Didn't apply for Merit Scholarship

I didn’t apply for a Merit scholarship at Vanderbilt because I figured if by chance I do get in, my financial aid would suffice. In retrospect, this wasn’t a good idea because people are saying not applying for merit implIes that Vanderbilt wasn’t your top choice and there wasn’t definite interest. So if I didn’t apply for merit, is that basically an automatic rejection since I don’t have hooks or anything like that.

Of course not! There are many students here who didn’t apply for merit scholarships but they still got in. Not applying for merit aid does not mean an automatic rejection.

Anyway, good luck for tomorrow!

I didn’t apply for any of the scholarships and I still got in, don’t worry about it! Good luck!