<p>Since I found the Common Data sets of colleges, it’s been interesting perusing the stats. How do I find out percentage if scholarship winners who are able to keep their scholarships, ie keep their GPAs at that level. Sure HS is easy but I have no idea, for example in engineering, are those GPAs sustainable (ie 3.0 and 3.5)?</p>
<p>Well, if you decide to go to college on scholarship, then your studies should certainly be your first priority. If you go to all your classes, study regularly, form study groups, read ahead, and go to professors’ office hours, you should be able to keep at least a 3.0 GPA
if you are able to get a Presidential Scholarship and get into the Honors College then you should not have a problem. However, you must remember that college is different than HS so you need to pay attention, not get back logged and be willing to ask for help as soon as you notice a problem.</p>
<p>Now back to your original topic, I have not personally known anyone who lost their scholarship. There have been a few students that I know of who wound up on probation for a semester but were able to bring their GPAs back up.</p>
<p>Your attitude and study habits are the most important aspects of success.</p>
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Since I found the Common Data sets of colleges, it’s been interesting perusing the stats. How do I find out percentage if scholarship winners who are able to keep their scholarships, ie keep their GPAs at that level. Sure HS is easy but I have no idea, for example in engineering, are those GPAs sustainable (ie 3.0 and 3.5)?</p>
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<p>I don’t think that data is published anywhere, but having followed this forum for several years now, I don’t think we’ve heard of any here on CC. I’m sure that there have been some, but not enough that we’ve seen an issue here on CC. It helps that Bama doesn’t look at GPA until after spring grades and if there still is a problem, the student has the following fall to improve.</p>
<p>??
Why do you ask if those “GPAs sustainable” (ie 3.0 and 3.5)??? </p>
<p>Where are you getting the 3.5 from??? </p>
<p>Bama only requires a 3.0 …not a 3.5. Don’t know where you got that from.</p>
<p>Anyway, to answer your question I suspect that the % that keep their merit is very high. Bama doesn’t want kids to lose their awards.</p>
<p>It is important to level-load your semesters. </p>
<p>If you know that you’re not a natural early-riser, then avoid 8am classes (even if you took them in high school)</p>
<p>don’t overwhelm yourself fall frosh semester. If you have AP credits, take advantage of them and take a lighter load fall frosh semester.</p>
<p>Great answers thank you! Oh maybe I was confused with Presidential Scholar. In addition to other requirements you needed 3.5 to get it. So to keep it you only need 3.0?</p>
<p>Some background why I ask. A good friend has a daughter who was valedictorian if her HS and totally bombed at college. Because the college didn’t inform her of her daughter going downhill, she had no idea til it was too late. Once she finally did and got her daughter help beyond the study groups it was too late and her daughter dropped out. </p>
<p>My S has awesome study habits and does great under pressure but speaking for myself, me personally I went crazy my first semester of college and almost lost my small modest scholarship and by the grace of God and sweat and tears I squeaked by…so really, just curious</p>
<p>For UA, there is a FAQ page which states the following: “Students must maintain a University of Alabama GPA of “3.0” to maintain scholarships awarded by Undergraduate Admissions.”</p>
<p>See the link below:</p>
<p><a href=“Frequently Asked Questions – Scholarships | The University of Alabama”>http://scholarships.ua.edu/faq/</a></p>
<p>My son is also considering Kansas and they require 30 hours a year and a 3.4 GPA to maintain scholarship eligibility. (“Renewal criteria is 30 KU hours per year with a 3.4 KU GPA”) See <a href=“http://admissions.ku.edu/cs#NonresidentFreshmen”>http://admissions.ku.edu/cs#NonresidentFreshmen</a></p>
<p>In comparison to KU, Alabama’s standards for scholarship renewal seem very generous.</p>
<p>Totally understand your curiosity and concern, all parents have concerns for their students especially when they are OOS and therefore “flying solo”.</p>
<p>In order to get the Presidential scholarship, the student must meet the current criteria for that scholarship and a 3.5 GPA is one requirement. That GPA is from the student’s freshman thru junior high school years inclusive.</p>
<p>To keep the Presidential Scholarship, the student must maintain a 3.0 GPA at the univerity.</p>
<p>Again, there are many, many ways in which a struggling or unsure student can help themselves out academically. There are tutoring sessions ( both group and individual), there are study groups, professor’s office hours, advisors to help a student, student mentoring etc. However, it isn’t the university’s responsibility to notify a parent if a student is failing a course. Actually, there are privacy laws that prevent that. It is the student’s responsibility to keep the parents informed and the parents responsibility to keep the channels of communication open. How you and your student arrange this is your own business. Some students give their parents their account passwords so they can see grades, others just give a monthly update. Other parents take a " it’s your responsibility" attitude, so if you fail, you deal with the consequences approach. It really is a family conversation worth having before the student leaves for college.</p>
<p>As you mentioned, some kids do indeed go a little crazy their first semester which is why M2CK mentions taking a light load the first semester and not signing up for very early morning classes. </p>
<p>Rdtsmith: Hate to sound like a downer here, but your friend’s D who bombed in college? It is not the school’s responsibility to inform her if she is in danger of losing her scholarship. I went over that with both of my sons. One is a Bama grad who was a National Merit Scholar (and valedictorian of his class). The other is at UAH on a full tuition scholarship. It is (or was) their responsibility to keep tabs on their grades. Needless to say, they spent many nights working on homework, papers and projects. </p>
<p>One of the first things I always tell my kids, as well as my students, is to go to office hours as soon as he hit a snag in a class. That way, the professor can see that you are making an effort to pull the grade up. </p>
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<p>My S has awesome study habits and does great under pressure but speaking for myself, me personally I went crazy my first semester of college and almost lost my small modest scholarship and by the grace of God and sweat and tears I squeaked by…so really, just curious</p>
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<p>Because of FERPA privacy laws, a school CAN NOT inform the parents that their child isn’t doing well in classes. College kids are over 18 and their grades are not revealed to parents w/o the child allowing them to be revealed. </p>
<p>Some parents require their kids to let them see grades because the parents are paying for other things. That is between parent and (adult) child…the school isn’t part of that decision.</p>
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<p>Personally, I wouldn’t let my kid choose that school, unless I was willing to pay if the scholarship is lost. If the child is a tough academic major, particularly engineering, the GPA can easily fall. I wouldn’t want my kid pressured, nor would I want the risk of losing the merit due to a high threshold. </p>
<p>I also don’t like KU’s 30 credit req’t. That means if a student is doing poorly in a class, he can’t drop it if it will mean going below 15 credits…or having to take MORE credits in the spring. One of my kids only took 14 credits his fall frosh semester. He had 45 AP credits so it wasn’t hurting him to start light. We were concerned that he might have some adjustment issues, so starting light was a good option…also, no 8am classes for him…ever! My other son didn’t take a huge load his fall frosh semester, but the crazy kid did take OChem and Cell Bio his fall frosh semester (very risky, and I would never advise THAT!) </p>
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<p>There are a LOT of distractions fall semester. A school may have popular sports going on, roomies may be inviting your child to fun things, roomies may be noisy at night making it hard to get to sleep… Lots of very good students stumble their fall frosh semester. That’s why it’s important to be realistic and have a sensible schedule for that first semester. I can remember stupidly signing up for a 8 am MWF class. I quickly dropped that. My sorority had Sunday night meetings and then we’d meet with a certain fraternity afterwards for pizza, so always a late night! lol</p>
<p>One of my big attractions to Bama for Engineering was the scholarship requirements.</p>
<p>The 3.0 overall GPA and the fact UA does not review it until end of 2nd semester took much pressure of my son. </p>
<p>I was really disappointed to see that KU requires 30 hours and a 3.4 GPA. I had a relatively easy major at the University of Texas (political science). However, I knew that I would need to got to graduate or professional school and it was really important for me to have really good grades. I took 12 hours each semester for the first couple of years and simply took 6 hours of community college classes when I went home in the summer. As a result, I had a 4.0 collegiate GPA for my first two years which subsequently helped get me into a top 20 law school. By my senior year as an undergard, in between working part-time 20 hours a week I took 15 hours a semester so as to ensure that I could enter law school timely and, even with a courseload consisting of mostly liberal arts classes, I really could see the difference in having that extra 3 hour credit. </p>
<p>My son is going to major in history and he also will need to go grad/professional school. Based on my own experiences, my preference would be for him to start out slowly just as I did to ensure that he can maintain a high GPA. KU is one of the out-of-state schools that we are considering because of their $10,500 annually renewable merit scholarship. However, the 30 hour requirement and the 3.4 GPA really does concern me. I was reading a KU student’s post on College Prowler under the scholarship tab where a KU undergrad stated that she felt like she had been unfairly punished because KU did not renew her scholarship because her GPA slid under 3.4. The undergrad stated that it slid under 3.4 because she had taken a number of honors classes. That’s the kind of horror story that scares me about KU, which other than the GPA and minimum hours requirement, appears to be great match for what my son is seeking in an out-of-state alternative if he is denied admission to the University of Texas.</p>
<p>momreads: good advice. thanks! will share with son for next year. </p>
<p>It’d be hard to quantify the number of students who kept their merit scholarship all eight semesters as some transfer to another school, extend their undergraduate educations additional semesters, graduate early, etc. </p>
<p>I will say that an honors student who takes time to study and is willing to admit that a certain class might make things too difficult that semester is highly likely to get above a 3.0. Even if they have a semester or two where their GPA is slightly less than 3.0, UA policies make it such that they would retain their scholarship.</p>
<p>Common advice given to students pledging Greek Letter Organizations is to take 12-14 credits and to not have a part time job that semester unless they fully understand the importance of time management. For other students, 10-15 hours of work per week can help one learn how to better manage time and joining student organizations is a great way to meet potential friends Having lots of friends and knowing how to effectively manage ones time can lead to a very high GPA as well as a healthy and active social life. After all, college is about more than just taking classes. A significant portion of the college experience involves interacting with other people outside of class and gaining the knowledge and independence to become a successful adult.</p>
<p>Listen I agree it’s not the schools responsibility but I threw that out there because I bet many parents don’t understand the privacy laws and need to have this conversation with the student. I get it. </p>
<p>I had another friend whose daughter was gravely ill at a NY university and no one told her, her daughter was very I’ll in the hospital and thankfully she just flew there after finding out in a roundabout way and only then was able to find out what was going on. Hospital had no issue billing her for services rendered. If any newbie parents are reading this thread this is the other conversation you need to have with your student. Some universities I know have forms to sign and each school handles privacy issues differently. </p>
<p>Thanks for all the insight!</p>
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<p>That really is a disaster because most parents probably won’t allow their child to continue w/o the merit money.</p>
<p>It is sadly common for students (at other universities) to drop out because they no longer have their scholarships. I hear these stories from former students after each semester break they come home (and some are home now permanently, obviously). Breaks my heart that students and their families have not researched the realities of keeping a scholarship. Yes, UA is very generous! Roll Tide.</p>
My UA DD allows me the Parent Proxy - so a parent can log in and view pretty much on the student account, transcript, class schedule etc. If she has me try to clear something up on campus or find out information, I let them know I have Parent Proxy permission, that way they can check and also feel free to discuss what that allows. Sometimes I can ask questions and they can give me generic answers w/o violating any privacy. They do want the student to take responsibility, but on a couple of things it has taken some tracking down, and DD is busy with school work and a crammed schedule.
My UAB DD has decided after two years that she can handle things on her own.
I really like to keep records of the payment records, semester by semester. I keep records as best I can. UAB’s system keeps info history detail with payment accounting, where UA’s has current detail and only a previous term balance. So if you want to keep detail records, print each term off UA’s account summary by term.
And it has been helpful when I have had copies of things (like a UAB scholarship, that she had to photocopy and provide so it could be applied to her account).
So UA and UAB have been my areas of expertise, and both DDs have kept their scholarships. Both are required to maintain the 3.0.
@aeromom is right. some schools have such TOUGH req’ts to keep the merit.
Some families don’t realize how hard those req’ts can be because their child may have easily had a high GPA in high school…but college is different/harder…and a mistake or two can really bring down a GPA.