<p>@GMTplus7
Unfortunately, it’s an article of faith among CCers that Duke and Chicago, especially, are pretty stingy with their merit scholarships. Like I said, a well-known college doesn’t need them.</p>
<p>“Isn’t that just a backhanded way of saying, the school has so little name-recognition that it has to pay students to attend it?”</p>
<p>No, it’s a backhanded way of saying that they can attract more of the students they want by discounting the price. Everything is relative in the admissions world. Duke and Chicago are not happy just being Duke and Chicago. They want to be Stanford and Yale. Southeast Whoville State wants to be the University of Whoville. 15 years ago, Vanderbilt got to work on becoming Duke, and it has pretty much succeeded. Merit money is probably the cheapest way to snare students from your slightly-more-desirable competition. Look at Alabama. They want to be Michigan. They’re throwing money at that project, and they’re making serious progress.</p>
<p>^You have an excellent backhand, Hanna. 
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<p>Wannabes like 'SC and WashU are still playing that game. :)</p>
<p>Is USC still as generous in giving out merit based scholarships as they used to be now that they are more “established”? I agree that giving out merit money is an efficient way to boost student body .profile, just liken an effective way to increase prestige is to recruit celebrities or celebrities’ kids.</p>
<p>According to Kiplinger, USNWR #14 WUSTL has 17% of its students getting merit awards; average award is $6k. Looks like they mostly have arrived and are dialing back the merit money.</p>
<h1>17 Vandy has 18% getting merit money with an average award of $25k. #23 USC has 25% getting merit money; average award is $17.5k.</h1>