Will I Get Merit Aid?

Colleges and Universities A-Z American University
1

Hi, I’ll be applying to AU Regular Decision this year. I was wondering if I can get a merit scholarship (and how much) with these stats.

GPA: 3.83, unweighted
Class Rank: 54 out of 438 (top 12%)
APs: 8 total, 1 sophomore year, 3 junior year, 4 senior year. World History (5) US History (5) Psychology (5) Lang (4) and taking Statistics, Government, Literature, and Art History senior year.
SAT: 2120 overall, 610 Math, 770 Reading, 740 Writing. (still waiting on October SAT results, trying to get Math up!)
SAT Subject Tests: (not sure if SCU takes these, but) 730 Literature, 720 US History
Awards: AP Scholar with Honors
Extracurriculars: Quite a few. 10 years in 4H, was president. School newspaper, school literary journal, student mentoring. I also have a job working at a preschool/elementary school.
Common App Essay: It’s really good. At least, that’s what my AP Lit teacher said and other people who read it. I consider myself a very good writer.
Letters of Rec: Also should be very good. One of the teachers knows me extremely well, I talked to her all the time outside of class throughout high school and had her freshmen and junior year. The other is a math teacher who I got help from outside of class all the time throughout junior year.

Feedback would be very much appreciated!

2

I applied regular decision and have pretty similar stats (same 2120 SAT but I have a 670 math and 750 reading). I’m also curious about merit aid. Did you apply to the Honors Program? I did and was wondering if that would help, if someone could share their experiences. I don’t think I’ll get into Honors, but I indicated interest in the Community Based Research Scholars program.

3

I’m applying to honors too :slight_smile: I also doubt I’ll get it though…
My thinking process is that since American is test optional (I’m still submitting my scores though), they are going to place a lot of emphasis on the essay questions rather than scores.
I also read that American University is starting to take demonstrated interest into consideration a lot more because they have become a safety school for a lot of students. So I did an alumni interview and I am going to do one of their webinars. I think that applying to honors will also show them that you really want to go to American.

However, this is all speculation… I would also love to hear from someone who got merit aid at American, and what their stats were!!