<p>Yes, the list of the Top 100 of the larger schools was only printed in the newspaper. It was not online. GW was #7. And yes, as the article explained, the largest awards tended to come from schools with the highest costs of attendance, like Miami, Tulane, USC etc.</p>
<p>The precede to that printed top 100 list said it was filtered to include only schools that had at least 2,000 undergraduates, gave merit aid to at least 10% of freshman, and gave awards that averaged $5,000 apiece. The intent seems to have been to pinpoint the schools where students would have the best chances to qualify for a reasonable amount of aid.</p>
<p>The sortable chart on nytimes.com lists all of the 600+ merit-aid schools in the College Board database, including many tiny colleges and ones that give substantial awards to only a tiny portion of their students or a smidgen of aid to nearly all their freshman.</p>