<p>How easy is it to obtain UM scholarships once the criteria listed on the website is met? I am currently eligible for the 3/4 scholarship and just wondering how likely it will be that I will get it.</p>
<p>Also, I qualify for all categories of the full scholarship except top 1% of class rank (I'm 2% currently). Do they make any exceptions to this? Thanks a lot!</p>
<p>sorry to hijack this thread, maybe someone can answer both of us at the same time :p</p>
<p>i qualify for the top 10%, the highest level SAT score, but not at all for the gpa. </p>
<p>i go to a top 5 HS in my state (MO) so the % and gpa are hard to get. im definitely interested to see if they make exceptions, because if they dont, then im not eligible for any of them.</p>
<p>Yeah, the top % and gpa seem swayed towards people who go to easy schools. It does not make sense because there are different situations for every school.</p>
<p>Yeah, but it seems to me they make a few exceptions. I was reading earlier about a woman whose son fit like 2/3 categories and I believe they bumped him up for the next scholarship.</p>
<p>My son got a scholarship which we never expected him to get. So I am happy to report that they make exceptions, so I think you can be hopeful for some exceptions to be made. A suggestion I have is to write to the admissions counselor and explain about your HS and why your GPA may or may not reflect the stats they expect. There were many variables that affected my son's class rank and he wrote to UM and explained this, and I believe this helped them have a clearer picture of his educational background. And altho they only require a counselor's rec, I would recommend sending teacher recs as well and any supplementary materials like awards, honors, etc along with your application.
Good luck. We were pleasantly surprised, hopefully you will be too.</p>
<p>I qualify for 2/3 of the full tuiton scholarship, taking 9 APs total (most available). The only thing I'm missing is 1% class rank; I'm currently at 2% (11/521). If you don't mind me asking, what sort of circumstances did your son explain? I feel like I should comment about how my GPA and therefore class rank was "lowered" due to elective classes and Spanish (only worth 4.0 for A, weighted) while many of my classmates with lower ranks took the easy road and just took study halls to boost their GPAs. Do you think something like this is worth explaining?</p>
<p>ABSOLUTELY--that is exactly the kind of thing my son did. go for it.</p>
<p>Ok, thanks so much!</p>
<p>My son received a scholarship too although his HS did not rank and GPAs were unweighted. He went to a very competitive HS where no one had a 4.0. and a 3.5 was considered extremely good. We explained that during his interview and the admissions person noted that they do recognize that HSs differ. </p>
<p>There are not very many full scholarships, and the criteria are more guidelines than exact minimums. And they do not guarantee scholarships to kids who meet or exceed their guidelines/criteria. The year my son applied, a student from a state that sent few kids to Miami was offered a bigger scholarship than his grades, scores and rank would have suggested. Clearly they wanted more kids from that state....</p>
<p>Some of the individual schools offer additional scholarships. My S received additional $$ from the Bus school, which he applied for around March, after he was accepted EA. So check that out too.</p>
<p>Apply and see but trying to predict where you will land - 3/4, 1/2, etc. - is dicey. It depends on this year's applicant pool as well as a whole variety of other issues. Good luck!</p>
<p>wish<em>it</em>was_april, I took your advice and wrote a small paragraph explaining how my grades from 8th grade and also the fact that other students ahead of me chose not to take electives, which has kept me from having a top 1% class rank. I'll be sure to let you know how it all works out. Thanks again for your advice!</p>
<p>Check out the following URL for academic scholarships:</p>
<p>As an update, I received the full tuition Singer scholarship and I didn't even attend the scholarship weekend. I wrote a small paragraph recognizing that I didn't meet the 1% class rank criteria, but would still like to be considered. So it can definitely be done that you can get a scholarship you may not completely qualify for! Good luck to everyone, and thanks for the advice wish<em>it</em>was_april!</p>
<p>i doubt theyll look past a 60th percentile gpa even if my test scores qualify for university scholar...</p>
<p>just to let you guys kno i qualified for the 3/4th and got nothing. so i dunno how it works. im still shocked haha</p>
<p>Only qualified for 1/3 of the half-scholarship here - didn't qualify for unweighted GPA, weighted rank, DID qualify for SAT score - and I got it. I was pretty shocked, but hey, I'm not complaining.</p>