<p>Himom, I, too, have seen big diffrences over the years in merit awards, NMF status. One school that used to give auto awards was UPitt. Getting into the honors college now and getting their awards is much more difficult these days. Had it confirmed when I saw the actual numbers. The % of merit awards being given has dropped significantly. </p>
<p>There used to be quite a few more schools that offered guaranteed awards at certain GPA, test score thresh holds but that has dropped drastically, and now days kids who would have gotten merit money automatically, are not even assured of acceptance. </p>
<p>Also NMF back in my day, and, I was a one, meant nearly a full tuition award at most schools, as I am quite ancient. Now the $2500 one time award isn’t even 10% of the tuition at a lot of the private schools. Also most schools would throw in the next three years worth of awards and some other goodies to boot, often a free ride. One of students at my high school who graduated a little before me got that from Duke back then. No more. It’s much more difficult these days getting substantial merit awards, though I’ve found that getting $500-5K off is common. One of my kids got a slew of those discounts. Very nice, but when the full cost is in the $60K range, it just didn’t make enough of a difference.</p>