D17 is considering four colleges. She’s been accepted at all four; three are offering substantial merit aid, and the fourth is offering a tuition discount based on our state of residence. The merit scholarships bring the total cost of attendance into the affordable range for us, close to what the fourth school will cost.
The merit scholarships, however, require maintaining a 3.0 GPA. If those scholarships would be lost, the cost of attendance would rise by around 33%, and would make them a severe stretch to afford.
So the question is: how often do students fail to make grades for these kinds of scholarships? In high school, she’s getting about a 3.5 unweighted, but she’s going into a field (some version of animation/graphic design/game design) that she’s had no courses in.
Added: No need-based aid will be available to us at any of these schools, with or without the merit scholarships.
It is rare and would usually be due to extreme homesickness, going off the deep end in partying or developing some sort of emotional disorder. A 3.0 should be doable. There was thread here on CC last year where people posted the GPA cutoffs for retaining merit aid. Some were in the 3.3 to 3.7 range, now that would be risky. Are the schools large “sink or swim” schools or a small or mid-sized private school where help is more readily available?
Do the schools have Common Data Sets? If so, look under section H2A.
It’s not perfect by any stretch, but it does list the # of merit scholarships given to freshmen, as well as the # of merit scholarships for all undergrads including freshmen. Assuming they give the same number of scholarships (more or less) each year, and the scholarships are all renewable for 4 years, one would expect that the total # of undergrad scholarships should be roughly 4 times the number of freshmen-only scholarships. A big difference may indicate that students lost their scholarships in the later years.
Would the tuition discount at the one school still be available for transfer students?
Then she could go to one of the three merit schools, and if she were to lose the scholarship, she could transfer to the tuition discount school. Provided she could be accepted with her transfer GPA and still qualify for the tuition discount.
You can also dig deeper and see how the school handles the GPA requirement. Do they look at first semester, end of second semester? Is the scholarship automatically lost, is there probation? Can you earn it back?
We know a lot of students who have lost the Bright Futures award, not only because the gpa requirement but because of dropping below 12 credits, taking courses that aren’t considered (a remedial math class, or a class that is a repeat of another?).
D1 has a school merit award that requires a 3.0. It is very difficult for her, and she could lose it at any time because she’s a B student but had a few C’s in a major she has since changed. D2 has no trouble meeting the requirements of her merit scholarships (one requires 2.8, one 3.0)
I know two students who were top students in high school who did lose their gpa dependent scholarships in college. It does happen.
It is not uncommon for students in tough majors (like engineering) to lose their scholarships. Does she have some programming background? Her major could include a lot of kids with programming backgrounds, and she may get some low grades.
You need to explain the risk to your child that if they do not maintain this GPA, then they will be forced to leave the school and transfer to a local state school that the family can afford. It really is that simple. Private colleges are incredibly expensive and very few people can afford the full pay rate of $70k per year. Your child needs to understand that the family could not pay $70K per year and that one would have to leave the school if they fail to maintain adequate grades. One also needs to understand that a 3.0gpa might be needed to land a decent job in today’s competitive market. Employers like high GPA’s just like colleges do during the admissions process.
^^ This is what I explained to my daughter. It would be fine if she wanted to quit lacrosse, but it is just not possible to stay at that school if she does because that money is half her tuition. It would also be fine if she didn’t get the required gpa, but it is just not possible to stay at that school without the merit aid because it is half her tuition.
My kids’ schools all required a 3.0 to keep their merit money. They all knew going in that if it wasn’t maintained, they would be transferring out. One school gave a semester of probation to earn it back so that would have been useful if needed. First 2 kept the 3.0 and have graduated. DD3 is maintaining hers also. It remains to be seen whether DS1 will maintain his or not, but the fact that he loves his school is a huge motivator. I’ve asked the kids over the years how most of their friends did with their scholarships, and it does seem like the kids who know they absolutely have to keep the grades up manage to do so.
For my kids we had them take out the $5500 loans and we said we would pay them off if they kept up a 3.0 average. We wanted them to have some skin in the game.
I know of a number of students at my daughter’s school who have failed to achieve the GPA (3.0) necessary to keep their merit scholarships. Fortunately, there is generous probation - they don’t even look at GPA until the end of freshman year and after that there is a probationary semester, and if you achieve a 3.0 each semester you keep the scholarship even if the cumulative GPA is still under 3.0. That allows a student to recover from a really low freshman GPA. Even with that, some do lose the scholarship. In some cases I know of it’s because of excess video gaming and/or partying, in some it’s because of illness, and in others it’s because of a difficult or unsuitable major.
I would suggest looking carefully at the requirements for retaining the scholarship - not only the GPA but also how often they look at the GPA and what probation, if any, is available. If your student chooses one of the merit aid schools, she’ll need to stay on top of her GPA. This might mean reconsidering her major if she struggles, taking well balanced loads (easy classes mixed with the difficult classes) and taking lighter loads if necessary and permitted by the scholarship.
My daughter had no trouble keeping her scholarship, and had a college GPA that was almost identical to her high school GPA. High school grades are not necessarily a predictor of college grades, though.
DS got 2 scholarships- one only requires a 3.0, but the second,from the Honors program, requires a 3.4 to keep it. The second one is the reason he is able to attend that school so we very clearly told him he needs to keep that 3.4 if he wants to stay there.