To get over $100,000 scholarship is very impressive and the parents must be very happy.
many events, such as science olympia, give out certain amount of $$ scholarship as the top prize. Something like a reading contest. One needs no to be 12th grader to win that kind of $$.
Also, many of lower ranking school will send letters to outstanding students such as a NMF with a minimal out state tuition. That is about $20000 a year. So, it is not difficult to get a total of $100,000 w/o even applying to one single school. Nonetheless, only the very good students get this type of awards. For some of the HYP parents, those letters might go into the trash can w/o even been open.