The career fairs are important but keeping the scholarship is more so - it is often the ticket for admission.
Would not recommend pursuing a scholarship needing much over a 3.2 to keep. Too easy to have a one semester dip due to family trauma, a particularly difficult 5 hour course, or even a bad cold during finals week …
… And I’m not too sure I’d recommend hitting on a Fortune 500 company right out of the gate either. Life’s short, date a little before getting assimilated. At 10 years in, you’ll see people who’ve only worked for the one company and are terrified of leaving it but hating every day. Knowing that every other place on the planet has its ups and downs, and knowing you can move to a different one is fantastically empowering. Knowing what it’s like on the outside gives you a way to tell whether the place really is nasty or if you’re just hanging around with really negative people.
Whether one may want to work at a Fortune company is one thing, but to have a chance to interview for an internship position or not is another thing. It is like saying going to an Ivy may be not such a good thing as it is so competitive, while one need to first think if he has the credential for a chance to apply.
Merit Be Careful: Some schools require a high GPA to keep the merit.
That’s OK, because a high GPA is needed to interview for an internship with a prestigious company.
I think we took a wrong turn around 2.8.
Whether or not a high GPA is required to interview with a company is independent of whether the scholarship will be yanked. Guess I wrote a paragraph too much
Ditto what BobWallace said. There are 4000 colleges out there. There are schools for whom a student with a C here or there on their transcript will still be a highly desired applicant. And merit awards are about more than simply academic merit.
runswimyoga, sorry…misinformed. Bob Wallace is right. As a Semifinalist for national merit, he like the rest, already has automatics at 20+ schools…as National Finalist, that goes up but 2cs may be challenge for finalist. He has extenuating circumstance…45 missed days of school due to sickness for condition that is treated. Award winning thespian and new member of the defending and three time state improv team. Unique theatre, artistic technical kid. Not a question of if there are scholarships, but if we want to accept the scholarships or pay for a better school he’ll get in…which is what we are evaluating and the reason for the thread:) Man has this thread been twisty
Another school to consider for large merit scholarships based on stats not NMF is Miami of Ohio. They say an ACT of 32+ and 3.5 GPA can give you half to full tuition and their reputation is excellent ungrad education.
USC GPA requirement to maintain merit aid is 2.0 and not 3.0 when I last checked. But do check it again. It has changed since my kid went there, I think perhaps the reason is one of her friend’s GOA fell below 3.0 and he couldn’t keep the scholarship.
