<p>For top scholarships in competitive schools, you would need to have great GPA and scores plus excellent EC. Those schools usually has more students with near perfect scores/GPA than the number of top scholarships they can offer. So EC is very important. Nevertheless, you first need to reach the academic requirement. Some schools would post the requirement for scholarships, some don’t. It is also not uncommon that some students with certain stat get it and others with the same credential don’t.
I agree with the above poster that getting National Merit Finalist status would be the easiest and guarantee way to get full ride at many schools.</p>