<p>With respect to the age of my information–my D is freshman. I think American doesn’t get more specific about its merit awards because they aren’t based on specific pre-established GPA’s/scores. But they do appear to award quite significant scholarships to those who are in the topmost tier (perhaps top 15-20%?) of each year’s applicant pool. A student can probably get a decent sense of the likelihood of getting a merit award by comparing his or her stats to those of students accepted in the prior year. Bottom line, American will pay to attract the best students.</p>