I received an email today saying that I have lost my scholarship for Saint Louis University. I want to appeal this decision, has anyone had any experience doing this?
I have a 2.9 GPA and need a 3.2 to maintain my scholarships.
I was pre-med freshman year and changed career paths.
I found out that I had anxiety this semester after seeing a counselor this past semester.
My GPA overall has been increasing since my first semester.
Does anyone know if I will be able to succeed in my appeal?
Essentially, for the appeal process I have to submit a written form explaining why my GPA was not up to the required standards. I can attach any documentation or medical records if I had a medical issue or a death in the family or any other documentation that would supplement my appeal.
I just finished my sophomore year. Each semester since my first-year, my GPA has improved, as in each semester I received a better GPA than the previous.
I have not failed any courses. I got a D in Chemistry first semester, when I was pre-med.
I have not dropped any courses.
Oh sorry, yes, last year (freshman year) my GPA was below the 3.2 mark around 2.7 and this year my GPA ended with around a 2.9 Last year, they sent me an email regarding probation stating that they give people 1 year to get their grades up. This year, they say they are taking the scholarship away unless I appeal with good reason.
Provide documentation of your anxiety disorder, along with a coherent plan for how you will deal with it in the future to prevent it from interfering with your performance.
If there is any other explanation for your poor performance, provide that as well, along with a plan for overcoming that issue in the future.
Look at it this way - they’ve given you two full years to comply with the GPA requirements for the scholarship, and you haven’t done it. So a vague promise of “doing better in the future” isn’t going to cut it. You have to be able to show them exactly what went wrong in the past, along with a plan that will guarantee your success in the future.
If you can’t do that, how about requesting a one semester (or one year) leave of absence? You can request that the school delay consideration of your appeal until you are certain that you are ready to come back, at which time you will provide a plan for the successful completion of your remaining two years of college.
@lilshamB6369: Do you have a plan B in place in the event your appeal is unsuccessful? Saint Louis University COA is roughly $53K per year (Tuition is $40K/yr), including room and board. If you were getting $18K per year, you net cost without any other financial aid would be $35K per year. Can you afford Saint Louis University without the scholarship?
Many students lose their scholarship at various universities when they fail to meet the minimum GPA requirement, so the appeal process might not be to your satisfaction. Concurrently with appealing the decision, you should be looking at other options available, including transferring to a less expensive institution. Is commuting to Saint Louis University an option?
“Many students lose their scholarship at various universities when they fail to meet the minimum GPA requirement.”
This. Unfortunately, it sounds like you’ve been given a longer probation period than most, and still was unable to meet the requirements. Most schools will deny appeals in these kinds of situations. GPA requirements are requirements for a reason: barring a death in the family, or something equally catastrophic, I wouldn’t count on a successful appeal.
Many students do poorly in college. Those students are not on scholarship. That’s just how it works.
@ucbalumnus: I have contacted my financial aid counselor and they have not issued the financial aid billing until July. I was hoping to get an estimate, my counselor said that Saint Louis University may modify my other scholarships due to the fact that I lost this particular scholarship.
@dodgersmom: Thank you, thank you, thank you! All of those pieces of advise were extremely helpful. I cannot express my gratitude enough.
@Jamrock411 Thank you for the response! Yes, continuing is an option. I will just be taking out more student loans.
@CourtneyThurston Thank you for your input! I am going to appeal with the basis that my anxiety was not discovered until this past semester. The anxiety can be attributed to an event that happened when I was younger and I have had it for awhile apparently but have not recognized it until Anxiety which was this past semester. I am going to argue that now that I have attacked the problem, things will be different. Etc. etc.
I have to disagree strongly with what I think Courtney Thurston is implying, which is that you deserve to have your scholarship revoked. My opinion is that schools are doing a huge disservice to its students when they expect scholarship students to outperform their full pay peers. And that is what is happening here if the bar is set at 3.2. That is remarkably high. That would make any student anxious. Try to avoid tagging yourself with an anxiety disorder if you have not recognized excessive levels of anxiety until now. Some situations evoke anxiety in typical people. I’d say the threat you have been under is such a situation. Hopefully you won’t pathologize yourself for feeling anxious. After all, who in their right mind would not experience anxiety in your situation. Maybe a narcissist wouldn’t. Anxiety is an appropriate/often adaptive response to the sort of threat you have been under.
From what you wrote to UCBalumnus, it seems like the school wants to work with you. That is a very positive sign. Here is something else you can do. If you have a named scholarship (say “the John Smith Unreasonably High Scholarship”), you can look at the criteria for the selection of students to fund. Sometimes a specific GPA is listed as proxy for other values (like hard working, destined for greatness, or something like that). Now consider if you show all the attributes even though your GPA isn’t at the required level. If so, write an appeal that supports the idea that you have shown the necessary values and that you anticipate that the GPA will soon reflect that fact. Discuss the steps you are taking to ensure that the GPA is headed in the right direction. If the appeal is denied but if the school generates another scholarship that covers the same amount, I’d not take it further because your goal is funding (not loans). I bet they will cover the costs but I’ll write about a potential Step 2 for the sake of others who may be at more punitive schools. Step 2 would be to appeal to the grant source ( the granting office and often the relative of John Smith). Read about John Smith’s life and his goals. Then appeal to the granting office by explaining how you are motivated to accomplish what John Smith hoped his grant would achieve. The granting office may have discretion to make exceptions even if the school can’t or won’t.
Students who don’t come from privileged backgrounds benefit differentially from a college degree and schools should be doing everything possible to help them succeed. They are also probably inherently brighter than peers with similar/matched credentials because they have usually accomplished their credentials without a truck load of tutors and supports (which entitled/privileged students often have but don’t factor in when they think about their own achievements-despite often objecting to any “leg up” they perceive their less wealthy peers getting). For wealthy students, mommy’s/daddy’s checkbook often accounts for a good amount of their “accomplishments”. Scholarships are not intended as barriers to education. The OP’s scholarship has a minimal GPA that would be an obstacle for many students in a rigorous curriculum. I hope the appeals help.
Many students from wealthy families end up with great scholarships. But that is a far cry from understanding the pressures that are exerted on students who really do need the scholarship money to continue in school.
@lostaccount Wow. Thank you. I cannot express to you how much your help and your kindness means. You have given me the hope I need. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been feeling pretty depressed and hopeless about this entire situation but you have given me a glimmer of hope. The scholarship I am losing is called the Vice Presidential Scholarship. I applied for the Presidential Scholarship at Saint Louis University (a full tuition scholarship) and I got accepted for an interview and became a finalist. Unfortunately, I did not receive the Presidential Scholarship but due to the fact that I was a finalist, they awarded me a Vice Presidential Scholarship which is $18,000 per year. This is the scholarship that I lost. Since it is through SLU, I don’t know if I would be able to contact a different granting office as you suggested, but I truly appreciate the suggestion. Truly.
Would you suggest that I not focus on the anxiety part of things during my appeal? There was a traumatizing event in my childhood that caused it according to my counselor, and I agree with that. Since it was not addressed until my second year of college, I am wondering if that would be a big factor? Should I focus on writing how I’m going to fulfill the mission of the scholarship instead?
Do you have any experience or know of anyone who has appealed the decision for a scholarship?
Have you have a formal medical diagnosis of an anxiety disorder? If so and you are being actively treated for this disorder then I would mention it.
Lostaccount, while I strongly agree that a high GPA bar is wrong, you need to consider what the average GPA is for that school. At my daughter’s school, the average GPA is close to 3.2. So a GPA requirement of 3.2 sounds very reasonable at her school. Also, giving the student two years to reach that GPA sound very reasonable. Scholarships are usually (although not always) given to academically strong students so expecting them to do at least average is not unreasonable.
Having said that, if this student has a mental disorder that is documented and is being treated then I feel that should be considered. Anxiety can be crippling. He should also consider if he should take a medical leave to seek treatment before continuing. These type of issues can take a lot of time to treat.
“Many students from wealthy families end up with great scholarships.”
I am not from a wealthy background, at all. I won multiple scholarships for low income students, and am able to attend college only because of them. Scholarships are many students lifelines, and the reality of the college business means you need to work incredibly hard to keep them. Otherwise, schools will often not hesitate to pull them – as right or wrong as that may be, that’s what happens.
It is only my opinion because obviously there is no absolutely right or wrong on something like this, but I think that schools/scholarship donors have every right to expect a certain performance in return for their generosity. Turn it around. A kid on a major scholarship goes out drinking a lot and skips classes on a frequent basis. Now of course no one in charge of the scholarship can know that is what they are doing, but it gets reflected in a 2.0 GPA. You think the scholarship people should just shrug and say “Oh well, I guess we are not supposed to care that it seems we wasted our money, and we should keep funding this student”? If in fact the actual reasons for falling short are much less because of foolish faults of the recipient, they can take that into account on appeal. Otherwise why bother to have the process? I cannot at all understand an attitude of indifference once the money is awarded.
I also disagree that 3.2 is a high bar. I guess I would have to see what the average GPA is for SLU, but given that these students had to be well above average to begin with to have even gotten the scholarship, that GPA seems very reasonable. JMHO
It is not unusual at all to have a gpa requirement to keep a merit scholarship.
It sounds like the OP had a bad first semester and has been digging her way out of the hole since then. I think the appeal argument is that there is no way mathematically to do it, but she has had a big improvement and, given the chance, her gpa will continue to rise.
Use the facts. Freshman gpa was XX, Sophomore was YY. If junior year is ZZ, will it bring it to 3.2? If you are at a 2.9, it may only be possible if you get all A’s.
My daughter’s gpa was just below the 3.0 required at the end of freshman year. They granted her appeal and let her keep her scholarship, and she would have had until the end of sophomore year to bring it up, but she was taking second semester off so she really only had one semester to bring it up and she did. She picked her classes carefully for the fall. Very carefully (no math!).
I figured a scholarship like that was sort of like a job where the quantity and the quality of the work was part of the deal. I.E. the scholarship pays $X, and in return, the recipient agrees to produce a certain amount on time and to a spec. This is like a regular job.
FWIW, used to be that ROTC scholarships carried a 4 year commitment and a minimum GPA. Failure to maintain the GPA would result in loss of scholarship but not loss of commitment. I found the prospect of refueling B52’s in the middle of a North Dakota winter gave incredible focus and motivation when I needed it.
doesn’t help the OP much, but it might be good to start working on a plan B now. Knew one guy who transferred out of Johns Hopkins to a school of lesser reputation, and afaik still had a satisfying life and career.