Question about merit scholarships and yield

Apologies in advance if this question is naive/obvious, but:

Hypothetically if a school says on their website that they give out 5 Presidential scholarships for full tuition each year, how does that work when the applicants have not yet committed to go there? Do they typically offer more, anticipating that not all the kids who get it will come to their school? (So in this case, maybe offer 15 kids the scholarship if their yield is typically 33%and hope that only the 5 accept)? Or do they only offer the 5 and if they all go elsewhere, then nobody receives the award that year.

Thanks!

You’ll have to ask the school. Some schools only make a certain number of offers, others commit to actually awarding X number of scholarships per year.

Schools have their own policies based on their financial situation.

Some know that if they offer 10, they’ll get roughly 5 acceptances. If they get 4 one year, the money is set aside for year that 6 enroll.

Some have a tight budget or the money is endowed, so they offer 5 and if only 4 accept, then they may go ahead and offer again.

Are you hypothetically asking about BC?

@Maggpie, I was actually thinking about Skidmore, which offers only “5-7 Porter Scholarships” for Math and Science, and Clark, which offers a full-ride LEEP scholarship (also about 5). BC is similar, though.

A small scholarship my daughter received had a ‘wait list’ until they could tell if all the scholarship money was used as awarded. She quickly moved to the top and received the award within a week or two of the initial announcement date. They either found more money or someone turned it down.

It would be hard to say. Even for a school with 33% yield rate, the merit scholarship recipients usually have a higher yield rate.