<p>In other words, if a college lists certain named scholarships and the number of those granted each year, is it logical to conclude that those are the only merit scholarships? </p>
<p>If so, it would seem that a student could get some idea of how likely being offered a merit scholarship at a small college would be, by reading the restrictions on those scholarships. For example, if a student didn’t want to major in music or be a doctor, those scholarships wouldn’t apply, and a student with high statistics but undecided on major or career could eliminate those as possibilities. Also, the student would realize he wouldn’t be eligible for named scholarships limited to students from different geographical locations.</p>
<p>Or do colleges also have a pool of additional money available for merit scholarships that are just not listed on their websites because the regular application is used to determine who receives them?</p>
<p>Each institution does this a different way. My old college doesn’t offer merit scholarships, but does have a bunch of “named” scholarships. That means that a student majoring in Y who has financial need, receives the “Y departmental scholarship”, and a student from geographical location X, receives the “X regional scholarship”, as part of their need-based aid packages.</p>
<p>As happymom said, each school will be different. My daughter’s school has school wide scholarships that are based on stats (ACT/SAT/GPA). Some are automatic if you meet the criteria and and some are limited in number and not automatic. They seem to be the biggies. Also has a lot of other scholarships that are by depertment/college. All them are listed on the website.</p>
<p>They also have some returning student scholarships. Some of those require the generic annual scholarship application and some (the better ones) have separate applications.</p>
<p>Does anyone know of a college where the website listed several named scholarships, but the scholarship your student was given was not a listed scholarship; i.e., the college just offered a certain amount of merit money?</p>
<p>No. The scholarship my daughter was given was listed on the school’s website. We had a fairly good idea of what she was eligible for at all the schools she looked at as they all listed their scholarships on their websites.</p>