Full Ride Scholarships: List of Scholarships For Full Tuition/Full Rides

Lists of Full Ride Scholarships

If you just want to jump straight to the lists we collected, just follow the links below:

List of Competitive Full Ride Scholarships

List of Automatic Full Ride Scholarships

List of NMF Full Ride Scholarships

Types of Full Ride Scholarships

Some schools have automatic full ride scholarships, where students need to meet a set of minimum academic requirements – and if they do, they automatically receive the scholarship. Typically, the bar is set pretty high on these automatic scholarships. In some cases, full ride scholarships are even more selective than that – at many schools, you have to meet certain selective academic requirements just to be eligible – but it doesn’t mean that you’re guaranteed the scholarship. In the case of these competitive full ride scholarships, a committee will go through your application and determine whether or not you’ll receive a full ride or not.

There are Also National Merit Scholarships. Depending on the school, these will be awarded to some combination of students who are awarded these designations:

• National Merit Finalist
• National Merit Semi Finalist
• National Merit Commended Student

You can learn more about National Merit Scholarships here. It’s a competitive program, and you really need to plan ahead if you want to be eligible because NMS programs require you to take the PSAT. Students/parents who’re interested in the National Merit program should do their research as early as possible.

Because we’re truly dedicated towards providing useful, actionable information to college students and prospective college students, we went ahead and put together tables of each type of scholarship available. Credit for the information gathered in these tables goes towards everybody who contributes to College Confidential – we sourced this information from the following threads on the forums: Competitive Full Ride Scholarships, Automatic Full Ride Scholarships, NMS Full Ride Scholarships

List of Competitive Full Ride Scholarships

This is a compilation of competitive full ride scholarships. The awards included in the table below meet the following criteria:

• Full Tuition/Full Ride (or financial equivalent)
• No requirement based on state residency, ethnicity, race, etc.
• No need-based factors taken into account
• Colleges are accredited, either public or non-profit private schools, and grant 4-year degrees

List of Automatic Full Ride Scholarships

This is a compilation of automatic scholarships that are awarded based on academics. These awards all meet the following criteria:

• Automatically awarded based on ACT/SAT, GPA, and/or Class Rank
• Full Tuition/Full Ride (or financial equivalent)
• No requirement based on state residency, ethnicity, race, etc.
• No need-based factors taken into account
• Colleges are accredited, either public or non-profit private schools, and grant 4-year degrees

We’ve tried to include application deadlines where possible, but we highly recommend that students do their own research by visiting the sites of the schools that they’re interested in. Some schools award scholarships on a first come first served basis – where possible, we’ve tried to note these down as well.

List of National Merit Scholarships (for National Merit Finalists / Semi Finalists / Commended Students)

Compilation of full ride (or equivalent) scholarships for National Merit Finalists, Semifinalists, and Commended Students

Key:

NMF: National Merit Finalist
NMSF: National Merit Semi-Finalist
NMCS: National Merit Commended Student

This is a compilation of NMF scholarships. These awards all meet the following criteria:

• Full Tuition/Full Ride (or financial equivalent)
• No requirement based on state residency, ethnicity, race, etc.
• Automatically Awarded
• Colleges are accredited, either public or non-profit private schools, and grant 4-year degrees

The Basics of a Full Ride Scholarship

Scholarships may be the best shot a student has to bypass the crippling debt that most students have to deal with post graduation. Scholarships also allow students to focus fully on the college experience and not worry about finding jobs to finance their education. Full ride scholarships are an excellent way to pay for your education – but these scholarships are also typically extremely difficult to obtain.
Before we get into the details of how you might go about getting a full ride through college, we’re going to explain briefly what a full ride scholarship is.

Each school has their own definition of what a full ride scholarship is – exactly what is included in a ‘full ride’ can differ from school to school. However, in general, a full ride scholarship basically means that your tuition and fees will be paid for in full by a third party. In some cases, this will also cover things like the cost of textbooks, room and board, and it’s also possible that a full ride student will get a few additional perks like having the cost of studying abroad covered as well. Full ride scholarships are also pretty prestigious – it’s a good thing to have on your resume, because typically full rides are only given to students who are truly exceptional in some way.

Requirements for a Full Ride Scholarship

As mentioned earlier, each school has their own requirements with regards to what qualifies you for a full ride. In the case of state universities, in-state requirements for full scholarships may differ from out-of-state requirements.

In many cases, a partial scholarship isn’t enough for college to become affordable. If you’re someone who can’t afford to go to college unless you get a full ride, you should be smart about where you apply. Schools that are less competitive tend to also have lower requirements for their full ride scholarships (both competitive and automatic) – so even if you’re a truly elite student, it may make sense for you to apply to a couple of schools where you’re basically guaranteed a full ride based on your current GPA and SAT or ACT schools.

How to Get A Full Ride Scholarship for Academics

The best way to get a full ride scholarship for your academic work is to keep your GPA as high as possible. The minimum GPA requirement is 3.5 for most full ride scholarships, but if you want to really maximize your chances, you should basically be aiming for the highest GPA possible (e.g a 4.0 GPA). You will also need to do well on either the ACT or SAT (depending on the specific scholarship, eligibility may depend on either the Critical Reading and Math portions only, or all three sections). Additionally, while academics plays a large role in scholarship allocation, being a well-rounded student is also taken into consideration for competitive, non-automatic scholarships. Try to participate in extra-curricular activities to demonstrate that you’re outstanding in every way – not just academically.

How to Get A Full Ride Scholarship for Sports

Getting a full ride scholarship for athletics is no easy feat, especially in the US. This is especially true for football players and basketball players – both these sports are extremely competitive when it comes to scholarships. In general, to get an athletic scholarship, you’ll need to be truly outstanding – we’re talking about students who have the potential to be Olympic or professional level athletes. If you play a popular sport, you’ll probably get scouted from a pretty young age. Students that participate in sports that are less popular should take initiative – reach out to college coaches or other sources of knowledge to find out how you might put yourself in the position to be considered for an athletic scholarship.

How to Get A Full Ride Scholarship on the Basis on Diversity

If you’re part of a minority group (African American, Hispanic, Native American, Asian etc), it’s possible you might qualify or a scholarship on the basis of diversity. There are scholarships out there for most minority groups in the US. However, don’t assume that these scholarships are easy to get – they’re usually still extremely competitive, even though the pool of eligible students might be smaller. This will be doubly true for full ride scholarships that have a diversity component attached – full ride scholarships in general are hard to come by. Make sure you know what scholarships you want to apply for well in advance of actually applying to college,

Other Types of Scholarships

At the end of the day, not everyone will be able to net themselves a full ride. However, don’t give up hope – even a $1,000 scholarship can be useful, especially if you get multiple scholarships in this range. Any amount of extra money for school will help relieve some of the financial pressure on you. You should also look into half-ride scholarships – they’re obviously only half as good, but they’re less competitive, just because fewer people are aware that they’re out there. There are a ton of half ride scholarships available, so you should do further research on the topic if a half ride scholarship sounds like it’d make sense for you.