its football success. There was a recent forbes article about it i believe. On my phone so cant post a link. Alabama is one of JMU's peer institutions.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomvanriper/...o-alabama/

Alabama also has more US partners at my professional services firm than any other university, and I work for the world's largest professional services firm. We recruit very heavily from Alabama in our Atlanta and Birmingham offices and have had a lot of success with their students. I think it's all the local bandwagon Alabama fans that give the university a bad rep as opposed to the university itself.

I realize this is very anecdotal but thought it was a very interesting stay when I heard it a few years ago.

Did you just tell us you work for PricewaterhouseCoopers?