  We study Higgs condensation in the top-mode standard model at the
next-to-leading (NTL) order in 1/Nc, by calculating the effective potential as
a function of a hard mass term of the top quark. We include the effects of the
top and bottom quarks, all the scalars, and the leading QCD effects, but not
the effects of the transverse components of the electroweak gauge bosons. The
model contains finite UV energy cutoff parameters Lf, Lb for the fermionic and
the bosonic momenta. Condensation takes place at energies L \sim Lf \sim Lb. We
describe how to regularize the integrals over the fermionic momenta in a way
free of momentum branching ambiguities and treat the terms of 1/Nc expansion
mutually consistently. We use three different cutoff procedures. We also
discuss how to ensure the validity of Goldstone theorem. Demanding that the NTL
contributions not ``wash out'' the leading ones, we obtain for the cutoffs: L =
O(1 TeV), a result largely independent of the regularization procedure.
