Way later than 1st of the year. The SSA is due Nov 1st, and by the time all SSA applications go in the cauldron and stirred, it takes a while for merit to flow.
Also notice the merit does not come out in a big envelope or check. DD2 received a number of merit scholarships and those were coming in at random times around late January / early February for the automatic instate I think, all the way to April with some of the smaller awards.
This was the case not only for college of Arts and Sciences, but for some of the Kelley kids that she knows that got Kelley specific merit aid. Maybe Kelley was a couple weeks earlier. There’s also some of the Hudson & Holland (?) that run at different schedules as well.