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The list was rebuilt, and it now sorts by school
Ninety-one of the previous edition's ninety-eight entries are gone. What replaced them answers a different question.
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01 What changed between editions
Same title, same series, almost none of the same scholarships
This is the second edition of a directory that already exists. The honest way to read it is against the first one, so both contents pages were extracted and compared entry by entry.
The 2023-2024 edition listed 98 named entries. This one lists 77. Only seven programmes appear in both: the Yale Scholarship, the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation College Scholarship, Coca-Cola Scholars, the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships, Microsoft, Dell and QuestBridge. Ninety-one of the old entries are gone. Seventy of the new ones were not there before.
That is not a price update. A directory that keeps seven of its ninety-eight names has been rewritten, and the rewrite changed what the book is for. The rest of this page is about what it changed into.
If you worked from the previous edition, do not carry your shortlist across. Check each award you had chosen against this edition's contents page first, because the odds are roughly nine in ten that it is no longer listed.
02 How the list sorts
The chapters used to describe you. Now they name a school
The previous edition had eight chapters. Two sorted by field of study. The other six sorted by applicant: female applicants, foreign nationals, applicants with unique requirements, families of military veterans and service staff, Hispanic students and minority groups, and the LGBTQ community. Sixty-six of its ninety-eight entries sat in those six, so you found your money by finding yourself on the contents page.
This edition has ten chapters. Chapter 1 explains the four types of aid. Chapters 2 to 9 are one per Ivy League school, in the order Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Pennsylvania, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell. Chapter 10 holds everything else under the heading Specialized and External Scholarships.
The effect on the contents is large. Three of the old edition's 98 entries carried an Ivy school's name. Forty-two of this edition's 77 do, and 47 of the 77 sit inside a school's own chapter. The question the book now asks first is not who you are. It is which of eight universities you are applying to.
Each scholarship included in this book has been carefully selected based on its merit, the financial support it offers, and the opportunities it provides for students to achieve their academic and career goals. Introduction, Purpose of the Book
03 What the entry tells you
The number to look up is your family's income, not the size of the award
In the previous edition, 90 of the 98 entries quoted a dollar figure. That is what a scholarship directory normally does: it tells you what the prize is worth. In this edition only 38 of the 77 quote one.
What appears instead, in nine entries and every one of them a school's own grant, is a family income band. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Pennsylvania and Cornell each publish the income below which a family is expected to contribute nothing, and the income up to which some aid is still likely. The previous edition contained no income bands at all.
This changes how you use the book. You do not scan for the biggest number and work towards it. You find where your household sits on the scale, and the schools whose band covers you are the ones worth the application fee.
The Yale Scholarship is based entirely on financial need. There are no merit-based scholarships. Chapter 3, Yale Scholarship, Eligibility Requirements
Write down your family's annual income before you open the book. Then read only the rows whose band contains it. Every Ivy grant here needs the CSS Profile, so one form covers all of them.
04 The calendar
The deadline that decides it is in November, not March
Counting the months named in every entry of both editions gives two different years. In the 2023-2024 edition the busiest month was March, named by 20 entries, and autumn was the quiet stretch you could use to get ahead. In this edition the busiest month is November, named by 15.
The reason is in the structure. Twelve of the school grants publish two financial aid dates, one for the early round and one for regular decision. Every single early date falls in November: the first of the month at Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth and Cornell, the ninth at Princeton, the fifteenth at Yale, Columbia and Pennsylvania. Every regular date is 1 February, 15 February or 1 March.
So the aid form is not a separate errand you run after applying. It is due with the application, and the earlier door shuts first. If you are applying early anywhere, your financial aid paperwork is due in November of the year before you start.
Find out whether you are applying early or regular at your first-choice school, then put its financial aid date, not its admission date, at the top of your calendar. The two are different deadlines that happen to arrive together.
05 Where grades still count
Hardly anything names a GPA any more, and no Ivy entry does
The previous edition named a numeric grade point minimum in 34 of its 98 entries, most often 3.0. This edition names one in 8 of 77, and all eight sit in chapter 10, among the corporate and foundation awards.
Across the 47 entries in the eight school chapters there is not one numeric GPA threshold. Harvard's entry says its aid focuses on the family's finances "rather than academic or extracurricular achievements". Cornell's grant "does not consider academic or extracurricular achievements". Brown states plainly that it offers no merit-based scholarships, and neither does Yale.
Where a number does survive it is lower than you would expect: Horatio Alger asks 2.0, Amazon Future Engineer 2.3, Dell 2.4, Ronald McDonald House Charities 2.7, Coca-Cola, Microsoft and Google Lime 3.0, Gates Millennium 3.3. Grades get you admitted. Once you are admitted, at these eight schools, your household decides the money.
Though Ivy League schools do not offer traditional athletic scholarships, recruited athletes receive need-based financial aid packages. Chapter 1, Types of Scholarships
06 Citizenship
Citizenship stopped being a gate and became a form
In the previous edition, foreign nationals were one of six groups with a chapter of their own. Money was set aside for you, and if you did not fit a group, that money was not yours. This edition removes the reservation and replaces it with a paperwork rule.
Twelve school entries state that their need-based aid is open to international students, and the flagship grants at Harvard, Yale and Princeton use almost identical wording: there are no restrictions based on geographic location, citizenship, or residency status. What citizenship now decides is which forms you file. The FAFSA, named in 29 entries, is for United States citizens and permanent residents. The CSS Profile, named in 19 entries and 18 of those inside a school chapter, is required of everyone including international applicants.
That is a loosening, not a tightening, and it is worth being clear about its limit. Federal money still follows citizenship. The Pell Grant and the FSEOG are filed under Yale's chapter, but both are claimed through the FAFSA alone, and the book's own introduction says federal financial aid is for United States citizens and permanent residents.
Whoever you are, start the CSS Profile, because every Ivy grant in this book asks for it. Add the FAFSA only if you are a United States citizen or permanent resident, and treat the tax documents as part of the same job.
07 The edition in three lines
A new edition of the same directory, asking a different question
The first edition asked which group you belong to. This one asks which school you are applying to and what your family earns. If you read only three things before you open it, read these.
By school, not by you
Eight of the ten chapters are one per Ivy League university, and 47 of the 77 entries sit inside them. Ninety-one of the previous edition's ninety-eight entries did not survive the rewrite.
Household income
Nine school entries publish a family income band and no external entry does. No school entry names a GPA number. The zero-contribution line runs from $60,000 at Cornell to $75,000 at Harvard and Yale.
November, then February
All twelve early financial aid deadlines fall in November, on the 1st, the 9th or the 15th. Regular decision is 1 February, 15 February or 1 March. The aid form is due with the application.
Find the schools whose income band covers your household, file one CSS Profile for all of them, and work backwards from November. Then check every number here against the university before you rely on it, because award amounts, income thresholds and deadlines are reset every cycle and this book says so itself.
This book contains external links. The author and publisher are not responsible for any updates to the processes and forms of the schools mentioned. Readers are advised to check the official websites of these schools for the most current information. Introduction
Adapted from 100 Best Ivy League Scholarship Opportunities 2025-2026
Gian Pittard · © 2024 DVFZ Training Consultancy Services · 56 source URLs in the reference list
Counts computed by parsing both editions' contents pages and entry texts