Looking for merit based scholarship, ideally the scholarship does not tie to a particular school.

Does someone have experience of using any application services that help submit application to many scholarship sources?
For example, ScholarshipOwl.com?

@ParentofA_student

Most of the generous scholarships that can be used at almost any school have a need component. If your family income is really $260,000 a year…you don’t have financial need.

The best merit awards come directly from colleges…but you won’t be seeing those at the many of the elite schools as they give need based aid only.

In addition…another way to cut costs…pick a less expensive college. No one has to attend an expensive private university.

How much aid do you think you need annually?

You need to ask your parents how much is in the budget. A real number you can work with rather than all the angst and hand-wringing/head banging.

As someone who mentored an underprivileged youth (yes a URM/first generation) with essentially no family money and, sadly, only mediocre scores (but a B+ GPA), I find it hard to find a lot of sympathy for someone who can afford EITHER a quality state school at full pay OR a quality (non-elite) school on a hefty merit scholarship. The kid I mentored got into some decent schools, but with so little financial aid that commuting to the local (not particularly good) community college was his only option. You’ve got choices. Good choices.

@ donna, I suspect kids who have worked through high school being told they will have an opportunity to go to a top school on some kind of scholarship aren’t a rarity (especially kids whose parents are foreign born). This kid sounds like she has been sold this kind of picture and is now adjusting to the fact that even before being of the 95/100 rejects from tippy top schools she is now aware she can’t even apply. Let’s applaud the parent who got ahead of that picture before it went south.

I agree with @donnaleighg

With $260,000 a year in income…this kid has choices. If the stats posted are for real…this kid would have merit potential at Alabama, Old Miss…and others.

But need based aid? No.

Merit aid at the elites…many don’t give merit aid…and those that do…well…maybe.

But Yale? No.

@ParentofA_student: The merit scholarships that we have seen that are not tied to a school have been tiny – hardly worth looking for unless you are just scaping by to get to a community college (which I gather from a different thread is not you). I figured we could leave these for students who actually are scraping by to go to a community college (not us either).

I am sympathetic with the notion that relatively high income parents don’t necessarily feel rich enough to spend $70,000 per year for at least four years for each of their children, with the understanding that graduate school might follow and add even more expense. Depending upon family size $1,000,000 might not go as far as it would seem like it should. However, at least in our experience there is no need to go to a super expensive school nor to an ivy league school in order to find a great fit at an academically strong university. As @thumper1 said, if you want a good education at a good price: “pick a less expensive college”.

They are either very competitive (national level), in small amount, and/or non-renewable. The best aid is still from the school.

Siemens competition - top award 100,000
Regeneron STS competition - top award 250,000

Both require the winner to be doing essentially science graduate student level of work.

Some states have merit scholarships that can be used at any school in the state (Hope, Bright Futures). There are some regional ones that do have a need component (Daniels, Boettcher) that have a higher value if used instate (or region). Your D’s high school may have a list of local ones that can be used OOS (there weren’t many at my D’s high school; there were some that were for military kids that could be used OOS). They will be a mix of those with a need component, talent, employers for the children of employees, military connections, local businesses (Pepsi bottling, photography studios). Most are not large dollar amounts.

Isn’t ScholarshipOwl a site that provides a list of scholarships that others are granting? Does Owl grant any?

Private entities have little motivation to provide substantial awards that can be used anywhere and don’t have a need component. That’s why they’re so rare.

You might look for a parent employeer scholarship. My dh’s works for a company that offers a one time $4K scholarship but it’s very competitive since it’s a worldwide company. DD also got a $5K scholarship based on her major and a couple of local scholarships that pushed her over the one time $10k mark. She combined this with a school specific National Merit scholarship and on campus jobs to cover her undergrad costs.

I think your best bet is to set a budget and find schools that are good fits that fall inside your limit. Then focus on outside awards. But I’d make it really clear to your daughter that unless x number of dollars turn up every year ($10k, $20k…whatever your requirement is), Yale and other $70k/year schools are off the table.

Most outside scholarships are one time awards for a few hundred dollars. It’s going to be difficult to find large awards. It will be more difficult to find awards in the tens of thousands of dollars that are renewed for multiple years. How much do you hope to get? Let’s say you’re looking for awards of $10-25k/year. What you’re asking is for someone else to pay $40k-$100k for your daughter to go to college. Your challenge will be to figure out what kind of organization might want to do that. There are schools that will offer grants if she has great stats, but since you hope to find an outside source to fund schools that don’t offer merit or need based aid your search is going to be more difficult.