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 2025-26 explicit merit scholarship deadlines and schools with generous merit aid are already incorporated into the product.
Click on Continue Reading below for the list.
Class of 2030 Merit Scholarship Deadlines
College Kickstart LLC
| Institution | Merit Deadline | Awarded Merit | Average Award | Link |
|---|
| Auburn University |
12/1 |
31% |
$8,641 |
|
| Austin College |
2/1 |
32% |
$33,146 |
|
| Boston College |
11/1 |
3% |
$16,927 |
|
| Boston University |
12/1 |
4% |
$32,831 |
|
| Claremont McKenna College |
12/1 |
7% |
$20,103 |
|
| Dillard University |
12/1 |
7% |
$10,845 |
|
| Emory University (Emory) |
11/15 |
6% |
$30,961 |
|
| Emory University (Oxford) |
11/15 |
5% |
$31,847 |
|
| Florida Polytechnic University |
11/15 |
45% |
$3,480 |
|
| Florida State University |
12/1 |
10% |
$3,883 |
|
| Georgia Institute of Technology |
10/15 |
7% |
$5,955 |
|
| Grinnell College |
12/1 |
26% |
$21,305 |
|
| Hillsdale College |
11/15 |
50% |
$20,540 |
|
| North Carolina State University |
11/1 |
7% |
$5,697 |
|
| Rollins College |
11/15 |
10% |
$24,843 |
|
| Southwestern University |
12/3 |
45% |
$28,410 |
|
| Texas Christian University |
11/1 |
43% |
$22,330 |
|
| Trinity University |
11/1 |
57% |
$26,592 |
|
| University of Florida |
11/1 |
6% |
$3,123 |
|
| University of Maryland - College Park |
11/1 |
17% |
$7,051 |
|
| University of Miami |
11/1 |
24% |
$23,416 |
|
| University of Richmond |
12/1 |
23% |
$30,375 |
|
| University of Rochester |
12/1 |
23% |
$17,163 |
|
| University of South Florida |
1/15 |
13% |
$3,404 |
|
| University of Southern California |
11/1 |
23% |
$18,095 |
|
| University of Tennessee - Knoxville |
11/1 |
33% |
$6,419 |
|
| University of West Florida |
12/1 |
24% |
$3,164 |
|
| Vanderbilt University |
12/1 |
10% |
$32,009 |
|
| Wake Forest University |
11/15 |
2% |
$15,142 |
|
| Washington and Lee University |
12/1 |
6% |
$51,223 |
|
