Here’s my opinion that’s based on no truth or facts. Since Emory and Washu don’t give very many of these selective merit scholarships, they want to make sure that the people they give it to actually will go to the school. In that case if they see a student is easily going to get into a bunch of top 5’s, it’s not worth giving them the scholarship because they likely won’t attend the school. They want their yield rate for the scholarships to be high, so it’s possible that people who get the scholarships aren’t as competitive for top top colleges. Or maybe they are and I’m being stupid. Best way to check is to probably snoop the post history from last years scholarship finalists and see what colleges they went to.