Merit Aid: Class of 2016

<p>WayOutWestMom alias change? Two way out west moms on one site!?!</p>

<p>important questions!
What is the minimum GPA that students have to keep for merit scholarships? Does UR have diffrent standards for different type of scholarships? How does GPA be calculated (such as A is 4.0, B is 3.0, C is 2.0… average all courses ?)
I hope to keep merit scholarship for 4 years.</p>

<p>cool5s - did you scholarship letter mention it at all? My son’s letter said he had to keep a 3.0 minimum, but I don’t know if it’s different for different scholarships.</p>

<p>Nope–not alias change. It’s an imposter! </p>

<p>Accept no substitutes for the real WOWMom.</p>

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<p>To keep your scholarship requires either a 3.0 or 2.5 GPA, depending on the terms of your award. My D’s scholarship requires only 2.5 GPA.</p>

<p>I believe merit awards also require you to take a minimum number of credits (12, I think) each semester.</p>

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<p>GPA is determined by quality points. Each class is worth 1-5 credits. You multiply the number of credits for each class by your grade in the class (A = 4.0; B+ = 3.3; C- = 1.7; etc.) to get the number of quality points. Then you add all your quality points together and divide by the total number of credits earned.</p>

<p>Sounds complicated, but you GPA will be calculated for you on your transcript–which you can access from your student blackboard account.</p>

<p>PinotNoir,
I read UR scholarship letter again, it doesn’t say anything about GPA. Does it mean there is no min GPA requirement for me ? haha. But I do see min GPA requirement on an award letter from another college.</p>

<p>WayOutWestMom,
A =4.0, A- = 3.7, B+ =3.3, B=3, B- =2.7, C+=2.3, C=2, C-=1.7. Am I correct? Thank.</p>

<p>If there is no specific GPA mentioned then I believe it’s a 2.5. There is always a minimum GPA requirement to keep a merit award. I thought all UR merit awards were 2.5; PN’s son’s is the first I’d heard of that was higher.</p>

<p>And yes, cool56, that’s exactly it.</p>

<p>$10,000/year Dean’s Scholarship - unfortunately UofR still costs $45k (including room & board) per year so I will not be able to attend.</p>

<p>I got the 9k Dean’s Scholarship, which is pretty nice because I applied ED and am not a NMF or any of that jazz. I guess I sort of screwed myself over applying ED. I heard that applying ED leads them to give a lesser amount since they know you’re going anyway… foolish of me, but I very well might have not been accepted if I hadn’t applied ED.</p>

<p>I still got a very nice financial aid package, but it’s going to be extremely tough keeping up with the cost. My parents do NOT ever take out loans but they’re going to have me take out the loans so I can build a credit score (they’re gonna be awesome and pay for them and I’ll pay them back later).</p>

<p>Hmmmmm. I just tried to check the thing with my amount of aid and the tab is gone. Dx I don’t know what this means.</p>

<p>Does merit aid come with initial acceptance? Or does it come with the financial aid package?</p>

<p>as far as I know, merit aid comes around a week after having received your acceptance.</p>

<p>14,000 deans scholarship!! I’m thankful for the scholarship, but I’m not sure if I can afford U of R. Just waiting on the financial aid package at this point!</p>

<p>$13,000 a year for the Prince Street Scholarship! I was pleasantly surprised to see a nationally ranked #35 school give me so much money! The committee must have seen my piano video for the common app art supplement and thought I deserved it. I can’t wait to continue playing music at rochester!</p>

<p>$12,000 Dean’s scholarship! This is for all four years, yes? I’m excited about this, I did not expect this much.</p>

<p>Does anyone know how much Rochester gives for NMF?</p>

<p>NMF’s receive $17,000/year over all 4 years if they designate Rochester as their first choice school before the end of May.</p>

<p>TSocash,
How does receiving need based aid affect the NMF money? I know at some schools the NMF award money the school gives is subtracted from the need-based grant award so that the total aid provided by the school stays the same.</p>

<p>Also, is the amount U of R gives for NMF $17,000 total or 17,000 per year (x 4 = 68,000)?
Thank you.</p>

<p>At UR, any merit awards are subtracted from need based grant aid. </p>

<p>The NMF scholarship is $17,000/year for 4 years.</p>

<p>Thanks WOWMom.
Do you have a sense for how accurate Rochester’s NPC is? I did it a week ago and got a figure $9000 less than the number I got today. Perhaps I made a mistake entering numbers the first time.</p>

<p>Like all estimators, UR’s NPC functions on a GIGO basis. (Garbage In-Garbage Out)</p>

<p>How accurate the esimtator is depends largely on how accurate the data you enter is.</p>

<p>When it comes to estimating merit aid–there is a wide variability in the accuracy because unless you’re eligible for the NMF scholarship (guaranteed), you really can’t depend on the merit aid estimator to tell you how much merit you’ll receive. It could be more; it could be less.</p>

<p>(Merit aid is available but who gets it and how much largely depends on how much competition there is from the other applicants the year you apply. Plus merit aid has many “fuzzy” components–like diversity or the particular institutional needs of the school that year. Things that you as a student cannot begin to even guess at.)</p>

<p>I know this is an old thread, but I ran the Net Price Calculator for 6 different merit amounts with the same financial information, and the overall price drops as merit aid increases even though there is still financial aid even in the $20k merit aid scenario. Assuming it is accurate, Rochester is removing about $.70 of financial aid for every $1 merit aid increase, so more merit aid reduces the overall cost to attend. Actual results may vary.</p>