<p>Are Merit Aid,Grants, Scholarships etc. only awarded on the basis of academic credentials or is that process also holisitic?
The assumption being that the student has the academic credentials to be admitted to the school they are applying to and there will be no needs based aid made available.</p>
<p>There are talent scholarships, leadership scholarships, athletic scholarships, grants for belonging to a particular church denomination. THe biggest are probably academic merit, but do something a school values, and there may be some financial rewards.</p>
<p>As Ordinarylives states, there are many different kinds of scholarships. Some schools have it spelled out exactly what your gpa and test scores are to be guaranteed a certain dollar amount, or they are the levels needed to be in contention for certain awards. Others are just to get the applicants most wanted to come. Some are hoistic in nature. Some have their own apps and procedures with separate deadlines from the admissions apps. So there are many different kinds. </p>
<p>Usually merit money is given by the admissions office and goes to those they most want, with academic profile a big part of the picture. Need does not come into the consideration unless the fin aid and admissions office are one and the same. Trump’s kids could get merit money.</p>
<p>Also, some schools award merit scholarships, but the quantity of money awarded to an individual student is on a sliding scale depending on financial need.</p>
<p>*Merit Aid
Are Merit Aid,Grants, Scholarships etc. only awarded on the basis of academic credentials or is that process also holisitic?
The assumption being that the student has the academic credentials to be admitted to the school they are applying to and there will be no needs based aid made available.
*<br>
*</p>
<p>Can you tell us more about your situation? </p>
<p>If a student’s stats are average for the school and the studnet has good ECs, then what would make a school pick THAT student out to award a merit scholarship?</p>
<p>However, if that student adds to the diversity mix for the school, the school might give some merit because that student will help the school with its reporting stats.</p>
<p>ECs can be over-rated. Unless they’re spectacular, (NOT typical club president, varsity team member), they don’t “move” a school to award merit.</p>
<p>The point of merit is to get a student that the school needs (music talent for the orchestra, high test scores for reporting purposes, URMs for diversity reporting), the school has no motivation to award merit.</p>
<p>However, sometimes there are some (usually small) endowed merit awards and the donors have specified that the student must be X (from a certain county, from a certain church, from a certain high school, etc). In those cases, if there aren’t many who match the req’t, then a more average student might get it. However, often there is often a “need” component to those awards.</p>