Merit Scholarships for Not Exceptional Students?

College Search & Selection
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<p>For Fall 2014, the short answer is “yes”.
There may be small “outside” scholarships still available here and there (scholarships not administered by the colleges themselves). Check with any community, professional, or religious associations where your family might have connections. However, for F 2014, it is very late to try to identify and apply to colleges where you’d have a shot at institutional merit grants (awards administered by the colleges themselves.) </p>

<p>In case you want to take a gap year and try for F 2015 admission, check out the following discussion:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-20.html#post16451378”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-20.html#post16451378&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>If you don’t necessarily need a full tuition or full ride scholarship, check out Kiplinger’s “Best Value” rankings. They show the size of average merit awards and the percentage of students who get them. Your stats might be strong enough for merit awards from very good but not super selective liberal arts colleges (such as Hendrix, Centre College, Ursinus, or Earlham).
<a href=“http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=prv_univ&state_code[]=ALL&id[]=none”>http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=prv_univ&state_code[]=ALL&id[]=none&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=lib_arts&state_code[]=ALL&id[]=none”>http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=lib_arts&state_code[]=ALL&id[]=none&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Keep in mind that merit aid by definition is for exceptional students. So you need to identify colleges where your qualifications would be considered exceptional. Your grades and scores are well above national averages, so that should not be too hard. If you can raise your scores a bit, all the better. </p>