<p>Working hard in high school only nets you merit aid from schools that tend to give it. There are plenty of schools that give a lot of merit aid, but, with some exceptions, they don’t tend to be highly selective schools. Merit aid is often used by schools as an enrollment management tool, to attract high stats students who might not otherwise choose that particular school. Schools that are overwhelmed with applications from top students (such as the Ivies) don’t have to (and don’t) give any merit aid at all. Other schools only give a few merit awards and there is a lot of competition for them. With your stats, there are plenty of colleges that would have offered you significant merit awards; apparently you didn’t apply to those schools. My D (whose stats were not as good as yours) didn’t get any merit-aid offers from UW-Madison or UIUC, but she was offered merit aid by 3 other state flagships, including one that covered full tuition plus over half of her room cost. The local scholarships in our area, even those that were largely merit driven, generally had a need component, so my D didn’t bother applying.</p>