Puget Sound awards automatic merit on admission. Puget Sound does not publish a GPA or test chart, so you cannot self-calculate the dollars.
Published rules, with the school sources close at hand. Confirm the details before you count on an award.
The award collection
These amounts and requirements come from the school’s own published pages. Open an award to see who qualifies and how to keep it.
$5,000
Published amountNot 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.
Official Puget Sound snapshot states Art Scholarships are $5,000 per year, for students planning visual arts or art history, with Jan. 15 application deadline.
Full cost of attendance
Published award termsNot 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.
Official Lillis Scholarship snapshot supports coverage of tuition, standard double room, and standard medium meal plan for up to four years; says two scholarships are awarded and completed admission plus scholarship applications are due December 1.
$1,000+
Published award termsNot 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.
Official Puget Sound snapshot states Forensics Scholarships are $1,000-$3,000 per year, recipients compete in intercollegiate speech and debate, and deadline is Jan. 15.
$1,000+
Published award termsNot 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.
Official Puget Sound snapshot states incoming first-year National Merit Finalists listing Puget Sound first-choice with NMSC by May 31 are eligible for $1,000-$2,000 depending on financial need, in addition to other academic scholarships.
Full tuition
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.
Official Puget Sound snapshot states partnership with Posse Foundation, 10 San Francisco Bay Area public high school students selected each year for full-tuition scholarships regardless of financial need, with process coordinated by Posse.
Up to $45,000
Variable or qualified amountAll published eligibility conditions still apply. Confirm the policy year with the school.
Start with the award’s published eligibility.
Official Puget Sound scholarship snapshot supports automatic consideration for incoming undergraduates, academic application basis, no separate application, up to $45,000/year, and constant annual amounts if eligibility is met; scholarship list includes the named academic tiers.
$2,000
Published amountNot 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.
Official Puget Sound snapshot states AWAT recognizes Washington community college academic achievers and Puget Sound offers up to three $2,000 scholarships, in addition to other academic scholarships.
Full cost of attendance
Published award termsNot 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.
Official Matelich Scholarship snapshot supports 100% of tuition and fees (standard double room, standard medium meal plan, and student government fee) for up to four years; says two awards and completed admission plus scholarship application due Dec. 1.
Lights up against Puget Sound's published cutoffs. Not an award offer; confirm with the financial aid office. Award terms and residency rules change; some awards differ for in-state and out-of-state students. Always confirm at the school’s source page.
Free Merit Check
The free Merit Check shows which Puget Sound award your student's numbers reach, and the rules that could change it. About 30 seconds.
This page covers one school.
Ready in under 10 minutes. 30-day money-back guarantee.
“it told me what to ask and what the renewal GPA looked like, which I was not going to find on my own”Melissa
Institutional aid at Puget Sound cannot push the package past $90,766. Big outside wins can mathematically reduce institutional grant once the ceiling is reached.
Puget Sound centers merit on a stacked Academic Scholarship suite plus named awards (Matelich, Lillis), talent scholarships in art and forensics, and National Merit and Posse recognition.
More than one award path
Some awards use published academic thresholds. Others have different selection criteria. A score chart does not describe every award at this school.
Use all requirements together, including residency and the entering class.
Confirm the current admission and scholarship deadlines directly with the school.
Check renewal, credit requirements and how other aid affects the award.
The fine print / Three questions to carry forward
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.
Straight from the aid office
Per Student Financial Services, University of Puget Sound, August 2026. How we verify
How long is the merit scholarship renewable?
Up to ten semesters on satisfactory academic progress — two more than the eight-semester ceiling most schools set. That is real headroom for a double major, a co-op term, or a changed major that adds a semester.
“These are renewable for up to 10 (ten) semesters as long as the student maintains satisfactory academic progress”
What happens if the GPA or completion ratio slips?
A warning term, not an immediate loss. The student is placed on financial aid warning and stays eligible for aid through it, provided the standards are met by the end of that warning semester.
“If the cumulative GPA or completion ratio falls below the requirement, the student will be placed on a financial aid warning. Students on a warning are still eligible for financial aid as long as they meet the standards by the end of the warning semester.”
If a student also earns an art or music award, does it stack with merit?
Yes on the merit side, with a catch on the need side: talent scholarships typically stack on top of the merit scholarship, but the office noted both can reduce need-based financial aid. Stacking against institutional merit and displacing need-based aid are separate questions, and here the answer differs by which one is asked.
“Talent scholarships, such as art or music, are typically stacked on top of merit scholarships. Both of these scholarships could potentially reduce need-based financial aid.”
When an outside scholarship arrives, what is reduced first?
Loans, and only at the ceiling. The office was precise: loans are reduced first, but only if the new scholarship pushes total aid past cost of attendance. Below that line an outside award lowers the family bill rather than replacing anything.
“When an outside scholarship comes in, we would reduce loans first, only if receipt of the scholarship results in more aid than the cost of attendance.”
Strong applicants to this private Pacific-Northwest liberal-arts college, talent candidates in art or forensics, and students who can combine academic and named awards.
Published yearly cost: Approximately $90,766 for 2026-2027. Source
Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at Puget Sound, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.
| Family income | Average net price paid |
|---|---|
| $0–$30,000 | $23,643 |
| $30,001–$48,000 | $23,133 |
| $48,001–$75,000 | $31,649 |
| $75,001–$110,000 | $34,870 |
| $110,001+ | $45,456 |
| All income levels (average) | $38,394 |
That works out to roughly a 51% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $78,378 (College Scorecard — a separate, federally reported figure, not the published cost of attendance shown above).
Outside scholarships only trigger an aid adjustment if total aid would exceed the cost of attendance (or the student's aid eligibility cap); below that ceiling, awards are not displaced.
Verified policy language (2026-07-02): Outside scholarships will be applied to any remaining unmet financial need. If your need has already been met with other federal, state, or Puget Sound need-based aid, additional scholarships will result in your need-based aid being reduced. Reductions occur in the following order: work study, loan assistance, and finally Puget Sound grant assistance. Puget Sound grant programs are need-based awards and will be reduced in a financial aid package if the total amount of all scholarships combined with the grant assistance exceeds financial need.
From the Puget Sound Common Data Set 2024-2025 (school-estimated figures):
At Puget Sound, roughly 1 in 3 first-year admits receive institutional merit aid. The average award is $30,447 — about 34% of total cost.
As filed in Puget Sound's CDS Section H2A: of 430 first-time, full-time degree-seeking freshmen, 153 had no financial need and received institutional merit (non-need) scholarship or grant aid, averaging $30,447. Across all full-time degree-seeking undergraduates: 708 of 1,575, averaging $28,971. Athletic awards are excluded per the CDS definition.
The 2024-2025 column is marked "estimated" in the school's own CDS filing — school-projected figures, not final audited counts.
No separate application is required for academic merit scholarships. All incoming undergraduates are considered automatically at the point of admission.
Applications for Art, Forensics, and Theatre talent scholarships are due January 15.
Puget Sound is in a recognizable cluster (235 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.
Puget Sound is one of them. NMF packages typically carry their own stacking and renewal carve-outs separate from the standard automatic merit ladder; confirm those before assuming the headline NMF value is final.
Every claim is checked against Puget Sound’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
