One of my close friends got a merit scholarship that covered 50% of her tuition at a top-2 school for her undergrad concentration. Another got 50% merit, 50% s

One of my close friends got a merit scholarship that covered 50% of her tuition at a top-2 school for her undergrad concentration. Another got 50% merit, 50% student loans, and qualified for a Pell grant. But this was almost 10 years ago, no idea if the norms have changed. But these were people in maybe the top decile of their top 1000 high schools. If you factor that in as a prior (which wouldn’t be uncommon for a well to do family), I think the odds of a good merit scholarship improve.