Of course I realize it is very dependent on grades and test scores. I am curious as to how many students might get the top scholarship, the next level, and so on. Is it simply a question of how badly they want a student, as in Jim Smith is clearly a better student than John Doe, so we will offer him more. Is there a set amount of scholarships they can offer, say 15 top tier, 45 next tier, 100 lowest tier, etc…? (I have no idea how many kids at a given school are actually offered scholarships. I am thinking these might be numbers at a typical LAC.) Do colleges have defined parameters that students must meet in order to be considered for merit aid? Any insight is appreciated.
You might find this thread of interest:
@BelknapPoint , thank you, that is a very helpful thread. I am very familiar with collegedata and have referred to it often, but of course it doesn’t specify any kind of breakdown of scholarships. It seems that my question is bound to remain unanswered.
Most schools are secretive when it comes to specific breakdowns. For instance, my school doesn’t publicize any merit scholarship amount ranges nor eligibility criteria except for the competitive merit awards that are for kids who participated in specific ECs in high school (FIRST Robotics, VEX Robotics, etc) – and even then, you have to be very good at Google to find the pdf info sheets for these scholarships. Many schools are like that.
Merit budgets vary at every school. Some will offer automatic scholarships, some will offer competitive ones, some offer both. But my general impression is that hard stats tend to make awarding decisions. Of course a higher SAT/ACT won’t always win out if the student has a dead personality… but it usually seems to. Which is why most people on CC advise viewing all competitive merit awards as reaches. It can go any way at any moment depending on which stat the school is looking at.
Purdue posts their merit scholarships information on the web like amount and number of awardees per year for their top scholarships.