<p>dt123, I will tell you what I believe, and you can feel free to disagree if you like. I think that many private colleges give plenty of mediocre to a bit above average kids big merit scholarships. Some schools might save some of them for middle class/upper middle class families that won't get much in the way of need based grants. There are even community service scholarhips, geographic diversity scholarships that are not even offered b/c of grades in the first place. Some of those may require a 3.0-3.5 (my son actually got one of these). Some requirements to keep them are a bit lower. I believe many of them are really lures, and I think that schools can figure out, and have figured out statistically how many will hold onto that scholarship, and for how long.</p>