<p>As a general rule, do schools make merit scholarship offers in the initial admissions package, or do those come separately? Does this vary widely from school to school? </p>
<p>My daughter didn't apply for need-based aid, and we're expecting to be full pay. Still, we thought she'd be offered merit aid at some of the schools on her list. But my daughter's acceptances are starting to come in and I was surprised to see no mention of merit aid in the package from my daughter's safety.</p>
<p>(Just to stave off any chastising -- it was/ is her safety regardless of any merit aid offer. We can afford to send her there without merit aid, but probably wouldn't given the other choices she will likely have.)</p>
<p>There are no general rules, it varies with the school and with the scholarship. Some come with the acceptance and others come later, contact the school and ask them.</p>
<p>We got all of ours (merit awards), each of our kids, at the time the RD offers were sent, even when they were accepted early. My recent college grad was accepted to a number of schools EA, but the merit awards all came afterwards. However, from reading on these boards and hearing others’ experiences, that is not always the case. For the RD school, I believe that the merit awards came with the accept letters but I am not 100% sure whether they were so packaged, or separately sent and whether they came exactly at the same time if separately sent. Because of the great time span between the EA acceptance letters and the award letters, I remember them as distinctly separate.</p>
<p>Merit schoalrships come either with the acceptance letter or after the letter. It’s up to the practices of the schools.</p>
<p>We received a merit scholarship from a state university a few weeks after the admission letter was sent. The school also encouraged my child to apply for another type of scholarship.</p>
<p>My son has received merit from 6 schools…not one came with the admissions packet…they all came weeks to months after. If he gets in to any RD schools, it is my understanding that need based financial aid will be included with the admissions offer.</p>
<p>We have had merit awards come both ways…with the admissions letter and then a few days to weeks later. We’ve never been notified of need based awards with the admissions offer.</p>
<p>My older D got merit from one school about 4 months after she was accepted. (rolling admission school, she applied in late Aug, accepted in early Oct, honors college acceptance in late Oct, then nothing til late Feb! And it was a nice scholarship, too, not just a token thing.</p>
<p>I’d given up on it & thought she was out of the running.</p>
<p>You or she could always call the schools in question though, and ask if there is any merit aid that has yet to be awarded that she might be in the running for still.</p>
<p>Also–you’ve probably done so already but if not, check the forum(s) for the schools in question on here–look at this year and also 1 year back, to see when people got merit. This only works for schools with active forums but it can offer some insights on the practices of each school.</p>
<p>My daughter applied to eight schools. She was accepted to seven (we’re still waiting on the Univ. of Washington), with all the initial notifications of acceptance coming via email. Six of the schools later sent snail mail informing her of merit scholarships, anywhere from one-three weeks after acceptance; the seventh telephoned her directly to notify her of a (rather substantial) merit scholarship offer.</p>
<p>As noted above, schools have varying ways of notifying applicants of things like merit scholarships, housing, honors colleges, Facebook pages, etc.</p>