hmmmm,
I don’t know, I gave it a quick review and still see Joe as correct. Perhaps @joedoe can chime in and clarify.
Well I actually read it in its entirety and again I can assure you he is not correct. He’s giving opinion based on a small sample of friends which I have evidence is not correct. if you’re wealthy or not it doesn’t affect your package. What you bring to the table as a student is the determining factor.
@Slydog @GoRedhead Sorry if I wasn’t clear, but financial need is taken into consideration. The Rensselaer Grant, for example, does consider other aspects of a student’s application, but the award is predominantly used to satisfy financial need. The vast majority of students that get in will get this grant. It’s literally a tuition discount. If it was only merit based, then why would they increase or lower the grant if your parent’s income changes considerably? The access grant is also structured the same way.
The Leadership Award, Recognition Award, and Medal Award are scholarships and are entirely merit based. Need can be considered, however, in making a decision for the leadership or recognition awards.
Source: https://admissions.rpi.edu/aid/forms/2016-17/edguide1617v3.pdf
Again to say the vast majority will get this grant is a gross overstatement You are generalizing based on a small personal experience. Our experience is completely different and I will leave this discussion on that note.
I’d like to correct you and say that the disagreement was never
The disagreement was only about the fact that RPI does award people on a need based gift basis separate from the merit award and that they can add both awards up as long as it doesn’t go over the price of tuition.
Joe confirmed that this is true.
Now, on your new point I’d like to offer a correction to what you said. You said,
The RPI common data set located herehttp://provost.rpi.edu/sites/default/files/CDS_2016-17%20Final%20Version.pdf#overlay-context=institutional-research/common-datasets
says that 6197 students enrolled in 2016 for undergraduate
and that 3760 of them received gift awards (aside from those that also received merit awards).
That’s over the majority. Joe was correct here also, RPI is very generous!!
Wow reading comprehension is not a strong point for you I gather. Try reading everything again for content and then maybe we’ll talk or we probably won’t because you’ll finally realize you’ve misspoke all along.
For the RPI Medal, do you have any idea how many schools in the nation actually participate with RPI to give that medal?
@TheHills79 - I can’t tell from the medal search, but realize students are only competing with other juniors from their own school for the medal. Those students can be expected to do well if they choose to apply to RPI. (I would expect they to be accepted, but I have no facts to back this up.)
There are certainly medal awarded students who choose a different school. Those who have maintained their grades, etc., are probably considered strong applicants to RPI and if accepted, will get the scholarship that goes with the medal.
Does your school currently participate? Check the website.
My son received the RPI medal, and also received other merit awards from RPI.
We make more than was discussed above, and my son still received a fair amount of MERIT money.
Thanks @TQfromtheU
I just wanted to know what the competition was for medal applicants.
And yah, my school participates.
My son just won the medal. He is considering a lot of schools, but RPI is local and sort of awesome. You can’t combine other institutional merit aid with the medal award, but you can get outside scholarships and regular needs based aid, it’s my understanding that you can used those outside scholarships to cover room and board. The thing that is standing out for my son there, they have a curling club, and he is interested in the game design program. (Also in Law… weird combo, I know)
Is this correct? I am getting worried because no one from the college has contacted us…
@ienjoysoup Hey, rising sophomore here! We actually hosted the national curling championship this year - we ended up placing #1 in the country (https://poly.rpi.edu/2017/02/15/club_curling_team_sets_sights_on_nationals/).
Aside from that, you cannot get any merit scholarships from the school other than the Rensselaer Medal. However, you do qualify for grant aid, which can be need or merit based from RPI. The most common form of this is the Rensselaer Grant, which around 70% of students get and is usually between 8k and 12k a year - it remains the same over the four years and is automatically renewable. You also can stack on your government aid (TAP, Pell, SEOG, Enhanced Tuition Award) on top of that. External scholarships can then be used after those sources of funding to cover the remaining cost as well as federal loans.
So a possible stack up could be as so each year:
Federal loans: 12k
Rensselaer Medal: 25k
Rensselaer Grant: 12k (I’ve seen these go up to over 20k depending on need)
(plus additional federal/state aid, external scholarships, and maybe an access award - which is for students with lingering need that the school really wants and is usually a few thousand)
Also, if your son is interested in Law- please check out the Accelerated Public Policy Law Program at RPI. You major in STSS (in the school of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences like GSAS) and after three years if you maintain at least a 3.2 you are guaranteed acceptance to law school at Albany Law School. There’s also a contract agreement with Columbia Law School, but that requires an exceptional GPA. However, if he were to pursue that program he wouldn’t be able to major in GSAS, but he could use free electives to take courses in GSAS for fun. STSS, or Science and Technology Studies, is pretty much public policy and how it relates to technology, design, humanities, etc. There’s also a required course in the major that guarantees you an internship, which will typically be with a congressman, law firm, or lobbying organization/PAC in Albany. Pretty interesting major - message me if you have any questions about the program or the Rensselaer Medal!
You can get other merit scholarships from the school but you can’t combine them they automatically give you the higher scholarship so if you won the medal at 25k but they really like you and you get 45k in the leadership award (I’ve seen these go as high as full tuition) they default to the leadership award. You can however stack on a scholarship for a free laptop or rooming with any scholarship(medal or leadership)
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! i will be messaging you!
This is a good conversation. RPI is on our list and we are touring at the end of the month. My DS school doesn’t participate in the Medal. I did give them the information for future generations. Hard to say if a performing arts school would make sense for RPI being they don’t even offer Physics.
@ChattaChia Just a heads up, I’ve seen many kids on these forums complete some of STEM college enrollement courses by doing them online or at a local Community College. As long as it is acredited it should transfer. One thing I did not know and found out late was that each school has required completed courses that must be done before applying or you get an instant rejection.
Look up the “Common Data Set” for each of the schools that your son is interested in attending and check SECTION C5 for that schools requirements. You’ll notice Physics is not on there for RPI but you might want to check the [other courses](http://provost.rpi.edu/sites/default/files/CDS_2016-17%20Final%20Version.pdf#overlay-context=institutional-research/common-datasets) that are indeed required.
Ok so I read that it’s required to take 4 years of math. Technically, I’ve only taken 3 in high school, but they’re all higher-level classes (2 were AP), so is that OK?
@GoRedhead yes, exactly! We realized that some of the schools he wants to apply to require physics, so he just finished taking it at community college this week! He took it on campus since it was lab based. But RPI does require it to be a medal school, see below.
In addition, to be eligible to become a Medal School, a high school must offer all of the courses Rensselaer requires for admission, which include biology, chemistry, lab-based physics, and pre-calculus (please note that most of our more competitive applicants will have completed calculus or above in the senior year). This ensures that students selected for the medal will be eligible for admission and prepared to thrive at Rensselaer. For more information on our admission requirements, please visit our admissions website.
So he will have 5 credits of science…Physical Science, Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Environmental Science. He will have to take a calculus based physics in college, so it was more about having the credit on his transcript.
@TheHills79 I don’t know, but I would think that’s a hard rule. My DS will actually have 5 math credits, algebra I and II, Geometry, pre-calculus and calculus. He took Algebra I for high school credit in 8th grade.
Yeah, I finished some of those classes in middle school, so I was wondering if they would count toward my credits.
@TheHills79 You need to have credit from your high school for the subject, which includes AP. Middle school can count if it’s on your high school transcript and being applied towards your high school diploma. For example, I took Algebra I and Biology in middle school. When I got to high school the grades/credits transferred and then I took more advanced courses which all counted.