<p>Again, Jefferson Scholars is a purely merit-based scholarship. Don’t get it twisted. Not many schools offer as comprehensive a program as Jeff Scholars.</p>
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<p>Which peers? The Ivy League and schools like Williams don’t give out any merit scholarships. If you’re referring to schools like UNC, yeah, UVA could do more to offer merit-based money to a larger group of students. I remember that there was talk several years ago about offering money to Echols Scholars, but that still remains to be seen. </p>
<p>Right now, UVA is still one of the handful of schools that has a yield of over 50%. Since a lot of top students still end up choosing UVA, there hasn’t been an urgency for the University to offer more merit scholarships. As of late, the focus has been on financial aid and economic diversity in order to increase access to more poor and middle-class students. That’s why the University has pumped so much money ($20 million in fact) into Access UVA.</p>
<p>As you know, UVA is about to embark on a major $3 billion capital campaign, and the administration is still trying to figure out where to allocate the money. I suggest you galvanize your fellow Echols Scholars and other students to work on having part of the campaign money be dedicated to undergraduate merit scholarships. (You seem like a self-starter, and this could be a nice summer project for you.) Recently, a recommendation was made by some faculty members to increase the financial packages for grad students.</p>