<p>I found the website a bit vague so I'm asking does USC offer any merit based aid? if so, how much? What are the requirements?</p>
<p>Yes, it does. Trustee and Mork scholars receive full tuition, presidential scholars get half, and dean scholars get a quarter. There are also smaller academic scholarships (a few thousand $) that may or may not get tacked onto your aid package.</p>
<p>The only requirement is that you send your application to the college in by the merit aid deadline (I think it is Dec. 1). They review all of those applications and select the candidates for the scholarships from that pool. From what I understand, there are no set in stone academic requirements to getting picked - they look at applications holistically and having great stats does not guarantee that a student will be picked.</p>
<p>If you’re a finalist for a presidential or trustee scholarship, you will receive admission to the school in late January (I think) and you’re required to visit campus for an overnight event and interview. If your interview goes well you will then receive the scholarship.</p>
<p>My daughter is a freshman presidential scholar this year and we had no idea that such a program even existed until she got her admissions envelope in January! If you have any questions you can PM me and I can ask her about the process.</p>
<p>There are actually departmental scholarships as well in most ever department on the undergraduate campus. Most but not all require you to be a rising sophomore at USC before applying for these scholarships. Some who were not awarded academic scholarships at Marshall last year, went into ask if they could please get some help. And they were awarded scholarships. My youngest son was notified several weeks ago that he received a scholarship from Marshall. We are very excited for any financial help we can get.</p>
<p>If you are a NMF’s, and are accepted at USC, you will automatically be awarded a 1/2 Tuition scholarship, as long as you designate USC your first choice by the Mid May deadline.
Students awarded the full tuition scholarships usually have SAT/ACT scores comparable to students who are accepted at HYPS/ i.e the most competitive colleges.
In order to be eligible for scholarship consideration applications must be received before the Dec 1 scholarship deadline. “Finalists” for the largest scholarships are notified in late Jan/ Feb and MUST then interview at USC in order to be chosen to receive a scholarship.</p>
<p>One thing to keep in mind is that being an NMF is not an automatic admit to USC. We know several NMFs who were denied admission to USC this year, as their number of applicants continues to grow all the time. NMFs who are offered admission were still offered 1/2 tuition Presidential Scholarship, even if they didn’t get invited to have a campus visit and interview in Jan/Feb (in fact our S wasn’t admitted until late March but he was still awarded the NMF 1/2 tuition Presidential, as well as additional awardd from NMF and his engineering school.</p>
<p>We know a kid who was awarded Trustee (full tuition), at USC and several other Us. He is an amazing kid and was running a profitable business in HS, wanted to and has double-majored in finance and chemical engineering, and is finalizing his masters this summer, all in his 4 years at USC. He was and is an exceptional student.</p>