<p>Let’s just say that there’s an automatic full tuition scholarship at Alabama for students with 1400 and 3.5. There are a couple other automatics out there but they’re disappearing one by one and/or the cutoffs are going up.</p>
<p>And UPitt has a cutoff of 1450 and top 5% to get merit there. However, it is not an automatic scholarship and it’s not full tuition (except for a couple dozen). In addition, because these scholarships are becoming more and more visible to applicants and the pot is not growing as fast as the applicants, that 1450 was probably not the bottom cutoff for a lot of kids this year. That is, there were applicants with 1450s and 3.8-4.0 who got NO merit, if what I hear on the grapevine is correct. </p>
<p>And Washington and Lee has a lot of money, but it’s going to some pretty exceptional kids who could be going to ivies but their parents are making too much money to get any of the ivies’ need-based aid.</p>
<p>These are some examples. You need, too, to concentrate right now on bringing up that GPA or the SAT score won’t be enough help. I’d say the final GPA needs to be at least 3.8, so you need to pull down some near 4.0s the next couple years. Remember, senior year final grades won’t do you any good if you apply in fall of your senior year. </p>