During a meeting at TSW, my financial advisor told me about about Tulane’s STAR (Stellar Tulane Academic Recognition) Award and how any student with a GPA above a 3.6 can apply. This award goes out to 2-25 students each year and is an award of $2,500-$5000 each year for the rest of the students undergraduate education. Obviously this would be a very beneficial award, and I’m suprised that I had never read about it on here. Just wondering if anyone knows more about the STAR award or if anyone has recieved it themselves.
@Fergus3
This is completely news to me. I’ll see what I can find out and let everyone know. I’m a bit stunned this is news to me, since I would have thought my D would have easily qualified. But maybe it is new. Stay tuned…
Maybe it’s something new to do with Top Scholars? We never got any notification about it?
Found this https://tulane.edu/financialaid/grants/staraward.cfm
Thanks, @dolphnlvr6.
This definitely looks new to me, but I am checking with one of my contacts to see if they know anything.
This is from Tulane’s Financial Aid / Grants site: https://tulane.edu/financialaid/grants/staraward.cfm
Here are the details concerning the STAR Award:
1.Only currently enrolled full-time Tulane freshmen, sophomores, and/or juniors who have completed at least one semester of full-time enrollment at Tulane and currently have a cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 3.60 or higher are eligible for consideration.
2.The application process consists of writing a brief essay (maximum of 500 words) on the following topic: Describe what you have valued most of your Tulane education to date and how you plan on contributing to the Tulane community during the remainder of your undergraduate career?
3.The deadline for submission of applications/essays for the STAR Award is April 1st each year.
4.Information regarding the STAR Award will be posted on the Office of Financial Aid’s website.
5.All applications must be submitted to the Office of Financial Aid prior to the deadline: late or incomplete applications cannot be considered.
6.Preference will be given to those eligible applicants who have not been awarded any Tulane merit scholarship, although all who are eligible may apply.
7.STAR Award applicants are strongly encouraged to have filed for Tulane financial aid consideration during the current academic year through completion of the College Scholarship Services (CSS) Profile AND the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). While STAR Awards are not based on demonstrating a financial need, preference is given to those applicants who applied for financial assistance.
8.The STAR Award Selection Committee, composed of individuals appointed by the Dean of Newcomb-Tulane College, will review all applicants and announce all decisions by April 15th each spring. All committee decisions are final.
9.STAR Award retention/renewal requirements are listed in the section below and include but are not limited to the requirement that recipients maintain full-time enrollment and a cumulative GPA of 2.70. Loss of STAR Awards due to failure to meet retention/renewal requirements will not be subject to appeal.
10.STAR Awards will be reduced for the corresponding period of time if a.) total financial aid exceeds the Tulane financial aid cost of attendance, unless other aid is reduced so that total aid does not exceed the Tulane financial aid cost of attendance, and/or if b.) tuition charged is anything other than the standard full-time undergraduate rate for a fall or spring semester of full-time enrollment.
11.STAR Awards cease at the conclusion of a student’s undergraduate career.
12.STAR Awards are not awarded for summer periods of enrollment.
My contact replied that this is indeed new. In their opinion, it is Tulane’s way of rewarding students that performed above the level of their initial merit scholarship. I would say that is a pretty great move on Tulane’s part! I am not sure how this is being communicated to the students.
It says that preference will be given to students who did not receive any merit awards.
Well then, their initial merit award was zero! LOL, just being funny. Yes, that is what they say. I was just passing along his take on it. I suppose it is worth applying no matter what if there is a gap in the FA vs. the full cost of attending, and if the student has performed particularly well.
It’s a pretty nice incentive and not a difficult application!
DD was told about this award at Honors Weekend. 
She rec’d good merit, but $5,000 would help pay for the other 1/2 of her tuition! 
That was the reason I wonder about the line regarding preference to those that haven’t received merit aid. Why announce it at TSW where everyone has $30,000+ in merit aid? Odd, but we will see how it plays out.
Wish we had known about it before today. Deadline is April 1st.
Yes, they should have sent out notices to the students at least. On the other hand, maybe they did. They are all so good at reading their emails and communicating things like this…
Since this is not for incoming freshmen, they likely mentioned it at TSW as a heads up for next year and to let you know more money is out there if you get excellent grades freshman year. Seems like a good retention tool for students that didn’t have the grades or scores coming in as applicants to get a merit award, but really excelled once at Tulane. One assumes Tulane admissions will be mentioning this award at the other admitted student events.
So I guess DHS and Paul Tulane scholars wouldn’t be in the running for the STAR Award, but apply anyway.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see next year if any students who got strong merit aid also rec’d the STAR scholarship after their freshman year.
Yes I think we can only wait and see how they decide to actually implement the awards. Hard to not like either direction they go, since it is all a plus compared to not having it at all. I am sure retention is part of the motivation, although with a maximum of 25 awards that impact will be relatively small. I think overall Tulane’s philosophy is to recognize achievement, and this is yet another of several ways they go about doing that. BTW, I agree that DHS and PTA winners are quite unlikely to qualify for these awards. Not only are they already at full tuition (at least), but it would be hard to argue they exceeded expectations since the bar for them is pretty high to start with.
The more I think about that line in the terms above of students without merit to start with getting preference, the more I think my joke wasn’t really a joke. Clearly if some of those students that didn’t have the high school stats to even get a small award are performing at Tulane at a level similar to the best students, recognizing that jump in achievement level makes a lot of sense. But I hope they will still seriously consider smaller merit winners that also are doing great and contributing strongly in other ways as well, be it research, arts (assuming they are not fine arts focused to begin with), service, or some combination of these things.
I say it that way because I know there is another line of thought that all the money should be funneled into need-based only, and that merit awards should be eliminated or severely reduced. I am not in that camp, although I understand the argument. Certainly there are some schools that do it that way either exclusively or are heavily tipped that way. Tulane is more of an even balance.