Five Easy Steps To Finding Merit Scholarships
We're always trying to simplify things for families and show how they can do it on their own. So we've outlined 5 easy steps to help you and your student find colleges that can offer merit scholarships.
1. Learn how colleges award their need based and merit scholarships.
Not all colleges offer merit scholarships and colleges also offer varying levels of support for needs based aid. You need to find this out before your student applies. You can do so by checking "% Need Met" to learn how much needs based aid a college will provide and also check "Freshmen w/out Financial Need Receiving Merit" and "Avg Merit Aid".
All this information is easily viewed across all colleges in our Colleges Insights search tool.
2.Verify your student's academic stats are in the college's top 25th percentile.
Colleges award merit scholarships to attract academically strong students to their school. They offer merit to students in the top 25th percentile of the college's stats.
You'll get a list of colleges where your student's stats are in the top 25th percentile.
3. & 4. Find the percent of students who receive merit scholarships and look up the average scholarship amount.
With the list you received in step 2, sort the columns "Freshmen w/out Financial Need Receiving Merit" and "Avg Merit Aid". Sort these columns in descending order. Find the school offering the highest average merit amount offered to the largest percent of freshman without financial need.
5. Check deadlines and other requirements for merit scholarships. Always check the college's website for the details of their merit scholarships. College Insights has a link to each page on the college's website with information about their merit scholarships. This link is in the "Merit Scholarships Categories Offered" column.
Deadlines for merit scholarships can often be sooner than regular decision deadlines. Some schools also require an additional application or essay to apply. Don't miss these details.
Follow the steps above and you'll easily find colleges that can offer your student merit scholarships, saving you hours of researching looking through common data sets and other search websites. | 
