I really want to go to Baylor and feel like it is the perfect fit for me, but I would need a really large scholarship to go. I didn’t get national merit (1450), but I was wondering if there was still a chance for me to go on full tuition or full ride. Some family friends told me that they talked to their regional admissions counselor and she ended up giving their son money for almost a full ride based on his stats and merit alone. Does anyone know anything about this or have any advice? Here are my stats and any feedback is appreciated.
Current ACT: 34
Class Rank: 7/1100
GPA: 5.09 weighted 4.0 unweighted
Varsity Football (all four years of high school)
Founder and President of club at my school which engages youth around the community through games
American Legion Texas Boys State (prestigious statewide student government in Austin dedicated to leadership. One of two boys at my school who attained scholarship for it)
Attended my School District’s Student Leadership Academy
Work Part Time at Fitness Center at Local Country Club
Worked for a summer as a Student aid Network Technician for my school district
National Merit Commended Scholar
National Honor Society
Rotary Interact
Project Purple
Mu Alpha Theta
Science National Honor Society
Health Occupation Students of America
Black Belt in Taekwondo
Participate in the Food Bank at the local Catholic Church
Nominated for Rotary Student of the Year and Rotary Youth Leadership Award, but did not receive.
AP Scholar Award
Student Leader for Fellowship of Christian Athletes during my Freshmen Year
AP/DC classes include:
Human Geography (5)
Physics (5/19)
Environmental Sci (2020)
English III DC (5/19)
World History (5)
Statistics (5/19)
Government (2020)
US History DC (5/19)
Art History (5)
Biology (5/19)
Economics (2020)
English IV DC (2020)
Calculus (2020)
Psychology (2020)
Speaking generally, I think that TCU does offer more merit scholarships and aid than Baylor.
Our daughter applied early to Baylor and we attended the first I2E event last November. While she was not NM (had the misfortune to be very sick with a cold/fever on the NM test day in 2017), she had 1570 SAT and an unweighted 4.0. GPA plus excellent faculty recommendations and lots of ECs. She was admitted on 11/1 to the Honors College and invited to apply for the Getterman scholarship. She submitted the essay and video for Getterman but was not selected to attend the final competition on campus in January. She also submitted the essay for the faculty scholarship but was not selected to receive it. She did receive the gold-level scholarship based on her grades and test scores.
Baylor had been very high on her list from the start of the college search. As we visited other schools (SMU, Univ. of Dallas, Rice, Trinity, and TCU) she began to feel that she really liked TCU. She was invited to join 120 other top applicants to participate in TCU’s Chancellor’s Scholarship weekend in February - which was totally impressive. Out of that group of 120, they award 60 Chancellor’s Scholarships. We were blessed and grateful to learn that TCU awarded her one of those Chancellors Scholarships. She has committed to TCU and will be enrolling in their John Roach Honors College in August. She’s looking forward to being a TCU Frog!
It is also worth noting that TCU had offered her $14,000 above their standard merit awards (based on GPA/Test Scores) in the form of a “Middle Income Family Grant” in January - well before the Chancellor’s Scholar competition. So perhaps TCU elects to make more merit aid available than Baylor?
My conclusion is that each school has widely varying criteria on the students they target for merit aid. The process at each school lacks transparency, probably by design. So while they all say that they consider each applicant in a holistic manner they don’t get into the specifics on exactly what criteria are used. Consequently, it is probably impossible for any of us to learn the exact reasons behind their decisions.
You have excellent credentials. My advice would be to apply early at both schools. Work carefully on your essays to make them stand out from the crowd. (In their letter of acceptance, TCU singled out my daughter’s essay as being particularly well done.) For TCU Chancellor’s consideration you may also want to consider taking one more pass at the SAT. At this year’s Chancellor’s weekend most of the other students we spoke with had SAT scores of at least 1500. Your ACT 34 is pretty close to an SAT 1500, but raising the SAT could help you. Finally if you haven’t done so already it’s worth visiting both schools and talking with some other students and faculty. It’s something of an intangible, but you do get a sense during a visit if the particular school would be right for you or not.
Baylor along with all of the schools we considered are great universities. It’s hard to go wrong with any of them.
1 Like
Thank you so much this was very helpful. I have visited both TCU and Baylor and those are my top two. Do you have any advice for me as far as attaining the Chancellor’s? What made your daughter (along with other recipients) stand out from the crowd?
@texans2001 one thing to consider is that Baylor is retiring the regents gold (national merit finalist award) for BU ‘24 in favor of higher merit to all. This may increase the faculty scholarships (full tuition) or may mean higher “automatic” merit scores but they have not announced anything yet. best wishes during this exciting time!
Hi, Texans 2001. I greatly encourage you to apply for the Invitation to Excellence Scholarship based on your test scores and extra curricular. The Invitation to Excellence scholarship gives you full tuition for all four years, making Baylor actually the cheapest place my daughter could attend! (She only pays room, board, and books.) This is only awarded to students from a few different schools at Baylor, but my daughter received it! What really helps is if you’re a “sparkle unicorn.” By that I mean if you are an unusual applicant for your chosen major. My kiddo applied to the Engineering and Computer Science school, but her high school extra curricular were mainly music, theater, and speech/debate-related. Thus, she was both a female engineer (high desirable) and extraverted (somewhat unusual). Another avenue is the Distinguished Scholars program. There are also several named scholarships. I encourage you to visit the financial aid office (which is across I35 from the main campus) and talk to those folks. Apply for Early Decision (whichever the nonbonding one is) and get your materials in for the earliest Invitation to Excellence round. Daughter applied in September, attended Invitation to Excellence in November, got full tuition scholarship in January. Voila–no stress in the spring of senior year! TCU is another great school with a similar feel to Baylor. It’s a little smaller but also a great place. Good luck!