Very nervous about future scholarship requirements

<p>Wondering how closely, in general, the three campuses (UA, UAH, UAB) coordinate their scholarship offers?</p>

<p>UAH has gone from this (last year):
Award: Full Ride (Tuition+Fees+Books+Room+Board)
Residual COA: $3,359/year
Requirements: 3.0 GPA, 34 ACT or 1490 SAT (CR+M)
Award: Full Tuition+Fees
Residual COA: $12,864/year
Requirements: 3.0 GPA, 31 ACT or 1360 SAT (CR+M)</p>

<p>To this (this year):
Award: $15,750/year
Residual COA: $15,050/year (OOS), $3,500/year (In-State)
Requirements: 4.0 GPA, 34 ACT or 1360 SAT (CR+M)</p>

<p>I’ve been mostly concerned about my D getting the 32 ACT for UA Presidential, but now I am thinking her <4.0 may be more of an issue if they change the criteria. (She can likely get her 30 up to a 32, but there is no way to bring her 3.9 up to a 4.0.) :(</p>

<p>Ouch. Is the GPA a weighted GPA? Without the PE grades and such? </p>

<p>Are you concerned that the UA scholarships will change their GPA requirement in the future? I think we all are concerned about that. </p>

<p>I think that scholarship changes are announced in May or June for the following year. Is your D a junior? What does she want to study? There are additional scholarships for different majors.</p>

<p>She is a junior - looking at something like Public Relations (currently undecided but non-STEM, for sure.) She has 3.55 Unweighted and 3.9 Weighted. We’ve focused so much on bringing the ACT score up, it never really occurred to me that they might change the GPA requirement (which is currently 3.5 for Presidential.)</p>

<p>Wondering how closely, in general, the three campuses (UA, UAH, UAB) coordinate their scholarship offers?</p>

<p>They don’t.</p>

<p>the three schools are three completely separate universities. Each does its own thing. There isn’t coordination.</p>

<p>I’ve been mostly concerned about my D getting the 32 ACT for UA Presidential, but now I am thinking her <4.0 may be more of an issue if they change the criteria. (She can likely get her 30 up to a 32, but there is no way to bring her 3.9 up to a 4.0</p>

<p>If you’re worried that Bama is going to require a 4.0 for merit, it is HIGHLY unlikely Bama would do so.</p>

<p>Bama is far less concerned about GPAs between 4.0 and 3.5 than it is about test scores.</p>

<p>About 6 years ago, Bama required a 3.75 GPA for their scholarships. Bama realized that that was stupid, and dropped the req’t to a 3.5…since the GOAL is high test scores and expecting a 3.75 rather than a 3.5 or whatever, wasn’t getting them what they wanted.</p>

<p>If Bama were to raise the GPA (unlikley), it wouldn’t likely go to 4.0. </p>

<p>Keep in mind that Bama has no need to raise the GPA req’t. it only requires a 3.0 to keep the scholarship, so it likely thinks a student with a 3.5 high school GPA can manage to get a 3.0 college GPA.</p>

<p>Thanks, M2CK - that information is very reassuring. Now we just wait 'til May/June to know for certain.</p>

<p>Bama tries to look at the big picture and the big picture is the reported middle quartile SAT/ACT scores that it must report and those affect rankings. Bama’s goal is to get that 75th percentile number as high as possible…it finally got that number moved from an ACT 29 to an ACT 30…which is very good for a state school. </p>

<p>Right now, 25% of Bama’s frosh class (the upper quartile) has an ACT 31+ (27% have an ACT 30+…very significant.). Purdue’s upper quartile is also 31+</p>

<p>Since Bama’s incoming frosh class tends to have a high GPA, Bama can afford to “take a few minor hits” with GPAs between 3.5-4.0 with minimal or no affect …certainly not enough to affect ranking.</p>