Faculty & Regents' Gold - class of 2023

Hello All. As anyone with a NMSF student is aware by now, Baylor changed their policy this year to no longer offer the Regents’ Gold scholarship automatically to NMF but to make it competitive.

questions:

1> has anyone heard the # of Regents’ Gold scholarships BU is giving to class of 2023?
2> same question for Faculty scholarships for 2023?
3> anyone have stats for 2022 on # of Faculty scholarships BU gave out?

I know, for example, last year was the first year for Getterman’s award and it was given to 2 students but I cannot find stats on the Faculty or Regents’

A couple of weeks ago, I spoke with a gentleman in financial aid and this is what he told me abot NMF scholarships.
Please take this with a gain of salt because it is heresay, and I may have heard incorrectly.
Up to 60 regents gold scholarships.
Maybe true or not, but that is what I believe I heard.
Anyone know any different?

thanks ratsnotmice. interesting as I was told regents gold was around 40 this year with some flexibility depending on the number and quality of candidates. Either way, I am not able to find any details on Faculty numbers either historically or for this year.

I have not found any info on the faculty scholarship awarded at I2E either. Interesting you were told 40 for NMF. Perhaps we can speculate 40 min to 60 max.
I also wonder about the selection process for Reagents Gold.

Students attending this event will be considered, through a holistic review, for academic scholarship funding that has been redirected from the National Merit, Regent’s Gold scholarship

I copied this from the Baylor I2E scholarship page. This seems to indicate money left over from Regent Gold is used for the I2E faculty scholarship.
Perhaps the reason for a now competitive Regents is to offer more I2E awards.

Pure speculation on my part.
What do others think?

@ratsnotmice Not sure; they do a great job of highlighting all the opportunities at I2E. It confirmed Baylor as my DD’s choice.

My son is National Merit Scholarship Finalist and 1560 SAT. He did get a Faculty award ($42.8K) and I assumed he would get the Regents Gold award also. He was never notified one way or another so I called up the admissions office. They told me that he got the Faculty award from I2E but did not get the Gold Scholarship. I also talked to the Financial aid office since I was really confused how he could get the Faculty award and not be good enough for the Gold award. The Financial office was very slippery with their answer but the Admissions office let it slip that they felt that the candidates (for the most part) were given one award or the other. He also said something to the effect that their were 200 students in the running for the Gold scholarship. That seems kind of hard to believe but whatever) 10 years ago my oldest son got both awards. By getting the Faculty award you were automatically a full ride since the Gold was automatic for finalists. Now the Faculty award is the “consolation award” since they clearly are cutting waaaaayyyyy back on what they give National Merit Scholarship Finalist. If my son was one year older he would have received a free education but now it will cover tuition only (assuming they don’t raise that in the next 4 years). Oh, and one other side note. He did not get the Getterman either but they gave him $4k for his freshman year. I’m wondering if everybody got that?

My son also received the Faculty Scholarship but not the Gold. 36 ACT, etc., etc. so I kind of understand. We just hope some other deserving student will benefit.
Regarding the possible increase in future tuition, I believe reading in the scholarship info provided by Baylor that would be covered.

indeed it will be interesting to see if anyone reports getting both. My S got RG which interestingly turned out to be full tuition +4k/year because of ACT score. And yes, @ratsnotmice , the full tuition is not a flat amount but guarantees to keep up with increases as long as they maintain scholarship requirements.

Son received a letter today from NM Corp and he won a small scholarship officially making him a National Merit Scholar. Did not get the Gold or Faculty from BU, but he was buoyed by this news. I hope other finalist were also recognized.

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 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!

My impression is that Baylor has cut back on merit aid for any amounts beyond the standard gold, silver, bronze awards based on GPA and test scores. Baylor’s financial aid office communicated that they found “conflicts” between our FAFSA form and CSS form but I was never able to learn what the specific conflicts were about or how to resolve them - despite two phone calls to inquire. As a consequence, we were only offered about $5K in loans. Also, they were the only school to report any conflict in the information between the two forms.

TCU, by contrast, 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.

Baylor along with all of the schools we considered are great universities and congratulations to anyone who received either the Getterman or the Faculty awards.