Scholarships Resources

How to Win a Merit Scholarship

Merit scholarships are typically awarded on the basis of academic, athletic or artistic merit, in addition to special interests. Some merit scholarships also consider financial need, but rewarding talent is the primary objective.

In most cases the scholarship sponsor has a set of criteria they use to select the winners from among the qualified applicants. (This is in contrast to scholarship lotteries which select winners randomly.) So a key to winning a merit scholarship is to identify the sponsor's criteria and tailor your application to those criteria.