Notre Dame vs BU for merit aid: which school is more likely to offer substantial scholarships?

Boston University is usually the more realistic place to look for substantial merit scholarships. Notre Dame does offer merit scholarships, but they are much less common and the university is better known for need-based aid than for broad merit awarding.

For a student who is counting on merit to make the price workable, BU is the school that more often belongs in that conversation. The catch is that BU’s biggest merit awards are very competitive, so they should be treated as possible upside rather than something to expect. Still, compared with Notre Dame, BU is the place where substantial non-need-based scholarships are more built into the admissions landscape.

Notre Dame fits a student who may qualify strongly for need-based financial aid or who is comfortable treating merit as a long shot. If your family will not qualify for much need-based aid and cost is a major deciding factor, Notre Dame is usually the harder school to count on for merit help.

So in plain terms: for merit aid specifically, BU is more likely than Notre Dame to offer meaningful scholarships, including some very large ones. Notre Dame can absolutely be generous for the right student, but not in the same broad merit-oriented way.