Has no bearing on top-tier school admission

- It may offer some advantage on 2nd-tier, or 3rd-tier school admission

- A few elite schools such as USC offer partital tuition scholarship for NMS.

- If a kid makes to the final 2,500 of the "$2,500 scholarship" winner,  he/she would get $2,500 without restriction on which school to attend.

- NMS winners can get full rider at a few (US News #100ish) flagship state schools such as U. of Oklahoma  - but you actually have to attend the school to get the money.