I am a straight A student, 34 ACT, play basketball, have plenty of other extracurriculars. How much merit aid could I get from schools like: USC, UCLA, or Notre Dame?
Notre Dame gives mostly need based aid. If I were guessing, I’d say you won’t get much, if any merit aid there.
If you are out of state for UCLA, same answer. Not much.
USC gives merit aid to NMF and winners, and some other students. Did you take the PSAT? Did you score within range to be NMF? Did you or do you plan to take the SAT?
I took PSAT, got national merit commendation, not recognition… Don’t plan on taking SAT. Thanks though!
Likely ZERO merit aid from any of those schools.
What are your parents saying? Are they expecting you to get merit to help pay for college?
You are not far off the 75% off admission stat for these schools. In other words, around every 4 students will have one with similar or better stat than you.
^^
Not only true, but those schools aren’t known for merit for the top 25%. ND only has a couple of merit offers, and UCB and UCLA have merit like Regents which are for super stats and very limited for OOS students. And, unless there is need, the amounts are low.