Above someone said the link is in small font at the bottom of the acceptance letter and is easy to miss.
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My kid did not get merit but did get honors. The link (“Top Scholars”) was at the bottom of the acceptance letter; my understanding is that for some people there’s a separate link for merit, and for others merit is included in the honors letter.
There does not seem to be any obvious formula for merit, from what I’ve seen, but I assume it’s driven by some combination of stats, major, and yield likelihood.
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My son was accepted prebusiness but it says in the letter he was not accepted into Leeds yet? And at the bottom of the letter it says Top Scholar, there is a link to click, and he was awarded merit.
The other schools he applied to u of MN and Indiana U, he was accepted directly into their business schools. Why prebusiness, at CU not into Leeds and given merit. Kind of strange.
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that is odd. Do you mind sharing his stats?
4.0 leadership, officer in his hs business magnet, scholar athlete 4 years, internship, DECA.
did it say pre-business? or exploratory studies? My son applied to leeds but got exploratory studies. How do they decide who is direct admit to leeds, who is pre-business, and who is exploratory studies.
It says prebusiness.
Just a guess but the dif between pre-business and direct to Leeds may be math readiness as well as other factors. For those who are pre-business do your kids have calc? IU Kelley is one of very few select business schools kids can get into directly without having taken calc. That might explain why people are surprised to have a kid get in to Kelley direct but not Leeds. In addition, schools all have their own way of recalculating grades. My son was accepted to Leeds and totally missed the merit link at the bottom! After seeing others post about it he checked and was awarded $25,000😊
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You are right, that’s exactly why! Thank you for clarifying. Makes sense now. He’s in precalc this year.
My son was awarded $26,000
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We just looked everywhere and he definitely did not get anything. Big bummer.
For everyone asking, where is the link to financial awards, it’s at the bottom of the letter that indicates your acceptance. See screenshot with the link Top Scholar Notification.
There is a link on the bottom, left side of the acceptance letter. The link appears blue on our letter.
That is confusing.
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They told our Guidance Counselor that automatic merit was very school dependent- for instance Environmental Design had 0 automatic merit for OOS to award.
I reached out to the school re: Merit Aid. My daughter had the “Top Scholar/Honors” notification and received zero merit. We are out of state. She has high stats and her test and gpa were slightly higher than my other daughter who received the highest award amount two years ago.
The response stated 40% if applicants have a 4.0, that for merit aid they “take into account personal background in addition to academic performance,” and that many students who qualify still won’t get merit aid.
Just thought I’d share since it seems many of you seem to be in the same boat.
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40% with a 4.0 (if UW) is crazy grade inflation
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don’t forget CU recalculates to a weighted 4.0 - I am assuming they are saying 4.0 weighted.
Edited: 40% of accepted applicants had a 4.0.
(My daughter has a 4.8 weighted and a 34 ACT.)
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My OOS D24 is 4.0 unweighted, 35 ACT, too much else to list
This kid is relentless, studying all the time
No merit
I’m seeing more and more evidence that schools may be using predictive algorithms to determine the likelihood of a particular high-achieving OOS applicant actually attending the school, and offer merit accordingly. Not sure if true, but I’ll bet that they are well aware of what the applicant is likely to be offered in their home state and can quickly determine just how competitive their best offer can be.
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We’ve had family in Boulder forever, my brother is an hour away. We love it there. So it definitely was a contender. But our big in-state is less expensive and stronger academically. It still would be far more expensive even with the highest scholarship amount to attend CU, but the scholarship would make it a more reasonable thought.
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