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<p>This is absolutely NOT true at all schools. There are plenty of colleges that use the same superscoring for awarding merit aid as they do for admissions.</p>
<p>Schools that do award merit aid based on the student’s application and not a separate scholarship application DO (not always perhaps…but certainly many do) use superscoring…just like they do for admissions.</p>
<p>A 31 ACT score is decent enough for merit aid at SOME public universities for OOS students (e.g. U of South Carolina, or as mentioned previously, some of the smaller UNC schools). BUT for the flagship U’s…an OOS student would really have to be exemplary at many of the schools on the OP’s list.</p>
<p>NMSF receive 1/2 tuition at the University of Southern California. BUT that doesn’t sound like it’s going to help the OP.</p>