<p>does mac offer much merit scholarships? should i bother spending the $ to send in better test scores not for admission, but for honors or scholarships? I read that they don't have much and didn't find a ton on the website..</p>
<p>According the US News premium, 6% of students get merit awards. These average $3806 for first year students, $4686 for all undergrads.</p>
<p>Also, average debt on graduation is a shade under 15K, 75% of graduates have debt upon graduation.</p>
<p>The only merit awards are for National Merit, with an added DeWitt Wallace scholarship to that. Of all the colleges to which my daughter applied, Mac offered the least financial aid (either merit or need based).</p>
<p>hmm that's slightly depressing; i was really into mac..
so if my leadership and ECs are excellent, and I had a 33 (after superscore; 32 before), and my school doesn't provide class rank (but does provide a grade distribution chart and I'd be around 20th%ile unweighted but a lot higher weighted), would I have a chance at merit scholarships??</p>
<p>The maximum merit scholarship is $5000 - $2000 for National Merit plus $3000 for DeWitt Wallace.</p>
<p>For comparison, my D was top 5%, 2250 SAT, excellent ECs.</p>
<p>Mac doesn't offer much merit aid, partly because it offers so much need-based aid (69% of students are on need aid) and (more importantly) because it doesn't need to in order attract the best students. The schools that offer the most merit aid are generally considered slightly less prestigous than the top colleges, so they give merit aid to attract the best students away from the 'best' colleges.
So, if you want merit aid, you should be applying to schools that seem more like safeties than matches (with exceptions, for example I think Grinnell offers a fair amount of merit aid).
All that said, I think that if you particularly like Mac, you should apply and see what happens. You could request to wave the application fee if it's a problem, and you really don't have anything to lose.</p>