<p>I am curious about where to find merit based scholarships for students who are already in college, specifically students who excel in their classes. For reference, I currently have a 3.9 as a junior engineering major at a large state school.</p>
<p>I have been surprised that there seems to be very few large scholarships for current college students. I understand some of the reasons for this; however, I would say that I have been a much more "successful" student in College than I was in high school (3.9, 2000 SAT), and I had a much easier time finding scholarships in high school, despite being a much more accomplished student, relative to my peers, now.</p>
<p>In addition, I am a petroleum engineering major. There multiple $1,000 - $2,000 scholarships for PE students; however, I am more looking for large, universal merit based scholarships.</p>
<p>Never heard of ‘large, universal merit’ scholarships for current students. Just departmental ones and some professional associations have it for the different majors but these are small amounts usually though there are some 5k ones I have seen. You have to remember, the ones for incoming college students that are large are limited too, with the most money usually coming from the college itself to attract the freshman student.</p>
<p>If you are female, the society for woman engineers has a single application for all the scholarships it oversees. Most are smaller, but you could qualify for several.</p>
<p>A major purpose of merit scholarships are to RECRUIT new students to the school, the ones the schools most want . Once the schools have you, there is little incentive to give you more money. It all depends upon the departments and the schools, but there are very few merit awards, and even fewer sizeable ones for current college students. </p>
<p>Hopefully when you picked this school you figured out you could afford ALL four years rather than relying on your ability to find scholarships (based on your HS reference). This was the advice given to you two years ago:
<p>Check if your school has departmental scholarships. Some of them may have a need component though. Nevertheless, those usually not very big but up to a few thousand dollars.</p>