Hello! My son will be applying to Gettysburg College next year. He will be an environmental studies major but also plays two instruments and leads a very healthy lifestyle. I don’t believe he’ll join a fraternity but I could see him living in a theme house either with other music/art students or a healthy-living house or a sustainability house. Do any of these exist at Gettysburg? I read in an older post that there was a music fraternity. Is this true? Finally, can someone give me a sense of the GPA/SAT brackets for the various levels of merit aid? Thank you for your help!
Hello! I am a current Gettysburg freshman and absolutely love the school. I am pursuing a biology major with a minor in neuroscience. Environmental Studies is a great major at gburg. The department is very close-knit and has some wonderful opportunities - there is a class that studies tropical terrestrial biology and goes to Peru to the amazon rainforest to study biodiversity!
The music program and conservatory at gburg (Sunderman Conservatory) is also highly esteemed. The theme house program is very popular with students - I will be living in STEM house next year. For students interested in music, they may choose to live in the Blue Note Jazz House, Harmony House, or perhaps Art House. It sounds like Farm House or RISE house might interest your son, as well! All houses have small communities of students with similar interests, so it is a great way to find people you truly connect with. Freshman must live in the first-year residence halls, but you can live in theme houses, frats, and apartments from sophomore year onward. There are no music fraternities at gburg - fraternities are more socially-based houses with a greek affiliation and a larger amount of students living in one house.
Gburg has some great merit scholarships. They recently added the Eisenhower Scholarship, which I am less familiar with but is for students with an interest in public policy and is $40,000 annually. There is also the Abraham Lincoln Scholarship, which requires 5-7 AP/IB classes, a 3.8-4.0 high school GPA, top 10% of your hs class, and an ACT of 33 or SAT of about 1430. Lincoln Scholars also are apart of the Lincoln Scholar program, where they receive upperclass mentors, career training, and may go on trips altogether. This is $32,000 annually. The next would be the presidential scholarship, which is $27,000 annually, 3.8 GPA, 3-4 AP/IB classes, top 10% of class, and ACT of 30/SAT 1310. Then there’s the David Wills Scholarship, $24,000 annually, 2-4 AP/IB classes, 3.6-3.7 GPA, top 10-15%, and ACT of 28/SAT 1250. Finally there is the 1832 Founders Scholarship, $15,000 annually, 3.6 GPA, top 20%, 1-3 AP/IB classes, ACT of 28/SAT 1240.
These numbers are more relative but fairly accurate. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask! I am happy to talk about any aspect of Gettysburg 
@Bellabijou, thank you so much!!! Your reply was really helpful! I’m sorry it took me a while to see it. I’m still figuring out how to navigate CollegeConfidential. I really think Gettysburg is my son’s first choice. We visited in the fall and now he’s watching the virtual sessions Gettysburg is offering. In terms of merit aid, his grades & SATs are great but, while he’s taken honors classes each year, he’ll only have 2 AP courses by the time he graduates and he’s taking those senior year. I’m hoping he’ll get enough aid so we can make it work! Thank you again for your reply!