@illinoisx3 The only ones in our suburban Chicago high school who got any significant merit were kids who had other hooks, or had significant financial need on top of it. Solidly middle class kids with perfect stats got a small one year only scholarship - something like $2K for engineering. The last couple of years very few got any merit to speak of unless they had other hooks like athletics, URM. Most scholarships are need based, not merit.
Though I did see in the news recently that due to so many high stat kids being wooed away by OOS scholarships, there will be a new non-need based merit scholarship available for high performing students. It’s called the Aim High Grant proram, and it was recently passed. At least Illinois is finally recognizing that the flagship has become increasingly unaffordable for residents.
The bill is here if anyone has interest: