<p>i've just recently begun looking into tufts, but merit aid is important to me. does tufts offer any merit scholarships? i'm sure that if there are scholarships, they are probably very hard to get, considering tufts is a great and fairly big school, but i'd still like to know... (i'm interested in international relations, if that makes any difference)</p>
<p>There are a very small number of scholarships, but no the school does not offer merit aid.</p>
<p>the only way to get merit aid is to win a nat'l merit scholarship. otherwise it's just financial aid.
(to the best of my knowledge)</p>
<p>There are some scholarships but they find you, not the other way around.</p>
<p>the national merit scholarships are very small ($750). Very few (if any) merit scholarships.
BU - a few miles away - DOES give merit scholarships.</p>
<p>There are definitely full-ride scholarships based on merit, but, again, the school will find you if they decide you fill the requirements of the given scholarship, so you can't apply for them. Sorry to give a morbid example, but look up a Tufts Daily article describing the life of Boryana, a senior who died last year. In it, they say that she received a full-ride to Tufts, an award specifically created for underprivileged but qualified international students. I know an engineer friend who also has a free ride that was offered to him when he was expecting to get just a regular financial aid package. I don't know how he was selected and it seems he didn't really have any idea either.</p>
<p>Yes the scholarships tend to be few in number and foundation-supported. The school itself doesn't give merit aid.</p>
<p>Boryana's case was very special, though - they thought she was such a great candidate but knew that fin aid for internationals was minimal, so they actually called a personal friend and Tufts trustee to ask if the family wouldn't mind sponsoring Boryana's education. They did, and she became very close personal friends with her benefactors. (Sorry to sound so creepy, but I sang at her memorial service, where they discussed this in great detail. She was such an incredible person...it really was a senseless tragedy.)</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies--they were actually reassuring. I was under the impression that there were absolutely no scholarship opportunities--it's always good to know that there's at least some hope, however small it may be.</p>