<p>The general trend should not matter a whit to to you. If you are eyeing the Ivy league schools, for example, or some of those little Ivies as so called, you can forget merit aid. They don’t give it. You don’t fish where there aren’t any. By looking at the collegedata on each school, and running specific NPCs from what your list, you can get a good idea what kind of aid you might get from given schools. You picked two schools, Carlton, and UW where the merit money "fishing’ is lean. You look at Tulane, Fordham, some of the private midwest schools of church beginnigns, and the picture starts looking rosier, especially if your stats are up there in relation to the rest of the student body. </p>
<p>I remember my SIL’s father who is paying for his granddaughter’s college was quite upset that this outstanding young woman barely got $5K a year in merit money from any college. The list of the schools she picked including Penn State just did not give out much even if she were the top of the top of the class. </p>
<p>So what those who want merit aid should do is seek those schools that are more likely to give them merit aid and those who want need based aid should look at schools that are more likely to give them financial aid. </p>