<p>If this helps just one student it’s worth posting…even though I hate admitting I didn’t know this until today!</p>
<p>MI Merit Awards are awards available to students who have taken the four sections of the MEAPs and received a I or a II in each section (MEAPs are the state assessment tests). The awards are valued at $2500 for use at in-state schools. What I didn’t realize until today is that qualified students who are going out-of-state may claim a $1000 award.</p>
<p>My daughter has expressed a desire to go out-of-state to college for as long as I can remember, so I never paid attention to the to the ins-and-outs of the merit awards. It took an adrep from an out-of-state school to gently (and somewhat mysteriously) suggest that my daughter explore the possibilities of MI merit awards. I don’t know if there’s some restriction barring reps from informing students of this possibility or whether the rep my daughter spoke with was being careful because she wasn’t sure of the details, but my daughter described the conversation as “unusually vague and oblique.” Whatever the reason, it was a lesson learned…</p>