University of Alabama OOS Financial Aid

How strict is the 3.5 gpa requirement? My S has has a 3.3 with honors and Ap classes. There are other students in his class who don’t take honors or AP yet have a higher GPA. Does UA take that into account? He will be taking the ACT shortly and shouldn’t have a problem meeting those requirements.

What is you son’s weighted GPA? UA will accept weighted GPA and that might put him at or above 3.5.

That will definitely help. Do they look at how the HS does it or is there a template we should use? He has a 3.3 without any weighting so that would definitely put hm over the 3.5

As long as the weighted gpa is on his transcript and is at least a 3.5 they will use it for scholarships.

Alabama does not recalculate the GPA so as long as the weighted GPA is listed on the transcript as 3.5 or above, then he will be fine. If your school doesn’t weight, then he won’t qualify for the scholarships.

My S HS weights it for class rank but doesn’t show weighted on transcript

It’s highest as shown on the transcript. Your sons school can weight it and write it on the transcript and they will accept that. However, they have to do it for all students who apply to the University. Usually honors is an extra half point and AP is one point for weighting.

Mind you this was four years ago, so you’ll need to verify it remains the policy, but my son’s private HS did not calculate GPA or weight classes, so his college counselor did the calculation for my son and it was attached to his transcript, which was acceptable to UA.

I commented because my DS counselor had to do it this year for fall 2018. She sent me the emails, which is why I know about having to do it for all accepted students. So that is the current policy.

I asked Admissions and they did not say anything about all applicants from same school. They did say they would take a letter from Guidance.

That sounds like your high school’s current policy.

@mom2collegekids No, the request came from the college regional recruiter to the school college advisor.

Our school college advisor sent a request to the Alabama Regional Recruiter asking if they would accept a hand calculated GPA for scholarship purposes.

The Regional Recruiter sent an email that said, and I quote, “if you would like to recalculate a GPA to add weight to AP/IB or Honors courses, please write in the updated GPA on the transcript, initial it and send it in to the admissions office.”

Once the school sent the updated transcript, they received the following reply from the recruiter, and I quote:

“I have forwarded this to our office and we will accept, however, we will need you to add weight to all of the applicants from your school. Here are all of the applicants:”

Which were listed by name. It could be something that our regional recruiter requires, but it seemed that it was an Alabama Admissions policy.

I only know this because the HS included me in some of the correspondence.