Going Merry Alternatives: What Families Can Use in 2026

When Going Merry shut down at the end of March 2026, thousands of families lost the scholarship tool they had built their senior-year plans around. If your student had a profile there, you are now choosing a replacement at exactly the moment deadlines start stacking up. This guide covers what made Going Merry different, what to watch for in the alternatives, and how Solyo approaches the same problem.

Last reviewed 2026-07-12 by Olivier. Editorial policy.

What Happened to Going Merry?

Going Merry was acquired by Earnest in 2021 and operated as a free scholarship platform until this spring. According to Earnest's own closing FAQ, Going Merry officially shut down at the end of March 2026, with final applications accepted in early March.

Families loved it for reasons that had little to do with database size. It reviewed listings before publishing them, it told students clearly whether they were eligible, unsure, or not eligible instead of dumping a thousand results on them, and it let students apply to many awards directly on the platform. It was also free for families.

What to Look For in a Going Merry Alternative

Scholarship money is not a lottery ticket. Most families qualify for more aid than they expect: the National Center for Education Statistics reports that 87 percent of first-time, full-time undergraduates were awarded financial aid in 2020-21. The right tool helps you find the awards your student can actually win, then helps you finish the applications. Judge any alternative on four things:

• Honest matching. Does it tell you why your student qualifies, and what is still unconfirmed? Or does it just show a long list?
• Verified listings. Are deadlines and amounts checked by a human, or scraped and left to go stale?
• Application help. Does it reduce the real work: essays, recommendation letters, deadline tracking? Discovery alone leaves 100 percent of the effort on your student.
• How it makes money. If a free platform earns revenue from advertisers or from selling applicant contact information to marketers, your student's inbox is the product.

The Main Scholarship Apps Compared

Each surviving platform is genuinely good at something. Here is the honest landscape in mid 2026.

Platform	Catalog approach	Application help	How it makes money
Fastweb	Very large database (1.5 million+ listings)	None: links out to each provider	Advertising and referrals
Scholarships.com	Very large database	None: links out to each provider	Advertising
Bold.org	Exclusive donor-funded awards	Apply on the platform	Donor fees
ScholarshipOwl	Large database plus sponsored awards	Application tools in a paid student subscription	Student subscriptions and sponsor campaigns
Solyo	Small, human-verified catalog	Deadline task chains, essay workspace, recommender kit	Family subscription, no ads

Fastweb: Huge Reach, No Application Layer

Fastweb is the oldest name in the category and describes itself as searching a database of more than 1.5 million scholarships matched to your student's profile. That reach is real, and the site's articles and financial aid resources are genuinely useful. The limit is what happens after a match: every application happens somewhere else, with no help on essays, recommendations, or deadlines.

Bold.org: Real On-Platform Applications

Bold.org hosts exclusive scholarships that students apply to directly on the platform, which makes it the closest surviving experience to Going Merry's apply flow. The catalog is donor-funded and includes many essay-based awards worth applying to. Be selective with the no-essay giveaways: low effort also means enormous applicant pools.

ScholarshipOwl: Tools Behind a Subscription

ScholarshipOwl pairs a large database with application tools, but the tools that actually save time sit in a paid student subscription, and the platform also runs sponsored scholarship campaigns for organizations that want to reach students. Neither is hidden, but families should understand both sides of that model before creating a profile.

How Solyo Approaches Scholarships

Solyo took the opposite bet from the mega-databases: a deliberately small catalog where every award is human-verified, matched honestly against your student's real profile, with the application work built in. Solyo checks more than 20 eligibility dimensions and tells you three things per award: you qualify, you do not, or answer one more question and we will know. It also estimates win odds honestly, including the difference between state grants that every qualifier receives and rationed programs that deny eligible students when funding runs out.

That last distinction comes from our own research. In July 2026, while building the matcher, my team audited all 59 state grant programs in our catalog against statutes and program reports. Thirteen of the 59 turned out to be rationed: programs like the Illinois MAP Grant and the TEXAS Grant routinely deny eligible students through cutoff dates or funding caps. Solyo prices those odds differently, because a family planning around a grant they may not receive deserves to know.

On the application side, Solyo builds a dated task chain for every award (recommendations first, then essay, transcript, submission), bundles awards that share an essay topic so one draft covers several applications, and generates a recommendation request email with a brag sheet from your student's profile. And because Solyo already reads school newsletters for grades and events, it surfaces local scholarship announcements from your own school community: the small, low-competition awards that never make it into national databases. Learn more about why those matter in our guide to finding local scholarships.

Avoiding Scholarship Scams Along the Way

Whenever a popular platform disappears, scam activity fills the search results. Two rules protect you. First, legitimate scholarships never charge an application fee, and no legitimate service guarantees your student will win money. Second, be careful where you enter personal information: a real scholarship application does not need a Social Security number up front. When in doubt, cross-check the award on a free, no-strings search like BigFuture before applying. Every award in Solyo's catalog is verified against the provider's official page, and we exclude anything that asks students to pay.

Wondering whether your student's grades are competitive? See our guide on what GPA merit scholarships typically require.

Bottom Line for Families

There is no single replacement for Going Merry, but there is a sensible plan:

1. Pick one primary tool that matches honestly and helps with applications, rather than three overlapping databases that flood your inbox.
2. Add a free cross-check like BigFuture for anything national.
3. Do not ignore local awards. They have the best odds and the least competition, and they usually arrive through your school, not a database.
4. Protect your student's data. Prefer platforms whose customer is your family, not an advertiser.

If you want the honest-matching, application-help approach Going Merry families are missing, inside an app that already tracks your student's grades and school life, take a look at Solyo's scholarship matching.