<p>In order to have a reasonable chance at significant merit aid your student needs to do several things. First begin by researching colleges where she will be an academically strong candidate for admissions, SAT's well into the top 25%ile for a start. Next do research to determine those colleges relatively gererous with merit aid. USNews has statistics on both these on there subscription site and is a good starting point. It is well worth the $10.</p>
<p>Once your student has found 20+ colleges which seem to fit her needs, then go onto the college web site to see what finaid says about the particular scholarships they offer.</p>
<p>Our son did this, applied to 7 and received offers of about $350,000 in merit aid. The only one which did not pan out was Oberlin College. The ones that did offer good merit aid included Case and Rensselaer both very good colleges. He chose to attend Rensselaer and is receiving $25k per year in merit scholarships.</p>
<p>Because his hs record seemed to place him in the top 25% of his RPI class he is doing very good academically(3.75gpa after 3 years) and has been selected for a number of other academically based bennies(undergrad TA,s, dept honorary, participation in a RAIR Lab research group project, etc). The icing is being selected for an absolutely fabulous summer internship in Pasadena this year.</p>
<p>All this took a lot of time starting the latter half of his junior year but it paid off handsomely.</p>