<p>Hello,
Does anyone have experience with stacking scholarships at A&M...or any idea of what might be finally offered to a NMF? Also...and maybe most importantly, how realistic is it to keep a 3.5 GPA in engineering to keep the scholarship/s? If one is lost...are they all? If all were lost tuition would convert back to OOS tuition for us, which would not be possible to maintain. Thanks!</p>
<p><a href=“https://scholarships.tamu.edu/national_scholars/national_merit.aspx[/url]”>https://scholarships.tamu.edu/national_scholars/national_merit.aspx</a></p>
<p>What other scholarships are you trying to stack? A&M covers your tuition and whatever else they are offering seems to be not guaranteed.</p>
<p>Reading some other posts, it sounded like scholarships were added to the original NM one…but they didn’t specify…which is why we’re hoping for input. : )</p>
<p>I’ve got stacked scholarships. I got National Achievement Finalist and NM Commended.</p>
<p>The National Merit Recognition Award: worth $26,000 over 4 years, plus the
President’s Endowed Scholarship: mine is for $12,000 over 4 years. I think most NMs get it.
Endowed Opportunity Award: worth $5000 over 4 years. I think this is also merit based.</p>
<p>Plus my need based Pell Grant, Aggie Grant, and TX Public Education Grant</p>
<p>This covers all my expenses</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>Congrats…with your NA award and about $10k in need based Pell and Texas resident grants, you are all set. :)</p>
<p>how realistic is it to keep a 3.5 GPA in engineering to keep the scholarship/s? If one</p>
<p>Yikes~ A 3.5 GPA is needed to keep the scholly? That would be a big risk for engineering. It’s not unusual for eng’g students to pull a couple of C’s and to have more B’s then they’re used to getting. </p>
<p>Can you afford the school if the scholarship is lost? If not, I’d choose a school with a much lesser GPA req’t.</p>
<p>I think, the average GPA at the college of engineering is about a 3.0. Top 10% cut is about 3.5. </p>
<p>S is a freshman in engineering. So, far he has not found it terribly hard to maintain a 4.0. He was a decent student in high school, but not spectacular. Major academic achievements were NMSF and National AP Scholar. Calc BC 5, AB 5. My feeling is that it is not too hard to stay above a 3.5 for a dedicated NMF, especially one with 5s on Calc BC / AB and over 700 /750 in SAT Math / SAT Math II. Hope it helps.</p>
<p>As far as what is offered, every student seems to get a different package. I think the website describes the minimum. However, A&M in our experience seems to pile on more money after you show serious interest in attending. My son, for example got a bump of 10 thousand dollars after he registered for classes.</p>
<p>You don’t lose all your scholarships at 3.5. Some have lower GPA thresholds.</p>
<p>My D got many awards stacked on top of NM money. However, I know another NM kid who did not have this experience. I don’t know exactly how it is decided who gets what. I was worried about the 3.5 GPA. She is a science major, not engineering. We deliberately padded her schedule with a few easier classes to help buffer the more intense science requirements. I guess this would be harder in engineering since you already need so many required hours. She has a 4.0 now as a Sophomore, but she is a very serious studier. It would be risky if the student was not organized or got distracted with college freedoms(easy to do!) I keep hearing her say that her classes are not that “hard” but they are time consuming.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your replies,
DS made the hard decision to not pursue TAMU any further. For our family it’s a combination of things…mainly the 3.5 attached to both scholarships, keeping 30 hours for sure each year, and our need for the continuation of OOS tuition waiver to attend no matter what. It was a huge sign of maturity to be able to think through ramifications long term…and to allow for the unknown/possible struggles even though to this point he hasn’t had many.</p>
<p>About the 30 hours, </p>
<p>They just have to have completed 30 hours by the end of freshman year, 60 by sophomore, etc.</p>
<p>Therefore, if you go in with hours from dual credit/AP those count towards it</p>
<p>panther, I believe the AP/ dual credit count towards the 30 credits in freshman year. However, after that, i.e. in sophomore year and beyond one has to earn a minimum of 30 credits separately each year to meet the scholarship requirement.</p>
<p>No, it stays cumulative the whole time. Trust me, I checked many times because it was such great news to me. You just have to have 60 cumulative completed hours by the end of sophomore year and 90 by the end of junior.</p>
<p>That is positive…I’ll try and double check…now have to ponder whether to tell DS…hmmm…rats.</p>
<p>I mean, it could still be too much to handle a 3.5 in engineering to keep the scholarship. </p>
<p>Just didn’t want you to make a decision based on misinformation :)</p>
<p>Even I learned something new panther0, so thanks.</p>