<p>Most merit scholarships come from the colleges themselves. Carleton doesn’t give merit to anyone (which you can see by looking at their financial aid website). So if you wanted merit aid, you probably should have done more research. Are you from Wisconsin? In-state students are more likely to get merit aid from a state university. I am certain that if you added up the dollars, need based aid far outweighs merit aid in the US college system.</p>
<p>One of my kids had similar stats to you (2380 SAT, 35 ACT, 800 SAT Subject Lit, 800 SAT Subject Math II, strong ECs). She got decent merit aid last year from Macalester, Kenyon, Lawrence, and Mount Holyoke, and a smaller amount of merit from U of Chicago. If you want merit aid, you have to plan your college search accordingly, which it sounds like you did not do.</p>
<p>Now… you really aren’t going to get a ton of sympathy out here if your family makes over $400K/year. You really don’t need aid compared to 99.9% of the students out there.</p>