<p>How much merit do you need?</p>
<p>Just not sure how merit works,</p>
<p>Merit is used by “merit giving schools” to capture the students with the highest stats to push up their reported quartile numbers. </p>
<p>So, the more high stats students a school can get, pushes up their reported quartile numbers. </p>
<p>That’s why you’ll see merit awards really jump in size for scores that are well-within that Top Quartile. </p>
<p>Several years ago, Bama’s upper quartile was around an ACT 28+. At that time, Bama was giving full tuition for an ACT 28 to instate students. OOS probably needed an ACT 30. After awarding large merit to those who had these higher scores, Bama was able raise its upper quartile to an ACT 31+. That’s a significant increase. Now Bama requires an ACT 32 for full tuition scholarships. </p>
<p>The plain truth is: Schools don’t give merit “to be nice guys”…they give merit to students whose stats really help the school “look good”. </p>
<p>??
What was your son’s SAT score? (Math + CR)</p>
<p>*trying to see how much $$ he qualifies for. *</p>
<p>Off-hand, I don’t know what the upper quartiles are for those schools that you listed, but I think that they’re all above an ACT 27. I’m guessing that they all are about an ACT 30+. Is that right? If so, then merit wouldn’t be likely.</p>
<p>What is your budget? How much do you want to spend each year? </p>
<p>Does Rowan have eng’g? If so, would he get merit there?</p>