Getting Accepted does NOT mean that a Merit Scholarship will be forthcoming....

[Pheebers]

@middling I’m echoing what the others have said. My admittedly anecdotal evidence is my twins, who got very different acceptance offers from the same well-respected school. The one with higher stats, spectacular ECs, etc applied ED and got less merit $ than her sister who applied RD.

She was 100% certain about the school and we knew it was in our budget because of the NPC, so ED was not an awful thing. Our priority was maximizing her acceptance chances. She’s now a rising senior and absolutely thriving there. But it stings a bit that her twin was offered more $ with lower stats.

[BWooley]

This is so true; my sister almost missed out on a full tuition scholarship because she didn’t know automatic scholarships weren’t given and just found out at the nick of time.

My advice to parents and guardians is to do a thorough scholarship search before even applying for an admission , this will save you unnecessary headache down the road. I’m linking to one of the best scholarship listings on the web to serve as a guide to anyone on the hunt for substantial financial aid opportunitiesin the United States.