<p>"Maybe I think too much"........cue Paul Simon song.</p>
<p>Bear with my planning accountant tendencies............ds2 has received merit and need-based aid offers at several schools. Basically the merit offers came in after the acceptances and the need-based aid (grants, Staffords, work-study, etc) letters arrived later and magically came in to a net right around our EFC. After hanging around on CC for several years, this was the result I had hoped for. </p>
<p>Now my question............ds2 laughs when I remind him about the grade point average necessary to maintain the merit scholarships. He has done well in high school and had good ACT scores but has never had to work very hard at our rural high school and I know from experience (mine and ds1) that he is in for a rude awakening. ;) If he happens to be unable to maintain the necessary GPA, has anyone had experience where need-based grants would increase at all? I know it is too much for to hope the financial aid fairy would wave her magic wand and make grants come out to match our EFC number again (or is it?). I know it probably depends on the school. He is very organized and I think he will be able to maintain his GPA, but my financial planner side is curious.............any war stories?</p>
<p>I think you should ask the school. Only they know their own policies</p>
<p>As a logical, numbers, budget analyst person myself, I don’t see why a school would give free money in a different form at the same $ level if a student couldn’t maintain the needed requisite for the scholarship</p>
<p>I would think only if it’s a school that meets 100% of need for all students. It would seem most will keep their dollars to rope in new students.</p>
<p>It would depend on so many things - the school, their aid policies, what sort of aid they offer etc.</p>
<p>My daughter is at a State school and has a good merit scholarship plus good need based aid as she has a low EFC. She has the maximum she can get in federal grants and state grants plus has WS and a very small loan. If she were to lose the merit aid it would be replaced with loans. Lots of loans :(. Happily she will be a junior next year and, barring something disastrous between now and the end of the semester, her scholarship is safe for another year.</p>
<p>I personally know 2 students who had the same scholarship and lost it their first year. Both these boys are very smart and I was shocked they lost it, as were their parents. Many of those who lose scholarships lose them the freshman year when they are adjusting to college. My suggestion is to be cautious about what he signs up for freshman year. A lot of these very smart kids that have not been challenged, and have swanned through HS, can’t envisage that they may have some difficulty with college classes. They sign up for really difficult classes and lots of hours. If he can make sure to take some easier classes his freshman year then it will give him a nice cushion in his GPA, and a bad grade or 2 sophomore year will not be so disastrous. My daughter had excellent grades her freshman year but has not as good grades first semester sophomore year (kind of made a mistake having 2 particular classes at the same time). If she had had those grades her freshman year without previous high grades to balance them out, her scholarship would be gone. As it is she is safe for another year (and I think her worst classes are out of the way).</p>
<p>So however confident your son is, counsel him to not overload on heavy classes but give himself time to adjust. Protecting that GPA is worth it when there are $000s at stake!</p>
<p>You are smart to ask. I do know many who lost merit scholarships. Many such scholarships have a gpa rules and if your kid does not get the gpa required under the conditions laid out, he will lose the scholarship. </p>
<p>As a rule, financial aid packages tend to get less generous each year as a heavier onus is put on the student to contribute towards his education by earning some money and taking out loans. Though it depends on the school and situation, most kids I know who lost their merit money only got loans to replace the amount for the need. If your student goes to a school that does not tend to meet EFC and gaps a lot, he may get gapped. </p>
<p>A few years ago, Case Western was getting some bad press about too many kids losing those nice merit awards. They got enough talk about this that they revamped their scholarship retainment requirements. I believe a good part of the problem is the number of engineering and other majors that have notoriously low gpas that CW has. </p>
<p>Most kids who get merit money are well capable of doing well. The problem is that college is more than just doing the academics and many kids fall prey to the many distractions that come with this stage of their lives. It is not at all unusual for kids who were top students all of their lives to slip up and get poor grades. Some can pull it up after such slippage and get a reality check. Others can’t. It is a tough situation when you have to have the grades to get the money to pay the college costs. It happens too often that kids do miss the mark and lose the scholarship.</p>