<p>If your child has been offered a merit scholarship based on GPA, you should be aware that some colleges/departments tell their faculty what their average grade should be. This is in response to grade inflation, of course, but the ramifications extend to scholarship holders. If a professor is told that she should aim for a B- average for a given course (or even a B average), then your child will always have to be ABOVE average within the school to retain the scholarship.</p>
<p>This gets tough in schools that have distributive requirements - or for those in disciplines that like to weed out freshmen in introductory courses.</p>