Subject: Tips & Tricks For Finding Merit Scholarships

Follow these tips & tricks to find colleges with merit scholarships for YOUR student.
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Five Easy Steps To Finding Merit Scholarships

We're always trying to simplify things for families and show how they can do it on their own. So we've outlined 5 easy steps to help you and your student find colleges that can offer merit scholarships.

1. Learn how colleges award their need based and merit scholarships.

Not all colleges offer merit scholarships and colleges also offer varying levels of support for needs based aid. You need to find this out before your student applies. You can do so by checking "% Need Met" to learn how much needs based aid a college will provide and also check "Freshmen w/out Financial Need Receiving Merit" and "Avg Merit Aid". 

All this information is easily viewed across all colleges in our Colleges Insights search tool. 

2.Verify your student's academic stats are in the college's top 25th percentile. 

Colleges award merit scholarships to attract academically strong students to their school. They offer merit to students in the top 25th percentile of the college's stats. 

Enter your student's stats into College Insights. If they don't have an ACT or SAT you can convert their GPA using one of these charts: ACT conversion table and GPA to ACT Match.

You'll get a list of colleges where your student's stats are in the top 25th percentile. 

3. & 4. Find the percent of students who receive merit scholarships and look up the average scholarship amount. 

With the list you received in step 2, sort the columns "Freshmen w/out Financial Need Receiving Merit" and "Avg Merit Aid". Sort these columns in descending order. Find the school offering the highest average merit amount offered to the largest percent of freshman without financial need. 

5. Check deadlines and other requirements for merit scholarships.
Always check the college's website for the details of their merit scholarships. College Insights has a link to each page on the college's website with information about their merit scholarships. This link is in the "Merit Scholarships Categories Offered" column. 

Deadlines for merit scholarships can often be sooner than regular decision deadlines. Some schools also require an additional application or essay to apply. Don't miss these details.

Follow the steps above and you'll easily find colleges that can offer your student merit scholarships, saving you hours of researching looking through common data sets and other search websites. 

If you missed the webinars I've been doing over the past few weeks, feel free to watch this recording below.

We've already had several hundred families sign up to use College Insights. 

Here are what some of them had to say (all of these are unsolicited comments):

Read below how this parent is using College Insights to find colleges with merit scholarships for her student and which have early action deadlines. 
My goal is to help families like yours and mine get through college admissions and paying for it with as little pain (emotional and monetary) as possible; and with as much data, tools, and guidance without breaking the bank just to get our kids into college. 

I'm always open for suggestions, so don't be shy to email me with your thoughts on College Insights or anything we do on Road2College and Paying for College 101.

*For now, College Insights is best used from a desktop or laptop. The mobile version will be available in 2021.
My goal is to provide affordable services, insightful information and access to actionable data so your family can make more informed decisions about college.

Feel free to respond to this email with any questions you have.
Debbie Schwartz
Founder, Road2College
I'm a parent, like many of you, navigating college admissions and paying for college. With an expertise in personal finance, analysis, and marketing, I'm working to give families the information and tools to make smarter financial college decisions.
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Debbie Schwartz, Road2College, 19072, Narberth, United States
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