<p>D1 is headed down to the wire, trying to make her final decisions. </p>
<p>It looks like Bard is going to be too much of a financial stretch, so we are concentrating on SUNY New Paltz and UMass AMherst. Out of state tuition at Amherst is not cheap, but manageable due to a couple scholarships, one of which comes with a 3.2 GPA requirement. Without that larger scholarship, affording UMass could be a stretch.</p>
<p>Looking for others' experiences -- how common (or not) is it for kids to underestimate their ability to keep up their grades? She is not a big partier, but also has no idea what to expect from college classes, labs, etc.</p>
<p>She generally feels confident that she could maintain that average depending on major, but is still completely undecided at this point. She's interested in English, Lit, Environmental Science and Bio. She enjoys sciences, but even so, the latter would more of a challenge. There are no strings attached at New Paltz, so she would feel safer choosing whatever academic route she preferred, plus it has smaller classes and a more intimate atmosphere On the other hand, UMass just has so much to offer, and it's very tempting. We will visit there one last time this week. She was a bit overwhelmed by the campus/size the first time around, but after further study, it looks like the decision will come down to these two.</p>
<p>I recommend that students take a university course in one of the summers, either before going to college or between the junior and senior year to get a better feel for what college courses are like. Some will find them easy and some will find them hard but most will find them different. It wouldn’t help in the choice but taking something this summer may give her a better idea of what she will be facing and she can adjust before classes start instead of having to respond to changes during her courses.</p>
<p>UMass has been raising COA for several years due to budget cutbacks. If the scholarships are for fixed amounts, assume that you will pay more for subsequent years. UMass also changed something in the honors program which added some cost. A coworker mentioned this to me as his son attends there.</p>
<p>It is so up to the kid. Most every student accepted to a school, certainly those getting merit awards, are capable of doing the work required to keep that requisite GPA. But every term kids don’t make the mark. It’s something the kid has to have on the front of his brain in the awareness issue. I lost my merit scholarship many years ago due to grades. So did my son, and that was at SUNY that was a safety in terms of academic rigor for him. He just partied and did not pay attention to school one term, and that was all it took.</p>
<p>My daughter has to keep a 3.75 for her scholarship. As she has said, she expected herself to do that well anyway, since she has to maintain an 80% in all classes for the program she’s in. </p>
<p>A 3.2 shouldn’t be that hard to maintain for a student that is capable of earning the merit scholarship in the first place. How is she at self-discipline and prioritizing? Partying now and then will not hurt her, but she has to know when she can hang with friends and when she needs to study. If the “college experience” is important, she may be better off at New Paltz.</p>
<p>also depends on the grading system of the school…some schools use plus minus… where an 80-82/3 might only be worth 2.67. vs schools where the grading system is 80-89 is a 3.0. where does your daughter usually fall…straight A’s no problem…lower B’s could definitely be a problem</p>
<p>What kind of a student is she now? Is she pretty organized, focused when she studies, generally gets things done in a reasonable amount of time, school seems relatively “easy” for her, etc. or does she really have to study hard to keep her grades where they are now? If she is more like the first example, I would venture a guess that the 3.2 will be very doable. If she is more like the second, it might be a little harder. I would also suggest that you and she, together, contact the FA office and find out how strict that 3.2 is. If she has a 3.0, are they really going to drop the scholarship forcing her to leave school because you can no longer afford to attend? % of returning students is a big stat for colleges and often there is some leeway for those minimums—or they just get a slightly smaller award for next year, maybe $1000-2000 less, but, there may be other scholarship opportunities available to her as a sophomore that might make up for that.</p>
<p>It’s my experience that if a student is generally trying to do well, they will do what they can to keep them at their school.</p>
<p>It’s good that you looked into this too. Our son got some information from one college about a huge scholarship he would qualify for–I stopped investigating more information on that when I saw that your high school grades had to be a 3.5 or better to qualify but you needed a 3.9 in college to keep it–um, thanks, but NO.</p>
<p>BCEagle–I know, it’s just silly to expect a HIGER GPA in college vs high school for an award like that. It led me to believe that they rarely give out awards for sophomore year or higher and didn’t care if kids came back or not. Not the kind of school our kids would want.</p>
<p>This also depends on the type of high school she’s attending. If it is a highly rigorous one with a high degree of rigor and quantity of work…the latter type student may actually thrive in college…even at a highly rigorous university/LAC because she is already used to a high workload and it wouldn’t be an adjustment. Nearly everyone from my high school and schools like it…even the C/D students/STEM majors found college to be easier…even though most of us were working really hard/struggling in high school. </p>
<p>On the other hand…if the high school is an average-mediocre one where one can coast and still graduate with 4.0+ GPAs…unless she adjusts by ramping up her college study skills/work ethic…she may be in for a very rude awakening when she finds it takes much more to maintain a 3.0…much less that minimum 3.2 minimum. </p>
<p>Many former topflight high school students from those types of high schools…including those who scored 4-5s on APs and were vals and sals ended up getting their first Cs, Ds, or even Fs in their first semester/year of college. I tutored many of them for extra cash during my undergrad years which felt weird considering I graduated in the bottom half of my HS graduating class.</p>
<p>Also surprised at some of the extremely high requirements cited! BCEagle’s suggestion that she consider a college course this summer is a good point - she’s actually considering getting calculus out of the way at a local SUNY this summer if she can fit it in with her job.</p>
<p>3.2 seems reasonably doable. That said, my son, at a reach school having had a B+ average in high school has a 2.99999 average at Tufts now. But it’s only because of the foreign language he’s taking (Arabic) - both because of the grades he’s gotten in Arabic, and because of the time it has sucked away from other courses. I’d guess a 3.2 is doable for a pretty good student. Be aware that sometimes you don’t know how you are doing in courses and may not realize you should drop or switch to P/F in time. My son took an art course just for fun - and thought from what the teacher said that he was doing great - ended up with a B- which really annoyed him.</p>
<p>Mathmom - my older son (graduated last year) also took Arabic at Tufts. He did well, but I recall very clearly him telling me how much time it required compared to his other courses. I think his favorite professor was Rana (sp?) Senior year was actually the hardest, because by then most of his classmates had studied abroad, which he couldn’t due to army/ROTC obligations. The more opportunity to speak it in ‘real life,’ the better…</p>
<p>These kinds of things do figure into this topic however. Even though a 3.2 is probably manageable, I think my daughter would probably be more apt to play it safe in terms of class and major choice - and with study habits as well. Bombing just one difficult course could be very damaging to even a decent average. According to the UMass website, probation would ensue before the scholarship was taken away.</p>
<p>Find out if they will give you a “grace period” to bring the gpa up, or if they’ll restore the scholarship if she fall below and then brings it back up.</p>
<p>I know one family that had their DS take his most grade-challenging classes at the cc during the summers, so that he wouldn’t risk his scholarship gpa.</p>
<p>You might want to check into the average GPA of her potential major. When D1 was going through freshmen orientation at Minn, the dean of the Engineering school talked to the parents (at length) about how it is extremely likely for your straight A high school student to get C’s in the math and engineering classes, especially during their freshman year.</p>
<p>I read through quickly and did not see this point, but it is important to take an advisor’s advice and take a variety of classes. With a balanced schedule, easier classes should be mixed with the more difficult ones. Not all majors are created equally and for some, it is quite difficult to maintain much over a 3.0. DD had a professor die her second semester, a friend at home die unexpectedly her third semester, and she is currently living through daily bomb threats in her sixth semester. Her grades were impacted by things that were not in her control. Had she dropped below her scholarship GPA, which she did not, I would hope they would have cut her some slack. Not all GPA issues are within the student’s control.</p>
<p>My daughter was required to have a 3.2 GPA in order to keep her scholarship. The first year was tough (and she worked 15-20 hours a week);she considered changing her major from engineering to business so that she wouldn’t lose her scholarship. We told her she should stick with what she really wanted to study, whatever that might be. </p>
<p>She lost her scholarship after her second year, but she is happy to be graduating this year with an engineering degree and a 3.0 GPA.</p>
<p>I think students should have requirements to keep scholarships, but they should also be encouraged to take risks and explore. I’m still irked by what happened to my daughter. Wishing your daughter the best in her decision.</p>
<p>Personally, I’d be really wary of GPA requirements of 3.7 or higher–even though some kids do maintain those, many don’t, even great students (I did well in college—three 4.0 semesters, overall GPA of 3.77–but there were semesters where my cumulative GPA did drop below 3.7, and I would have hated to lose a scholarship over them). Also, check if the scholarship GPA is based on semesterly, yearly, or cumulative calculations. FWIW, my semester GPA’s ranged from 3.47 to 4.0 and tended to “bounce” (3.75, 3,51, 3.61, 4.0, 4.0, 3.72, 3.47, 4.0). While I certainly worked hard and made getting good grades a priority, I was also able to devote time to getting excellent research, teaching, and clinical experience, which I firmly believe was integral in my acceptance to a PhD program (not to mention making amazing friends, of course ). I was also able to pursue ambitious academic loads, double majoring and minoring in four years, with little fear of losing my scholarship (3.0 GPA requirement).</p>
<p>The school listing at the bottom of [National</a> Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com/]National”>http://www.gradeinflation.com/) can help determine whether a given GPA threshold for maintaining a scholarship is realistic, but UM Amherst is not listed.</p>
). I was also able to pursue ambitious academic loads, double majoring and minoring in four years, with little fear of losing my scholarship (3.0 GPA requirement).</p>