<p>Wondering how academic merit based scholarship are decided upon. My safety school recently sent me a merit based scholarship. It's very small in comparison to my friends who have recieved much larger scholarships and yet my stats remain either on par or better than theirs. Why is it then that my scholarship package is so much smaller than theirs? </p>
<p>Making me worry about more competitive schools...</p>
<p>I think it is decided upon differently by different schools. When you compare yours to your friends, are you looking at the same schools? Different schools have different criteria, and some do not have an sat/act/gpa cut off necessarily, but look at the whole package. Some have merit awards going to students within a certain major, for the honors college student, leadership scholarships (possibly based more on demonstrated leadership, and community service). Some are applied for seperately and auditioned for too. Others are only given out if you complete the required financial aid forms and may be tied to financial need.</p>
<p>I just wanted to edit this b/c I think that it is very important that you have a financial safety, in other words, a school that you can afford. If you don't, get going and find some and get the apps out. Research who is still taking applications (ie: an instate public, even if it is not your flagship at this point).</p>
<p>Thank you for the reply, unfortunetly deadlines for most schools have long passed. Just to clarify, I did apply to an instate public school. The friends which I am comparing myself to have all applied to the engineering school. My best friend who basically has the exact same stats and EC's as myself managed a scholarship package almost 4 times greater than my own. Besides applying earlier, we're basically the same in almost every way.</p>
<p>Several schools I know have some type of ladder- depending on your stats, this is what they going to offer. OTOH schools similar to each other/ , COA, size, tier/ give different merit shcolarships, which I see as different desire to have this particular student.
It is possible for you to talk to your admission officer and ask what were the reasons you were offered that particular amount of merit money and if there are going to be any other opportunities/ other students turning down scholarships etc/
If you are nice in your questions and show how you are truly interested in school but need some assistance with money most adcoms will be helpful to work with you.</p>