<p>My son was looking over some scholarships he was thinking of applying to, and on one of them noticed that you have to be continuously enrolled full time and that co-ops do not meet the requirement. So essentially you would lose the scholarship if you took the co-op. In this particular case, the amount is small enough that he couldn't possibly imagine passing up on a good co-op opportunity, but is this common?</p>
<p>No, it is not common. Co-ops should be (and usually are) encouraged. Disincentives to career preparation are not productive.</p>
<p>Is this a school provided scholarship or an outside scholarship?</p>
<p>Strange scholarship!
My son was maintaining his full-time status while he was doing the co-op. He had no tuition for the term; therefore, the Pell grant was refunded to him.</p>
<p>It is an outside scholarship, it’s a shame really, I’m not sure they really thought that through. They are excluding groups of students in majors that commonly participate in co-ops. I can see suspending the money for the semester, but not disqualifying them. I have ties to the organization that offers it so I am going to send them a note about it.</p>
<p>That is a good idea. It is becoming increasingly important for students to do co-ops and internships in order to get a leg up on their peers when it comes to getting a job after graduation. It also really helps kids decide what they like … and don’t like … in the world of work.</p>
<p>My D has an outside scholarship that requires 12 semester hours. Next Spring, she will do an internship and a “mini-mester” of classes which is required for her degree program. The internship only gives 6 credit hours and the mini-mester is 3 credits. We thought she would have to forgo the outside scholarship and then it dawned on me to have her do one 3 credit hour online class(I told her to take ANY easy 3 hour class she desires). They have agreed that this will give her the credits necessary to receive her scholarship $$. I am so relieved!</p>
<p>For some schools you have to file a Leave of Absence form with the office of financial aid to keep the scholarship held for the semester you are off doing the co-op</p>
<p>With co-ops, you attend alternating semesters. No scholarship requires you to be enrolled continuously, otherwise you could not take off for the summer. Look at the definition of continuous enrollment.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how else to interpret this:</p>
<ol>
<li>Through your college or university, you will provide **** with verification
of your status as a full-time student. (Work co-op programs
are not an acceptable means of meeting full-time-student status.)</li>
</ol>
<p>and I understand about the summer, I realize I didn’t phrase that correctly</p>
<p>It’s hard to tell if they just mean that they won’t pay out during the co-op semester. You’d need to call and find out if they will allow a student to skip a pay-out while doing a co-op and then have the scholarship resume the next semester. </p>
<p>It seems that institutional scholarships allow for students to do co-ops, and the scholarship resumes once the student returns to school.</p>
<p>Either way, I think I’ll encourage him to apply, even if it was only good for a couple of semesters, it is a fairly decent amount, and the application doesn’t look too time consuming. Bless these kids who go out and apply for tons of these things, piled on top of everything else they are required to do senior year. Just one is making me pull my hair out! :)</p>
<p>* Bless these kids who go out and apply for tons of these things [outside scholarships] *</p>
<p>Yes, but sadly, for a number of these kids, these apps can be a complete waste of time. Every spring there are posts from kids who say they applied to XX scholarships from those scholarship websites and got nothing or very little. If these kids had spent the same amount of time practicing for their SAT/ACT they might have been able to get 4 year scholarships from colleges that they applied to. </p>
<p>And, since many of these scholarships are ONLY for frosh year, they don’t end up really helping pay for college. </p>
<p>The scholarship that your son is applying for is mult-year, which is good. If the scholarship is from a local source, then he may have a good chance. :)</p>
<p>If people want merit scholarships to help pay for college, then they should apply to the schools that will award them for their stats…for all 4 years.</p>