<p>I keep reading that Holy Cross will be expanding its merit scholarship. I looked on the website and I do not see anything new. Does anyone know anything specific?</p>
<p>Although it hasn't been widely publicized, one of the recent priorities of the College's Finance and Planning Council has been to allocate funding for more merit-based scholarships. Traditionally, the College only offered limited academic merit aid in the form of twenty half-tuition Ignation Scholarships as well as several others (full tuition for an exceptional organ player once every four years, several scholarships for incoming Classics majors, merit aid for qualified athletes, etc). Additional merit scholarships have been offered starting with the class of 2009 to some students who are most highly rated by the Office of Admissions in an effort to convince this select group of students who would most likely otherwise choose attend a more highly-ranked institution (often an Ivy or top LAC) to give Holy Cross further consideration. All applicants are considered for merit-based scholarships so there is no separate application; admitted students who have been selected to receive this aid are made aware through the financial aid package that is sent soon after the letter of acceptance. With Holy Cross' recent surge in applicants and its even more highly qualified applicant pool, only those truly exceptional students will be offered merit aid. This is HC's recent expansion in merit aid and I am not aware of any forthcoming expansion except for perhaps a further increase in funding this program. This is an example of one such scholarship: <a href="http://www.holycross.edu/campaign/news/announcements20.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.holycross.edu/campaign/news/announcements20.html</a></p>