<p>Only child here so my family is pretty unfamiliar with the whole college process. It may sound like a stupid question, but do colleges make scholarship offers to you if they find you to be exceptional or something? Or do you need to contact them first?</p>
<p>I had a few schools contact me asking me to apply so they could give me scholarships, but I think that was tied in with their efforts to get more national merit finalists (Florida, Oklahoma, etc).</p>
<p>Yeah, pretty much the only way that you get offered merit scholarships is through the national merit program, unless you specifically apply for additional merit scholarships through outside associations. Check with your parents' employers and professional associations, if they're members of any... Oftentimes, that's the best place to start.</p>
<p>As to need-based financial aid, you apply for that through the colleges that you're applying to. Each college has different procedures for this. The admissions offices for the colleges and also your high school's guidance counselor can help you out with this, too.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>^that's not true
it depends on the school...the best schools (ivies and ivy-caliber) won't give merit scholarship..but there are many that will..
the number of kids who got full rides to BU from my school (a rich, preppy private catholic school) is quite astounding.</p>
<p>Usually they will tell you about any merit scholarship they give in or along with your acceptance letter.
For need-based aid, there is an additional application that you need to fill out after you're accepted..I think..</p>
<p>Duke gives merit scholarships.</p>
<p>Trey - go to your library, and check out a book on "How to pay for college" Idiots's Guide, or just a book on college admissions will usually have a chapter on financing.
Before you apply you and your family should have some knowledge of the ins and outs of college financing and how it applies to your personal situation.</p>
<p>In a nutshell - some highly selective colleges, like the Ivy League, provide only "need-based" financial aid, there are no scholarships in the sense that you probably mean scholarships. Also, the school decides what it considers your family's "need" to be. In some cases it can be quite generous, because the cost of attendance is so high.
Most other schools, including many publics and below the Ivy privates, offer a mix of need-based and merit-based financial aid. Merit-based aid is usually available to students regardless of their ability to pay, so it is essentially a method of "discounting" the tuition. It may or may not be tied to NMF status.
For students whose families are middle class to upper middle class (about $50-60K per year, up to $150,000) their best financial bets are in-state public schools, and merit-aid at private schools. Usually a student must drop down a notch or two in selectivity to get large sums of merit aid. For a student whose family can afford 15000 for attendance, but they need another 5-10000 to cover the rest of the cost, they can often find a merit school if they have reasonable grades, because some schools like to give smaller amounts to more people (ie kids with lower stats). A kid with Ivy caliber stats can almost always find a near free ride if they look around enough, and aren't that picky about their choices.
It is somewhat misleading for Devil to say Duke gives merit aid, they do, but it is limited to very exceptional students that Duke particularly wants to attract. Duke is more of a need-based aid school.</p>
<p>It is important, again, to sit down with your folks, figure out what the finances look like, and use that knowledge as a tool in picking schools. It may require you looking outside your region or, outside the type of school you prefer, but almost everyone can have affordable college choice, if they are a good student. Good Luck.</p>
<p>Oh, and the other reason to look early is that some of the best merit scholarships, require separate, often earlier applications, or even nominations from your school, while others are just applied to your financial aid award.
For example, my daughter's preferred safety school gives a prestigious full ride scholarship that required nomination by the high school, with separate recs, etc. It also requires a submitted RD application. All this paperwork has to be in by Dec 1, not Dec 31. So, even though she also applied ED to another college, she submitted this application as well.</p>
<p>Whoops! Thanks, LadyInRed... forgot to qualify my statement. =</p>
<p>A lot of schools will let you know of any merit scholarships when you apply. By applying you are automatically entered in several scholarships--in your acceptance letter or financial aid letter you may be surprised by some scholarships. Other schools like Emory (Emory Scholars Program) have scholarships for which you need to apply separately.</p>
<p>If you go to a job fair, the rep will tell you based on your stats what range of scholarship you are likely to get, if it is a college that has merit of course and can predict. They did spark some interest for my kids in schools they may not have considered.</p>