I am a junior in high school and I’m starting to look at colleges. I made a possible list of colleges I am thinking of applying to and I’m wondering if I could get into/receive merit scholarships from any of the colleges below? I also provided my stats
University of Miami
Emory University
Denison University
Furman University
University of Richmond
American University
Elon University
Southern Methodist University
UNC Chapel Hill
University of Georgia
27 ACT
29 Superscore ACT
1300 SAT
4.0 unweighted GPA
12 AP classes
National Honor Society
300+ community service hours
Established a community food pantry
Volunteer at the local nursing home
4-year varsity track and cross country
Participated in multiple state-wide and county-wide honor bands and orchestras
An active member of 4 school clubs
+more
What is your budget? What state are you from? You may get into some of the listed universities, but receiving significant merit scholarships is another matter. A superscored 29 on the ACT is good, but most automatic merit kicks in with scores 30+ at large public universities. You are looking at private universities that generally don’t have defined merit awards.
You may find it difficult to be admitted to UNC, Emory, and Georgia. As I previously mentioned significant merit scholarships at any of the above universities may be a stretch. If you are interested in these schools, then you really need to increase your ACT by about 3-4 points. Understand that neither UNC, Emory, nor Georgia offer significant OOS merit aid. As for the other universities, were you to increase your scores, you may receive merit aid. But, those universities , for example SMU, are expensive to start.
You will be much stronger without submitting tests scores.
Emory and UNC may be out of reach, but feel free to get into detail around your academics - high school, grades and schedule. Without going one-by-one, there is merit money assuming you are an above average applicant.
