<p>What were your stats and what college/university did you get it from?</p>
<p>Are you looking for full-rides? Most are for NM Finalists or students with really high stats. Few schools give full rides.</p>
<p>full rides to where? HYPSM? Really smart kids from poor families
Other top schools with merit scholarships? Smart, smart people.</p>
<p>free rides( merit based) not HYPSM, because I think they only give financial-aid anyways since all applicants are stellar</p>
<p>If you think you are HYPSM competitive, then you are competitive for full-ride scholarships from the TOP privates and publics. My school offers about 70/year.</p>
<p>You are late to the game (which you already know, from your past posts). You are a junior, and you are concerned about beefing up your ECs. Joining club after club isn’t impressive. I see that you were made to work for your parents the past two years without pay, 25-30 hours/week. You have yet to take the SATs (why are you waiting to do that?). You are self-motivated by self-studying for numerous AP tests. I suspect your application is going to be weak for leadership.</p>
<p>Since you are Asian-American, the bar for SATs seeming is going to be set higher for you. I would suggest intensive SAT-prep to make you competitive for selective college admissions and merit scholarships.</p>
<p>Why is he “late to the game”? He’s a junior, right? Is that really too late?</p>
<p>By the way, if I were on an admissions board, I’d value that that 25-30 hours/week of work more than just about anything else you could have done. What a refreshing difference, and a very honorable one. Make sure that’s part of your application.</p>
<p>A number of the students who get full ride scholarships are people who were accepted at more prestigious colleges, but decided to go to another college for financial or other reasons. Colleges typically offer their best merit aid to the top of their applicant pool - to the people who would attend their colleges otherwise if they did not receive a large financial offer.</p>
<p>This illustrates the point, once again, of applying to a full range of colleges, including a couple that are both financial and admissions safeties.</p>
<p>Typo in the above post - It should say “to the people who NOT would attend their colleges otherwise”</p>