Published rangeNot recorded as automatic on grades and scores. Read the selection rules. Confirm the policy year with the school.
Start with the award’s published eligibility.
RenewableCheck the conditions
Open award details for Academic Merit Scholarships
Who qualifies
Exemplary academic performance and contribution to the college, without regard to financial need; individualized admissions-committee determination; no additional application required (except Reynolds and Cumberland County)
How to keep it
Awarded for eight semesters (in residence or in a Dickinson study-abroad program); maintained through continued full-time enrollment and good academic standing (2.0 GPA).
Worth knowing
No published GPA/test grid (holistic). Lenient 2.0 renewal GPA.
Published coverage or packageNot recorded as automatic on grades and scores. Read the selection rules. Confirm the policy year with the school.
Start with the award’s published eligibility.
RenewableCheck the conditions
Open award details for Dickinson-Sandia Scholarship
Who qualifies
Students who reside or attend school in the Southwest (Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico) with demonstrated community-service or community-leadership experience
Published coverage or packageNot recorded as automatic on grades and scores. Read the selection rules. Confirm the policy year with the school.
Start with the award’s published eligibility.
RenewableCheck the conditions
Open award details for Sheehy Scholarship
Who qualifies
Strong students from the greater Washington, D.C. area who demonstrate a high level of FINANCIAL NEED; cohort with mentorship. No additional scholarship application — submit the completed application plus FAFSA and CSS Profile by the deadline
How to keep it
Full-tuition for eight semesters of full-time study (including off-campus study in a Dickinson program or partner program).
Worth knowing
Region-gated (DC metro) AND need-based. No separate scholarship application.
“it told me what to ask and what the renewal GPA looked like, which I was not going to find on my own”Melissa
The fine print
Renewal ruleAcademic Merit Scholarships: renewal floor that quietly knocks awards out
Awarded for eight semesters (in residence or in a Dickinson study-abroad program); maintained through continued full-time enrollment and good academic standing (2.0 GPA). A single rough term can end a four-year award here without warning if the GPA floor isn't met cumulatively.
Campus Grounds at Dickinson College
What makes Dickinson different
Dickinson awards automatic academic merit of $15,000-$35,000/year with a lenient 2.0 renewal GPA, and layers on a set of region-gated full-tuition awards (Reynolds for Maryland, Sandia for the Southwest, Sheehy for DC, Cumberland County for locals) — but Tuition Exchange recipients forfeit all other merit.
Merit tiers8See who qualifies
First-year students with school awards30%First-year students, CDS 2024-2025
Research checkedJul 2026By our research team
Selection beyond grades and scores
Start with the selection process.
These awards are not recorded as automatic on grades and scores. Read each award's selection rules, application steps and dates. Meeting a minimum is not an award offer.
Read the selection rules
Look for the school's stated criteria and whether an additional application is needed.
Check the application dates
Confirm the current admission and scholarship deadlines directly with the school.
Know what happens next year
Check renewal, credit requirements and how other aid affects the award.
The fine print / Three questions to carry forward
Before you count on it.
Does it apply to us? Confirm the entering year, residency and every eligibility condition.
Can we keep it? Check renewal GPA, credits and how long the award lasts.
Can we combine it? Ask how outside scholarships and other school awards change the offer.
A printable research summary, source links and room for your questions.
See what could change an award+
Straight from the aid office
What Dickinson's aid office says
Per the Financial Aid Office, Dickinson College, August 2026. How we verify
Automatic consideration
Does the admission application cover merit, or is a separate one needed?
Automatic — the Admissions Committee evaluates every prospective student for merit without a separate application. The office did not name a priority date, so the admission deadline is the one to work back from until Admissions says otherwise.
“All prospective students are evaluated for Merit Scholarship automatically by the Admissions Committee.”
Outside scholarships
If an outside scholarship comes in, what happens to the package?
It depends on federal need, per the office, which stopped short of saying what gets reduced first. At a school meeting need, outside money interacts with the need calculation rather than the merit award. The order the office left open here it supplied two days later — see the last three answers below.
“If your student received an outside scholarship, it could have an impact on your student’s financial aid package depending on their federal need.”
Reporting outside awards
What should a family do when an outside scholarship is coming?
Send it in early. The office asked families to forward outside scholarship information as soon as they know about it so the impact can be evaluated up front, which is worth doing precisely because the reply leaves the order of adjustment open — the evaluation is where a family learns what it actually costs them.
“We always suggest that if a student knows they will be receiving an outside scholarship, they should forward the information to the financial aid office. We can then evaluate any impact it may have.”
No priority deadline
Is there a priority date to hit for full merit consideration?
There is not. The office said a completed application is the only condition, and that such students are reviewed for merit as thoroughly as any other. That closes the open question in the first answer above: work to the admission deadline and nothing earlier is being held against you.
“No, so long as student submits a completed application they will be reviewed for merit as thoroughly as any other student.”
Superscoring, and what merit is not tied to
Do you superscore, and is there a score that unlocks an award?
Superscores are used, but the office was explicit that merit is not tied to a test number at all — there is no score that qualifies a student for a given level. Higher awards simply come from more competitive pools, which means a stat-threshold model of Dickinson merit is the wrong model.
“We will use the superscore of any test when assessing merit, however, merit is not directly tied to testing so students do not need to earn a specific score to be considered for any level of merit. That said the higher the merit award the more competitive those pools become.”
Keeping the award, and getting it back
What GPA keeps the merit award, and is there recovery after a bad term?
A 2.0, and dropping to it does not cost the award immediately. The office described working with the student back to strong academic standing over a grace period generally running two semesters — a written commitment to recovery time, which is more than most offices will put in an email.
“Students need to maintain a 2.0 to keep their merit awards, but if a student does ever drop to that GPA they will not lose it immediately. We work with the student to bring them back to strong academic status and generally that grace period is over 2 semesters.”
The displacement order, finally stated
When an outside scholarship does bite, what moves first?
Loans and Federal Work-Study come off first, and grant funds only rarely. The office framed the whole thing as something it works to avoid, with only two triggers: aid already sitting at cost of attendance, or a federal overaward. In the overaward case only need-based federal components come off and institutional aid is untouched — so the merit award itself is the last thing at risk here.
“In that case we will remove loans and federal work study first but it could cause us to lower grant funds, although this case is rare.”
Federal overaward
What if the outside award creates a federal overaward?
Only need-based federal components are removed, and institutional aid is explicitly protected. This is the answer that makes an outside scholarship worth taking at Dickinson: the money the college itself put on the table does not move.
“The other way is if it causes a federal overaward based on the FAFSA need calculation. In that scenario we would just need to remove need based federal components, but institutional aid will not be affected.”
What families often miss
Most merit needs no extra application, but the Reynolds Leadership Scholarship and the Dickinson-Cumberland County Scholarship REQUIRE a separate application — skip it and you can't be considered.
Any student receiving a Tuition Exchange award ($43,000 in 2025-26) is not eligible for any other Dickinson merit scholarship — compare TE against the merit award you'd otherwise receive.
Good news at Dickinson: the college always reduces or eliminates self-help (loans or work) BEFORE reducing grant aid — though total aid still cannot exceed your computed need, so report all outside awards.
Several of the largest awards are geography-gated: Reynolds (Maryland, $50k/yr), Sandia (Southwest), Sheehy (DC metro + need), Cumberland County (local), and Curley (Lycoming/Lehigh/Northampton, PA) — check whether your home region opens a door.
Merit scholarships renew through eight semesters on full-time enrollment and a relatively lenient 2.0 GPA (good academic standing).
See costs and school data+
Who this school may work for
Strong students from specific regions win the biggest awards: Maryland residents (Reynolds, $50,000/yr), the DC area (Sheehy, full tuition + need), the Southwest (Sandia), or Cumberland County (full tuition); life-science students can land the $35,000 Stafford bioinformatics award.
Published yearly cost: Approximately $93,706 for 2026-2027. Source
Cost and graduation facts
Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at Dickinson, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.
Average annual net price by family income at Dickinson, academic year 2021-22
Family income
Average net price paid
$0–$30,000
$40,755
$30,001–$48,000
$15,081
$48,001–$75,000
$16,316
$75,001–$110,000
$22,696
$110,001+
$45,175
All income levels (average)
$37,607
Sticker price vs. what students actually pay
Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23
$65,650
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22
$37,607
That works out to roughly a 55% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $82,902 (College Scorecard — a separate, federally reported figure, not the published cost of attendance shown above).
Outcomes for students who enrolled here
Graduation rate (150% of normal time), 2016 cohort
80%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort
92%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers
$19,000 (~$201/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21)
$70,204
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22
13%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22
34%
See other scholarships and cost examples+
If your student brings another scholarship
Total aid cannot exceed need as computed by federally approved methodology. Crucially, the college will always reduce or eliminate SELF-HELP (loans or work) before reducing grant aid — a family-favorable order. Tuition Exchange recipients cannot receive any other Dickinson merit scholarship.
Self-help-first reduction for outside scholarships (favorable); total aid capped at need; TE is mutually exclusive with other merit.
Merit penetrationHow likely is merit aid here?From Dickinson’s Common Data Set: the share of first-year students who receive institutional merit and the average dollar amount when they do.
30%of admitsget merit
Average award$32,586Covers ~35% of $93,706 cost of attendance
At Dickinson, roughly 1 in 3 first-year admits receive institutional merit aid. The average award is $32,586 — about 35% of total cost.
As filed in Dickinson's CDS Section H2A: of 646 first-time, full-time degree-seeking freshmen, 197 had no financial need and received institutional merit (non-need) scholarship or grant aid, averaging $32,586. Across all full-time degree-seeking undergraduates: 675 of 2,270, averaging $26,804. Athletic awards are excluded per the CDS definition.
Receive institutional merit30%First-year students, Common Data Set 2024-2025
Average merit award$32,586Across recipients, Common Data Set 2024-2025
These awards can be harder to find. Each one has its own rules.
AmountTuition-free (income ≤$125,000); loan-free (income ≤$75,000)EligibilityIncoming domestic students starting with the class of 2030; FAFSA + CSS Profile; no separate application
Not merit — a need-based affordability program meeting 100% of demonstrated need
Do I need a separate application for merit scholarships?
No additional materials are required for most merit awards — the admissions committee decides based on your application. The Reynolds Leadership Scholarship and the Dickinson-Cumberland County Scholarship are the exceptions and require a separate application.
What GPA keeps my scholarship?
Merit scholarships are awarded for eight semesters and maintained with continued full-time enrollment and good academic standing (a 2.0 GPA).
What is the 2026-27 cost of attendance?
$93,706 for an on-campus student (tuition $71,100); $85,560 for a student living off campus with a parent/family member. Health insurance (~$2,000) is billed only if you lack U.S. coverage.
See sources and other schools+
How Dickinson compares
145 of 749 verified schools in our dataset use loan-first displacement.
Dickinson is in a recognizable cluster (145 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.
665 of 749 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
Dickinson is one of them. The cohort minority (84 schools) only awards one-year scholarships, which means the four-year value families assume on a brochure quote isn't guaranteed at every school.
Sources used on this page
Every claim is checked against Dickinson’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
