I’m currently a Junior in high school and i’m really distraught. I’ve always been a straight A student my whole life. I had straight A’s both my sophomore and freshman year in all honors and some AP courses. I ranked top 2% for both years and maintained a 4.6 gpa (weighted). Sadly, i had a lot of problems at home junior hear which caused me to get a D in ap chemistry first semester of junior year. Right now my cumulative gpa is 4.5 (weighted) and im in the top 6% of my school. I wasnt able to end junior year with straight A’s but mainly 3 A’s in AP courses & Honors, 2 B’s in honors, and 1 C in AP chemistry. I also received a 34 on my ACT
My main concern is that I want to get as much scholarships as I can get from my school next year which is Loyola University in Chicago. My workload for senior year is all AP & honors: AP literature & composition, AP calculus A/B, AP Biolpgy, AP economics, AP government, AP spanish, Honors Human Body systems, Honors Medical Interventions. I know I will be able to pull up my grades to straight A’s by this time.
My question is, will loyola see my first semester senior grades to help determine the scholarship I will receive from them or just my junior? Will I attain less of a scholarship now?
Your question is complicated. Are you eligible for need based aid? Run the net price calculator on each college website you are interested in to see what you might have to pay. Also, you should apply to more than one school. What if you don’t get in, or it is not affordable?
If your transcripts show both semester’s grades, then colleges will see them. You could talk to your GC and see if they are willing to put a note in their recommendation about you having family issues junior year that caused an issue with your grades.
Merit scholarships vary by school. You can look at the Loyola website for information on merit scholarships and also Google the Common Data Set. There is a section in the Financial Aid area that gives info on the number of students with non-need scholarships and the average amount.
If you are eligible for need based aid, you should be looking at colleges that “meet need”. Loyola is not one of those schools.
First…if you are a junior…how do you KNOW your college will be Loyola Chicago?
At this point…do the best you can. What will your FINAL grade be in AP Chemistry. That is what will matter on your transcript…not your midterm grade.
@Filipinaaa
First, tap into that hardship in your family and use it to write some great essays about how it helped you grow, how you got through it, who helped you etc. Pain can be amazingly powerful if you write about it well. Depending upon your income, you might be eligible for the Horatio Alger scholarship. It is not a full ride,but the lower amount is $7000 (total) which is nothing to sneeze at.
Life happens, and schools understand that, but only if you tell them! In your essays tell them what happened, with support and confirmation from your guidance counselor/teachers who write you letters of recommendation, it will be impactful. Be honest, be powerful. It’s ok! Your essays, if well constructed, will be much more persuasive than someone who has had a perfect life thus far. How you handle difficult situations shows what kind of character you have, and you ability to overcome and continue on speaks volumes about you, because not everyone does get their grades back up, some people just collapse and cannot continue. You were not one of those, and that alone says a lot to a college, so don’t be ashamed of it!
If you need help with your essays, let me know. My daughter is graduating this year, and my foster son graduated last year (Gates Scholar) so I’m going to miss helping on essays 
Als, if you happen to do poorly at the end of the year in that one course…can you retake it with grade replacement during the summer?
If you really need scholarship help then apply broadly to colleges that either offer great financial aid or great merit aid. Here are some with excellent merit: http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
Honest answer: yes, it’s going to hurt. You’re competing against kids with 4.0 unweighted GPAs. What is your unweighted GPA? Very few (none that I can think of…) scholarships will consider a weighted GPA. Pretty much all the kids who are competitive enough for scholarships have taken honors and usually many AP courses, so that’s not a differentiating factor.
But, you have options (if your unweighted GPA is still reasonable). Take a look at the list of schools above.
First of all, Loyola Chicago may not give big scholarships. Have you checked online? It may just give $15k or $20k per year or something like that. The school costs over $50k per year. It may have a couple of huge scholarships, but who knows if you’ll be one of the couple kids who get it. As Courtney mentioned, others will have all As.
Loyola Chicago is not great with aid. It doesn’t meet need.
You need to ask your parents how much they’ll spend each year. What are they saying?
Are you low income? Do you have a non-custodial parent?
Are you or your parents wanting you to attend a Catholic univ? What about other Catholic univs?
You have a high ACT, so there are other schools that will give you large merit scholarships.
These are Loyola Chicago’s largest scholarships.
Presidential, Damen, Loyola, Trustee, and Dean’s Scholarships: These scholarships are awarded to academically qualified students entering Fall 2016 based on information provided in the admission application process, without regard to financial need. Scholarship amounts range from $16,000 to $21,000 per year.
You can only possibly get one of these. So, at most, you’d get $21k per year. That would leave about $30k per year.
You say that Loyola Chicago is “my school”…but unless your parents are going to pay the uncovered costs, how do you know it’s “my school”?
I have one friend at Loyola on a full tuition (maybe greater, I don’t know all the details) award. She is brilliant and had outstanding high school stats. Loyola is very competitive… not the place to be looking for big scholarships unless you have Ivy-or-similar stats.
After more searching, I see that they offer a full tuition NMF scholarship and a couple other large awards.
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The Ignatian Scholarship is an invite-only full tuition scholarship
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They also are now offering the Cristo Rey program. that is a program that matches low income students with corporations and it’s kind of like a co-op (but not exactly) where the student works and the corporation pays for college.
There are also some smaller awards for those who’ve graduated from Jesuit HS…and for some who’ve graduated from Chicago area Catholic high schools.