Stupid question: How exactly do merit scholarships work?

<p>One of my daughters was accepted to a state school with automatic scholarships for OOS students; she got a separate letter, but on the same day as her acceptance. My other daughter was accepted at a private school and about a month later received a ‘possible’ financial aid breakdown, which is only based on her stats and scores. She must submit her fall grades and any additional SAT/ACT scores and a final financial aid package will be ready in January (after FAFSA, but she won’t get anything from ‘need’ based aid because she has an athletic scholarship).</p>

<p>So it depends is the answer.</p>