Featured guest blog, originally written for College Kickstart.

If you’re in the hunt for merit scholarships, be sure to stay on top of explicit deadlines a school on your list might have.

In some cases, like Boston University and USC, it’s a hard deadline that you have to meet in order for you to be considered at all.  In others, like Indiana University and many other public institutions, it’s a “priority” deadline that maximizes your chances of merit aid before the money runs out.  Either way, merit aid continues to be an excellent way for good students to defray the cost of an education.  

We’ve compiled a sampling of schools in our coverage universe with explicit deadlines, along with some stats to help you gauge the size and breadth of the institution’s merit offerings. We’ve also included links to each school’s scholarship page for easy access to the details.

Most of these schools automatically consider you for merit scholarships without the need for an additional application.  

College Kickstart subscribers: full listings of 2024-25 explicit merit scholarship deadlines and schools with generous merit aid are already incorporated into the product.

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Class of 2029 Merit Scholarship Deadlines

College Kickstart LLC

Institution	Merit Deadline	Awarded Merit	Average Award
Agnes Scott College	1/15	27%	$31,826
Arizona State University	11/1	30%	$9,545
Auburn University	12/1	28%	$8,326
Boston College	11/1	2%	$24,659
Boston University	12/1	4%	$32,831
Brigham Young University – Provo	12/16	29%	$4,731
Claremont McKenna College	12/1	7%	$20,142
College of Charleston	11/1	29%	$13,287
Creighton University	12/1	48%	$22,770
Emory University (Emory)	11/15	5%	$27,933
Emory University (Oxford)	11/15	5%	$27,933
Florida State University	12/1	10%	$3,805
Georgia Institute of Technology (Resident)	10/15	7%	$6,491
Georgia Institute of Technology (Non-Resident)	11/1	7%	$6,491
Grinnell College	12/1	26%	$19,690
Indiana University	11/1	34%	$7,266
Louisiana State University	12/15	21%	$6,923
Loyola University Chicago	12/1	35%	$22,002
Marquette University	12/1	40%	$23,115
Miami University – Oxford	12/1	49%	$11,782
Missouri State University	2/1	19%	$3,857
North Carolina State University	11/1	8%	$5,348
Ohio State University – Columbus	11/1	22%	$7,204
Pennsylvania State University – University Park	12/1	10%	$5,592
Purdue University	11/1	18%	$5,224
Rutgers University – New Brunswick	12/1	2%	$10,324
Texas Christian University	11/1	42%	$21,364
Texas Tech University	12/1	21%	$4,303
Trinity University	11/1	51%	$25,737
University of Alabama	1/15	36%	$16,078
University of Cincinnati	12/1	24%	$6,115
University of Connecticut – Storrs	12/1	19%	$11,200
University of Maryland – College Park	11/1	16%	$7,341
University of Miami	11/1	26%	$23,780
University of Nebraska	11/1	18%	$7,123
University of Oregon	11/1	14%	$6,979
University of Pittsburgh	12/1	11%	$9,069
University of Richmond	12/1	24%	$26,617
University of Rochester	12/1	22%	$16,251
University of Southern California	11/1	22%	$17,585
University of Tennessee – Knoxville	11/1	29%	$6,887
Vanderbilt University	12/1	10%	$30,039
Virginia Polytechnic Institute	1/22	10%	$3,517
Wake Forest University	11/15	2%	$15,142
Washington and Lee University	12/1	6%	$46,700
Washington State University	1/31	21%	$5,445

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