<p>Are applicants automatically considered for the presidential scholarships? I can't find anything that states this definitively, but I don't see any applications for it either.</p>
<p>Ok you didn’t hear this form me. 
CMU has a couple scholarships that they give out that no one but the competitors and CMU know about. You can search CMU’s website all day and maybe even Google and you won’t find anything on these scholarships. They pick the top students from their applicant pool and fly them over to CMU for a leadership competition. Then they pick the winners and give them full rides to CMU.</p>
<p>There is no special application for a Presidential Scholarship. Simply (that’s an understatement) submit CMU’s financial aid forms and FASFA. Here’s a link:</p>
<p>[Admission</a> > Grants & Scholarships](<a href=“Home - Computing Services - Office of the CIO - Carnegie Mellon University”>Home - Computing Services - Office of the CIO - Carnegie Mellon University)</p>
<p>My D received her Presidential Scholarship notification as part of her acceptance letter in the Big Red envelope. Her scholarship was a 4 year grant.</p>
<p>Did she apply ED? Do they also do Presidential Scholarships for Regular Admissions?</p>
<p>She was RD. </p>
<p>Oh by the way, my mistake on my previous post. The acceptance letter and financial aid notification was in the Big Fat Letter, not the Big Red.</p>
<p>Your chances are affected by what college you’re applying to also. eg. my son says he doesn’t know too many in SCS who get merit aid because the school can attract good students by its reputation; however, he does know bio majors who got merit money.</p>
<p>What about physics or math majors?</p>
<p>I was glad to see these posts. Somebody had recently told us that CMU has no merit based scholarships. It looks like they have “Presidential Scholarship”. Are there a lot of these? My son is an engineering applicant with superb stats and many interesting music EC.</p>
<p>I believe the name of the scholarship was Sharpie but I am not 100% sure. They pick about a dozen applicants and two win.</p>
<p>THere are several merit scholarships…however, the school took a major hit to its endowment with the stock market crash last year-- as a result, there were only half as many such grants available to the class of 2013. Regarding the class of 2014, we were told that the school has reformulated their approach - spreading more to financial aid for the entire pool rather than these awards. </p>
<p>THe scholarships are not based on the stats – that is a given- the key to receiving these, as is the same key to admissions- is the EC and leadership potential/community involvement. These are also a condition for renewal -they seek actively engaged students.</p>
<p>SCS students do win these awards-- stop rumors please.</p>
<p>mom2012and14 - Thanks for the helpful update. </p>
<p>If others also have info or links about CMU 2014 aid/scholarships, please post it here or PM me. We are trying to plan college visit/revisit trips, and this new info may be a factor.</p>
<p>Colorado Mom</p>
<p>Just b/c the full merit grants are decreased in number that may be a GOOD thing-- …as the school does agree to meet full financial need (FAFSA-- NOT CSSPROFILE)…and with more money in the total award pot-- this is good news for more students as a whole.</p>
<p>The school is also very upfront about meeting / exceeding offers received from competitor institutions - and they do! My D and three of her friends did submit “request for reviews” and were all awarded more money based on those requests prior to submitting enrollment deposits (which oddly were now double what they were two years ago-- go figure?! $800 for class of 2014). The review yielded an increase to her merit package apart from the financial package (we weren’t eligible in year one for any financial aid).
If you’re accepted - they will go the mile to help you attend…at least for RD-- ED another story-- no competition. You can search on their webpage for how competitors are defined- there’s about 20-25 private institutions - I recall Stanford, MIT, Cornell, RPI being in that list- no public institutions are in that list.</p>
<p>GOod luck-- the school is awesome-- </p>
<p>I truly cannot think of a single negative thing to say about this school! I am thrilled that both my children are/will be Tartans!</p>