<p>ACT: 27
bunch of E.A's
great high school trans.., lots of AP's</p>
<p>But I haven't had a job, therefore I do not have a lot of saved money...too busy with school, piano and sports. My family is middle-class and i don't think i'll get much from the FAFSA. </p>
<p>I'm looking for merit-based aid from colleges (I'm already applying for local scholarships, and fastweb and such). Does anybody know of some merit aid I can get from colleges? Any help would be wonderful. </p>
<p>When you apply to most colleges, you are automatically considered for merit aid. Many schools will offer merit aid up front when you get your acceptance letter, others send the aid offer a few weeks later. My daughter was accepted at the three colleges she applied to; Kalamazoo, Wooster, and Earlham. All offered good merit aid, and Wooster even increased their merit aid offer a few weeks later. These schools are "top-tier" mid-west small liberal arts colleges. I also know of many students who graduated with my daughter who got even better merit aid offers at schools that might be called "second tier" lac's but that are still excellent schools: Alma College and Albion College (both in Michigan) give merit aid that makes the cost of attending very competitive with the costs at Michigan State or Central Michigan University, etc. There are small colleges like these schools in most states. They are not at the top of the US New rankings, etc, but you can still get a challenging, high-quality education there. </p>
<p>Another consideration is what you are interested in majoring in. You don't say what area of the country you are from, but if you are interested in majoring in science or engineering, you should definitely look at small schools known for these majors, like Rose-Hulman in Indiana. These schools often have a high percentage of male students and really want more female students, so might be likely to offer more merit aid to females. </p>
<p>Hopefully you have visited websites like the Princeton Review and CollegeBoard, who have great tools for helping you sort through schools to find ones with the criteria important to you, like class size, location, etc. If you haven't used them yet, give them a try. You can find lots of schools to consider by trying different search criteria there. And remember what I said at the beginning -- you are automatically considered for merit aid by most (all?) schools during your application process. Good luck!</p>