<p>Richmond has some pretty clear guidelines as to what they are looking for:</p>
<p>Richmond Scholars Selection Process</p>
<p>First-year admission applicants who apply by December 15 of the senior year compete for 50 Richmond Scholar awards. As is the case with consideration for admission, the evaluation process is highly personalized and holistic. The writing sample is crucial because it is the medium through which the potential for special contributions to the University community can be assessed. While grade point averages and test scores are critical, they do not represent the whole student and are not used for either automatic inclusion or exclusion.</p>
<p>Successful candidates demonstrate one or more from the following list of accomplishments and qualities:</p>
<p>Outstanding and engaged scholarship
Desire to be at the forefront in the creation and discovery of new knowledge
Leadership skills
Desire to be a leader in service to society
Broad worldview
Excitement about learning from people who are different from themselves in a diverse community of scholars
Recognition of the importance of personal integrity and ethical decision making
Enthusiastic pursuit of self-improvement
Desire to make the most of opportunities presented
Exceptional talent in artistic expression</p>
<p>I imagine that there is a lot of competition for these scholarships. Please donāt blame a hypothetical minority for your disappointment.</p>
<p>not the best college, but St.Johns University gives you full tuition and half room/board if you have over 1350 on the SAT and above a 95 GPA automatically.</p>
<p>springy, my D was one of the Richmond scholars winners. After the initial application is submitted (and there is an early date for the submission), the school does an initial screening and selects and notifies semifinalists to apply for the particular Richmond scholarship program they are interested in (there are 3 different ones). They do this on a rolling basis so not everyone is notified they are a semifinalist at the same time. You can apply to 2 of the 3. The student has approximately 2 weeks to complete the application which includes at least one additional essay. You can submit additional recommendations if you want as well. They then narrow the semifinalists to finalist who are invited to 3 days on campus for an interview and visit. The main interview is a panel interview (for science my D had an interview with members of 5 different departments). The actual Richmond scholars are notified within a few days of their visit.</p>
<p>As an aside, I believe the number of Richmond scholars has decreased to 45 (I saw this somewhere but donāt remember where).</p>
<p>Usually if you look for a private college they will have more money to give. In Michigan Kalamazoo College give a lot of financial and merit aid. Iāve even seen state schools like MSU give out a ton of merit money.</p>
<p>I searched this thread and didnāt see this mentioned. Southern Methodist University gives large merit scholarships. One is the Presidential Scholarship which is a full ride +. There is also a full tuition scholarship, but Iāve forgotten what itās called. Both scholarships require an interview with faculty.</p>
<p>U of Richmond has full tuition scholarships (I believe this year there were 45) that are merit based. My daughter received one of these this year.</p>
<p>Forgive me if this has been posted before, but Harvard (and I think Yale and Columbia) came out with policies to aid middle and upper-middle class families in the last couple of years. The letter from Harvard (I ditched the others) says that students whose families make up to $180K pay 10 percent of income for tuition down to $120K. It continues to drop and families under $60 pay nothing. I do not know whether this is tuition only or room and board too. I am certain that this has really boosted applications. </p>
<p>Pitt gave nice merit scholarships this year (full tuition); I have no idea how many. University Maryland (in state) also offered full tuition. Schools recruiting NMS with full tuition and more: Oklahoma, Arizona State, UT-Dallas, Texas A&M, University of Central Florida.</p>
<p>Merit scholarships for B+ student with 29 ACT in 2009:
Best: University of Puget Sound (12k), Northeastern U (10k), Kalamazoo College (8k), Eckerd (13k)
Less: UVM (3k)
Nuthin: Tulane, Lewis & Clark, George Washington U, BU, American</p>
<p>Sone was offered almost a full ride at Univ of Oklahoma (honors) and invited to offer for full ride at ASU. U of I offered only a token scholarship. Decided to go to Northwestern. FA package added up to ~ 45% of sticker which essentially matched U of I cost. </p>
<p>from what I have seen is that most top tier colleges will match EFC. Private colleges tend to be more motivated to adjust FA pkgs for students. Hope this helps.</p>