Comparison · MeritPlaybook vs Going Merry
MeritPlaybook vs Going Merry
Going Merry helped families apply. MeritPlaybook tells them where to aim. Here’s how the two products compared, and what the shutdown means for your kid’s plan.
Going Merry was a free scholarship application platform that let students build one profile, get matched to scholarships, and apply to many awards through a single submission. It was acquired by Earnest in 2021 and operated as a subsidiary until the platform stopped accepting new applications on March 5, 2026 and shut down at the end of March. MeritPlaybook is a paid scholarship strategy product, $99one time, that produces a ranked plan for one student against their actual target schools. It does not host applications. It tells parents which awards are worth their kid’s weekend, which to skip, and which will quietly reduce institutional aid at the specific colleges on the list. Going Merry solved scholarship discovery and application volume. MeritPlaybook solves the strategy gap that no free platform has ever filled. They were always different products. Now only one is still operating.
What Going Merry did
Going Merry let students build a single profile and get matched to scholarships from a database the company described as roughly five million awards. Students could apply to many of those awards through one submission instead of writing the same essay over and over. Some partner colleges pushed institutional scholarships through the platform. The product also surfaced FAFSA tools and basic financial aid resources.
The whole point of Going Merry was reducing application friction. That’s a real problem and the platform solved a meaningful piece of it. Free, fast discovery, fewer redundant essays.
What Going Merry never did
Going Merry never told you which scholarships were worth applying to. It never told you that winning a $5,000 outside award at one of your kid’s schools would reduce your institutional grant by $5,000. It never analyzed how the awards in its own database stacked against the institutional aid policies of the specific colleges on your kid’s list.
That isn’t a knock on Going Merry. It wasn’t trying to do that work. Strategy was never the job. Application volume was the job, and free aggregators are built around volume, not analysis.
The result is that families who relied on Going Merry as their main scholarship tool got more applications submitted. Whether those applications actually reduced their final college bill was a separate question, and one no platform answered.
What MeritPlaybook does
MeritPlaybook is built around the question Going Merry never asked: which of these awards are worth your kid’s time, given the specific schools they applied to?
You fill out a five-minute intake. We run your student’s profile through multiple research passes that check every recommendation against current school financial aid pages, scholarship rules, deadlines, stacking limits, and renewal conditions. When a rule is unclear, we label it and tell you what to ask the financial aid office. You get a ranked plan in under five minutes: scholarships to pursue first, ones to skip, every deadline in priority order, and every trap award flagged before it can reduce the aid your kid already has.
It is not a database. It is one student’s plan, against one school list, with the displacement and stacking rules already worked out.
Side by side
What this means for families now
If you were using Going Merry as your primary scholarship tool, the discovery half of your workflow is gone. The strategy half was never there to begin with. Plenty of free aggregators still solve discovery. None of them solve stacking.
Two paths from here. If your student is early in high school and you mostly want to browse, pick another free database. Bold.org, Fastweb, Scholarships.com, Niche, your school counseling portal. Treat them as inputs, not decision engines.
If your student is a junior or senior with a real target school list, the question changes. You’re past discovery. You need to know which of the awards they could win actually lower the bill. That’s the job MeritPlaybook is built around.
The replacement for Going Merry isn’t another free database. It’s a strategy product, or it’s another forty hours of your weekend.
Frequently asked questions
Is Going Merry coming back?
No public indication. Earnest's official notice said the platform would shut down at the end of March 2026, with March 5 as the last date for new applications and edits. Earnest did not announce a successor product or a relaunch.
If I had applications in flight on Going Merry, what happens to them?
Earnest's notice directs students to contact the scholarship administrator directly for any new, pending, or submitted applications. The platform itself no longer routes applications to providers.
Is MeritPlaybook a Going Merry replacement?
Only for the part Going Merry never solved. MeritPlaybook does not host applications and does not run a scholarship database. It produces a ranked strategy document for one student against their target schools. If you need application volume, free aggregators still cover that.
Can I use a free aggregator and MeritPlaybook together?
Yes. Many families do. Use the free databases for discovery. Use MeritPlaybook to decide which of those discoveries are worth pursuing at the specific colleges your kid actually applied to.
How is this page different from /alternatives/going-merry?
This page exists for families comparing the two products historically. The alternatives page exists for families whose tool just disappeared and who need a replacement workflow. Same shutdown. Different starting point.
Want to see how stacking analysis works in practice? View a sample playbook, read the full shutdown explainer, or compare against the done-for-you replacement workflow. For the underlying mechanics, see the scholarship displacement guide and merit aid stacking guide.