<p>The letter said both merit and need aid will come by the end of January so things may have changed.</p>
<p>That is about right for EA applicants. The merit and need based aid for regular decision applicants won't come until end of March. The applications for Regular decision were due today.</p>
<p>SCU gives merit awards and merit awards (I know that sounds silly but...). DD didn't get one of the named scholarships at all. Those go to the students admitted with distinction. BUT she did get a SCU grant. Her grant is a merit based grant and is contingent on getting a certain GPA. We thought that was odd since most of the time grants are need based and scholarships are merit based. BUT the financial aid office says this is not always the case with SCU grants...some are merit based. </p>
<p>SO...my guess is that the "named" scholarships go to students admitted with distinction...SCU grants go to others (my daughter was not admitted with distinction). Scholarships for students admitted with distinction used to be more generous. I don't know if that will be the case this year or not.</p>
<p>I spoke with Admissions at SCU, and they said admission with distinction was not put on EA acceptance letters this year. They will start sending out merit aid awards in late January, on a rolling basis, so they won't all go out at the same time. I am both a college counselor in Santa Clara County AND have a high school senior who is a recruited athlete at SCU. </p>
<p>According to SCU coach, his acceptance was with distinction, but we have not received official notification from SCU on this. His stats are:
GPA : 4..44 weighted (4.0 Unweighted)
SAT: 2240</p>
<p>Thanks for the information; that's helpful and reassuring (especially since the web site still contains different information). Did they say why they are doing it differently?</p>
<p>I didn't ask that question- looking at posts from last year, and talking to other parents, I believe they did it the same way last year- accepted students early, but didn't give out Merit or Distinction Awards until late January, presumably to see who they get in the regular admit pile.</p>
<p>My Ds financial aid info has arrived. There were no named scholarships mentioned. Is it likely this is her full offer, or is there still a chance a named scholarship would be added later?</p>
<p>Don't know if this answers the question -- but my D's award listed both the merit scholarships she received and loans she qualified for.</p>
<p>Has anyone received a Presidential or Provost Merit Scholarship? It would be helpful if stats were listed (GPA and SAT/ACT scores) for those receiving Merit Scholarships.</p>
<p>I know that last year, a student was given merit $$ at SCU, accepted the offer, then in May the amount was increased quite a bit, if that helps.</p>
<p>I noticed on the web site that the last year's statements regarding the numbers of Presidential and Provost's Merit Scholarships are gone; rather than reading "up to 10" or "up to 40," no numbers are specified. I gather they must have had to cut the numbers of such awards they can give. </p>
<p>That'd be nice to have the amount of aid increased -- but nicer to know <em>before</em> May!</p>
<p>Is this what you were looking for?
Santa</a> Clara University Undergraduate Bulletin - Financial Aid</p>
<p>There are numbers posted there- not sure when it was published though!</p>
<p>According to the link posted by jdcpenner, all the named scholars "are notified of their selection at the time of their admission to the University". Could someone help me with the jargon? Is admission the same as acceptance?</p>
<p>jdcpenner -- yes, those are the numbers. If you go to the website now under financial aid, you see the same info -- without the numbers ....</p>
<p>SCH -- we puzzled about the same thing, assuming that "at the time of admission" meant when you got your letter of acceptance. I'm not sure what else it would mean, and perhaps they simply changed their process?</p>
<p>SCU definitely changed their process, and they no longer give merit money at the time of admissions for early admits. They didn't last year either. </p>
<p>The site I posted is still on the current site for 2008-2009- it is not cached. Go to Santa</a> Clara University Undergraduate Bulletin - Undergraduate Bulletin
click "Tuition, Fees and Financial Aid" then click on "Financial Aid".</p>
<p>According to Zetesis, an invitation to Scholar's Day indicates that the student will receive some form of merit aid...just doesn't indicate how much!</p>
<p>I wish their published information matched their process. We were surprised when D got her acceptance in December and the note that merit/financial aid would be announced by the end of January. We had counted on knowing it sooner and probably would have done a few things differently had we known this was their actual process.</p>
<p>Cristina Louie, in the admissions office, told me that a Scholars' Day invitation means you have a merit award. I thought it was odd that the invitation came before the notification of the award.</p>
<p>I know a senior who has received the Scholar's Day Invite and no notification of merit award to date, which is also a bit frustrating.</p>
<p>The Honors College staff person did tell me that they had finished processing the President & Provost scholars, and had just received the list of Deans Scholars from Admissions, and were going to work through those. I don't know if that implies that admissions is working through the list from President Scholars on down; and if this applies applies only to EA candidates. It sounds like there is a general pool of agreed on admits "with distinction" -- they got the invite to Scholars Day -- and now the office is figuring out which award a student gets and how much. But that is a guess only.</p>