I recently shared these links on a different thread for a National Merit Finalist.
Also, some of the recent posts on this thread linked to scholarships for National Hispanic Scholars: College Board National Recognition Program (includes former National Hispanic Recognition Program) Class of 2022 - #1180 by Pirc
If Florida causes allergy issues, then schools like Alabama, Ole Miss, and Mississippi State might not be much better, but they do offer generous aid to finalists. These are some different ones that have more of a different climate from Florida.
- U. of Maine
- U. of Idaho
- U. of Oklahoma
- Oklahoma State
- U. Texas - Dallas
- U. Texas - Arlington
- Texas Tech
- U. of Kentucky
- U. of Louisville
But just because a place isn’t auto-merit doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a significant chance of getting big merit somewhere. She can pick schools whose teams she likes or are in regions of the country where she would like to live, etc. For med school, she needs a top GPA and high MCAT scores, with much less attention paid to the name of the undergraduate institution. Many employers focus their recruiting on colleges that are geographically close to them. So if there’s a particular employer or area that she’s interested in for after college, see where they’re recruiting. Here are a couple of schools where I think she would receive good to fabulous merit aid:
- U. of Arkansas (tons of school spirit and close to some major companies)
- Kansas State (often ranked as one of the happiest student bodies in the country)
- Syracuse (NY)
But most of the T15ish schools are not big schools. Some possibilities of smaller schools (but at least 5k undergrads) with good school spirit that would give good to fabulous merit aid are:
- SMU (TX)
- Marquette (WI)
- Seton Hall (NJ)
- Xavier (OH)
- U. of Dayton (OH)