3,267renewal rules documented
Renewal rules & GPA cliffs
A scholarship that looks like $80,000 can quietly become $20,000 if year-two GPA slips below the line. We read the renewal terms on every award we document.
Before you chase another scholarship
Most scholarship sites are paid by colleges. MeritPlaybook works for you.
They earn money when you apply more — so they skip the fine print: awards that don’t stack, grants that shrink when you win outside money, merit that vanishes at a GPA checkpoint. We’re paid by you, so we read each school’s actual rules and hand you a play-by-play for your profile — which awards to chase first, and which to skip.
- Every number links to the school’s own page
- Only 19 of 586 colleges promise outside scholarships stack on top — we checked
- One ranked plan in under 5 minutes
- 751 colleges · 7,052 awards, each source-linked
Limited Founder Offer$179→$99
Founder pricing while we collect the first wave of family results — then it’s $179. Independent college consultants typically bill $150–$300 an hour; this is $99, once.
Or check your student’s schools free
- 751
- Schools checked for merit aid
- 7,052
- Documented awards — every one linked to a school source
- 1,365
- Automatic awards a student’s stats alone can win
- 3,267
- Renewal rules read, so awards don’t vanish after year one
From intake to playbook, in three steps.
- 01
Send your student’s profile.
Schools, GPA and test scores if available, activities, intended majors, and priorities.
Up to 5 schoolsGPA · test scoresMajors · priorities - 02
We check each school’s aid rules.
Merit awards, combining limits, renewal terms, deadlines, and the fine print most families miss.
- Merit awards
- Combining limits
- Renewal terms
- Deadlines
- 03
You get a ranked plan.
Every school marked Chase, Check, or Skip, with the sources and the next moves.
ChaseCheckSkipDelivered in under 5 minutesGet my playbook→
The whole idea, start to finish.
A quick walkthrough of how one ranked plan comes together, school by school, with a verdict on each.
What it costs
An independent college consultant averages about $6,450. This is $99.
Most consultants focus on getting your student admitted, not on the net-aid math of which school actually costs your family less. MeritPlaybook does the money side — one ranked plan, every dollar and rule sourced — for $99, one-time.
Many free scholarship sites earn referral and advertising revenue from schools and sponsors. We’re paid by families instead — which is why your plan can tell you which schools and awards to skip.
Average comprehensive-package fee for independent educational consultants: IECA, State of the Profession survey (2022).
The fine print
The fine print decides what an award is really worth.
Some awards combine. Some quietly replace aid you already had. We read the rules on every award on your list, then turn them into plain-English moves.
The rules that quietly shrink scholarships.
The biggest price cut usually isn’t an outside scholarship — it’s the college’s own merit aid, and it comes with terms most families never read. A $5,000 win that nets $0. Aid that dies sophomore year. A school that was never going to pay a dime. The award letter is the headline; the terms underneath decide what your family actually pays.
586schools’ published policies
Stacking & displacement
What happens when outside money arrives? Some schools subtract it from aid you already won. We document each school’s published policy before you count on the total.
0guessed rules published
Labeled, not guessed
When a school never publishes the rule, we label it unclear and give you the exact question to ask the aid office. We never guess.
This is not hypothetical. In Tennessee, more than 40% of students who start with the state’s HOPE scholarship lose eligibility at a renewal checkpoint, per a 2025 study. In Georgia, 30% of students who enter with HOPE lose it, per Georgia Policy Labs. Those are the programs that publish their numbers. For the colleges on your list, we document the renewal rule that decides whether the award survives.
We checked. On June 10, 2026 we audited six major scholarship platforms — on the pages we reviewed, not one surfaced any of this. See the comparison.
Most families build the college list before they understand the bill.
Scholarship databases give you hundreds of links. College websites bury the rules. Net price calculators miss the fine print. So families apply first, then learn which aid actually works. We check the money first.
A ranked plan for your student’s actual schools.
Not generic advice. One plain plan: which schools to chase, which awards to check, and what to skip.
- 01
A verdict on every school: Chase, Check, or Skip.
Which schools are worth your family’s time, which are a backup, and which have no real money path.
- 02
The awards worth chasing.
Automatic, honors, departmental, and major-specific awards we can confirm from the school's own pages, with estimated dollar amounts.
- 03
The rules to check.
Combining limits, renewal GPA floors, priority deadlines, and aid that can quietly replace other aid.
- 04
The tasks to skip.
Low-value scholarships, misleading award paths, and schools where the money never adds up.
- 05
A source on every claim.
Every dollar, deadline, and rule links back to the school’s own page. When a rule is unclear, we label it and give you the question to ask.
Read a real sample before you buy.
Same stats, three very different bills. For a 3.94 / 1480 student, Alabama’s published grid pays $112K of merit automatically, USC’s full-tuition award closes at a December deadline, and Harvard offers no merit at all. Every playbook calls it school by school: a Chase, Check, or Skip verdict, every verified award with dollar amounts, the combining and renewal rules that apply, and a source on every claim — unclear rules get labeled, never guessed. The full sample was built for Emma R., a 3.94 / 1480 cellist.
Built from a real applicant’s profile; name and details changed. Figures modeled from published school policies.
Sources: Alabama financial aid · USC scholarship guide · Harvard aid policy
Built so you don’t have to take our word for it.
“An AI made this” is a fair reason to be skeptical. So the system is built to be checked.
- 01
The author never grades its own work
Every aid claim is drafted by one AI system and re-checked by an independent verifier built on a different model family. The system that writes a claim is structurally barred from approving it.
- 02
The publish decision is code, not an AI
A claim reaches the page only after deterministic code checks the verifier’s grade, the source-grounding check, and the conflict status. Dollar amounts, stat cutoffs, stacking and renewal rules additionally require human sign-off.
- 03
Every claim carries receipts
Source URL, aid year, retrieval date, and the school’s own words quoted verbatim — plus a snapshot of the page, so the evidence survives even if a school quietly edits it.
- 04
Unclear rules get labeled, not guessed
When a school doesn’t publish a rule, we say so and hand you the exact question to ask the aid office. An unsourced number that looks confident is worse than an honest gap.
From the founder
Why I built this
I didn’t come from financial aid. I came from AI research.
I build AI tools for a living. We all know AI can be wrong. That’s why I built a research tool that runs the same question through 5 separate models at once, then compares the answers, so the disagreements tell you exactly where to dig. My own family struggled to find the right scholarships. Twenty browser tabs open, total information overload. Aid PDFs that contradict each other, claw-back policies, restrictions, scholarships that can’t be combined. Nobody teaches you how to do this.
A database with millions of scholarships still couldn’t tell us which three were worth our time.
So I pointed my research engine at our actual school list. It cross-checked each school’s merit policies, the rules for combining awards, and the fine print that quietly erases aid. What it handed back was something no database and no counselor had given us: which school was worth chasing, which award would get clawed back, and what to do first.
It worked for my family. Then it hit me that every family gets handed the same broken tools. So I turned it into MeritPlaybook. My goal is to cut the time you spend searching and give you confidence you’re looking in the right place, with a step-by-step playbook: our recommendations, your actions, your deadlines.
I’m not a financial aid officer, and I won’t pretend to be one. Every claim in your playbook links back to the school’s own published policy, so you can check my work. When a rule is unclear, the playbook labels it instead of guessing. That’s the whole deal.
Paul TakisakiFounder, MeritPlaybook
Questions families actually ask.
01Is this just another scholarship search?+
No. A scholarship search hands you a long list of links to apply for. MeritPlaybook does the opposite. We look at your student’s actual schools and tell you what to chase, what to check, and what to skip, so you stop doing work that won’t change the bill.
02Why not just use Fastweb or Scholarships.com?+
Those sites are built to give you more scholarships to apply for. They don’t tell you whether an award actually lowers the cost at your student’s schools, or whether a school rule will quietly cancel it out. That gap is the whole reason MeritPlaybook exists.
03What does “skip” mean?+
Skip means an award, a school, or a task is unlikely to change your final bill, so it’s not worth your family’s time. Telling you what to skip is the part most tools leave out, and it’s often where families save the most hours.
04How is this different from a college counselor?+
A college counselor helps with fit, essays, applications, and getting in. MeritPlaybook focuses on the money side: which schools, scholarships, deadlines, and rules can actually lower your final bill.
05What about FAFSA and need-based aid?+
MeritPlaybook does not replace the FAFSA or the CSS Profile. We focus on merit aid and school-specific rules, and we flag where need-based aid or a school rule could change the final bill.
06What if my student is applying to more than five schools?+
The base playbook covers up to five schools. Start with the ones that are most expensive, most realistic, or most confusing. That’s usually where the biggest decisions are hiding.
07What if my student’s scores change after I buy?+
Buy now and refresh later — if your student’s test scores change after purchase, we’ll re-run your playbook against the new stats for free.
08What if a school’s rule is unclear?+
We don’t guess. When a school doesn’t publish a clear answer, we label the rule as unclear and give you the exact question to ask the aid office. You always know what is confirmed and what still needs a check.
09What if you get something wrong?+
Send us the source or the aid letter and we’ll review it. If we missed a published policy that changes the recommendation, we’ll revise the playbook at no charge.
10Do you sell student data?+
No. We do not sell student data, and we do not take school kickbacks. MeritPlaybook is paid by families, not colleges.
11How fast do I get the playbook?+
The intake takes about five minutes, and your playbook is delivered in under five minutes after that. It’s built from your student’s school list and profile, then checked against current school policies. Every dollar, deadline, and rule ties back to a school source — and when a rule is unclear, we label it instead of guessing.
12Can I check my student’s schools before buying?+
Yes — the free preview shows which of your schools offer merit aid, the top award on record, and the rule to watch. The personalized ranking, dollar amounts, and step-by-step plan are in the full playbook.
13What is the refund policy?+
We back every playbook with a 30-day value guarantee. If your delivered playbook misses the mark, tell us what’s off and we’ll revise it for free. If you’re still not satisfied after a revision, you can request a full refund within 30 days of delivery through our contact form.
Separately, if we fail to deliver a playbook within three business days of your intake submission, you can request a full refund regardless of the rest of the policy. See our Terms for the full mechanics.
Built for the money decision, not the admissions race.
Built for you if
- You’re the parent of a high-school junior or senior with a working list of up to 5 schools.
- You want to know which schools will actually pay before the applications go out.
- Your student has — or will have — a GPA and a test score to work with.
Not for you if
- Award letters are already in and you only want post-offer negotiation help.
- You’re looking for essay, admissions, or application help — that’s a counselor’s lane, not ours.
- Your family’s aid will be entirely need-based, so merit won’t move the bill — start with the FAFSA question in the FAQ above.
Ready when you are
Your student’s college list needs a money check.
$99 one-time · about five minutes · one ranked plan: what to chase, what to check, and what to skip.
Limited Founder Offer$179→$99
One missed Dec 1 deadline can cost a full-tuition award, and independent college consultants typically bill $150–$300 an hour. This is $99, once — founder pricing while we collect the first wave of family results, then it’s $179.
Not ready? Check what we have on your student’s schools free→
Backed by a 30-day value guarantee · free revisions if we missed a published policy · full refund if we don’t deliver in three business days.