<p>@Kreig01: Having gone through the admission process with both my sons the last 2 years where they focused on in-state schools (California), the most merit they received was from private schools such as University of La Verne, University of the Pacific and Whittier College. The lone exception was UCR which gave my younger son $5000/year Chancellor’s Scholarship. We are basically full-pay for their schools, so merit aid is the only type of aid they could qualify. That being said, even with the merit aid, the price tags for the privates were still above what we are paying for 1 UC and 1 Cal State. Even USC which used to give Full-Tuition Scholarships will only give 1/2 tuition Scholarships to high STAT applicants. You would need to go OOS for better merit aid.</p>