What happened to...

<p>...merit scholarships? If I wasn't hallucinating last year, UC offered quite a few merit scholarships, and after checking the UC FA site tonight, apparently merit money is gone?</p>

<p>The merit scholarships are still listed at <a href=“https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/costs/scholarships.shtml[/url]”>https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/costs/scholarships.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>There are still merit scholarships, but they’re not the variety that are advertised on the financial aid site. When you apply, there is a little box you can check to be considered for merit aid. That’s the extent of the application. Only about 200 or so students per year receive merit aid. No one can seem to find any pattern in who gets the money. It appears to be random, though there’s probably some sort of way of choosing that the admissions office uses. These scholarships are through the admissions office, and are somewhat unrelated to the rest of one’s financial aid package.</p>

<p>There are a few (maybe 30 or so) lucky students each year to receive a full tuition scholarship. Another 150-175 students receive $10,000 per year, renewable for up to four years.</p>

<p>The 10k is more in the 100-student range. They are awarded by a faculty committee, not by the FA office or the AdCom (they probably make the recommendations) and the notification usually comes in the last week of March. Awards for students that decide not to attend are not “recycled” and given to other students. This applied to the '12s. It may have been different this year. Also, as far as I know, your FA will be reduced by the amount of the award.</p>

<p>I’ll try to be a bit more specific. I received one of the $10,000 scholarships. Most of what J’adoube says is true. I actually got the letter about the scholarship at home on the day I visited the university. As for whether or not they reduce your financial aid, I couldn’t say. It appears as though they didn’t decrease mine by $10,000 to make up for the scholarship, but I can only compare it to the estimate they sent me with my EA acceptance in December.</p>

<p>I’ve heard varying statistics on the number of merit awards they give. It probably changes from year to year.</p>

<p>Okay thanks. I got confused because I was looking at the wrong page.</p>