<p>arbiter213: “I think that while they do not give merit scholarships per-se, they are not “merit-blind”. If they feel you’re a strong student and want you to attend, they seem to increase the amount of aid in grants.”</p>
<p>All schools play this game to some degree. Stanford’s Presidential Scholars program (hence abandoned) used to identify the top 200 or so top student targets and gave them more aid in grants. There is now a relative arms race for the poorer students with schools competing to have the higher cutoff for qualifying family income that receives entirely grants without loans (Princeton and Harvard have the highest cutoffs with schools such as NU and Penn recently joining the fray). The amount of aid in grants has always been a gray zone to schools claiming not to give merit aid, with programs like Stanford’s old Presidential Scholars program and a school upping financial aid grants to high calibur students with competing offers as obvious examples. But, still, a higher percent of financial aid as grants is not merit aid. These students still had financial need.</p>