Students who demonstrate leadership skills, like being captain of a sports team or leader of a club, win merit aid at some schools. “A lot of Division III colleges are giving out merit packages, or leadership packages they are called, to get some star athletes,” says Nat Smitobol, a college admissions counselor at Ivywise, a New York-based higher education consulting company. “They might have been the captain of a team, but they’re also really quite good. That’s how they are able to kind of compete with Division I kids. Now you have a lot of crossover where kids that could play Division I might go to Division III.”
Merit aid can be one time only.
