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How high performing does a HS student have to be academically to get a full ride scholarship to college? Top 1% of their class, top 10%? Is it even possible for anyone besides a handful of very top performing students? I understand that each school determines their own requirements for whatever merit scholarships they may choose to offer but I was wondering if there might be a general rule.
I asked a friend about it since she has a high performing daughter that went off to college last year. Her daughter had a GPA above 3.8 unweighted (don't know the exact number), scored 32 on her ACT, was in the NHS, was in band, soccer, track, student counsel, did a lot of community service work, was active in her church youth group, took advanced classes in HS and only received $7,500.00 merit scholarships through her university (she had an additional $7,000.00, one year only, local scholarships) and she didn't even end up going to a high nationally ranking school even though she was accepted into U of M. Her school is at the top of the ranking list within our state though. I thought she would have qualified for a higher scholarship from her school due to her achievements and the fact that they aren't ranked high nationally. The amount they offered her still left her with $6,000.00 out of pocket for her first year and $13,000.00 per year after that unless the school offered more once she used up her one time $7,000.00 scholarship money (not sure how that works).
I was wondering if that is normal for most schools? Maybe she qualified for a lower amount based on her parent's income? I don't know how income factors into a scholarship offer. I ask because my daughter is a junior and I was trying to get a feel for what we could generally expect for merit scholarship offers when she applies to colleges since she will have to take out loans to cover any amount not covered by scholarships. I would appreciate information from anyone who has first hand knowledge of how the process works. Thanks
Last edited by toobusytoday; 02-03-2015 at 07:48 PM..
Reason: Added paragraphs for easier reading
How high performing does a HS student have to be academically to get a full ride scholarship to college? Top 1% of their class, top 10%? Is it even possible for anyone besides a handful of very top performing students? I understand that each school determines their own requirements for whatever merit scholarships they may choose to offer but I was wondering if there might be a general rule. I asked a friend about it since she has a high performing daughter that went off to college last year. Her daughter had a GPA above 3.8 unweighted (don't know the exact number), scored 32 on her ACT, was in the NHS, was in band, soccer, track, student counsel, did a lot of community service work, was active in her church youth group, took advanced classes in HS and only received $7,500.00 merit scholarships through her university (she had an additional $7,000.00, one year only, local scholarships) and she didn't even end up going to a high nationally ranking school even though she was accepted into U of M. Her school is at the top of the ranking list within our state though. I thought she would have qualified for a higher scholarship from her school due to her achievements and the fact that they aren't ranked high nationally. The amount they offered her still left her with $6,000.00 out of pocket for her first year and $13,000.00 per year after that unless the school offered more once she used up her one time $7,000.00 scholarship money (not sure how that works). I was wondering if that is normal for most schools? Maybe she qualified for a lower amount based on her parent's income? I don't know how income factors into a scholarship offer. I ask because my daughter is a junior and I was trying to get a feel for what we could generally expect for merit scholarship offers when she applies to colleges since she will have to take out loans to cover any amount not covered by scholarships. I would appreciate information from anyone who has first hand knowledge of how the process works. Thanks
Things might have changed, but back when my siblings and I were in high school(late 90s to early 00's) the full ride merit scholarships were mostly based on test scores rather than GPA, as high school grades vary widely by location, and a 4.0 at one school might be easier than a 3.0 at another. One of my sisters and I had several full ride offers, as we had SAT scores over 1500, and my brother had a higher GPA but lower test scores (around 1450) and he didn't get any full ride offers. It may seem cynical, but involvement in sports only seems to matter, for actual monetary aid, when the student is good enough to help the varsity team. Other extracurricular activities can be important for admission, but unless they are competitive at an elite level they don't translate to merit aid very easily. In other words, a top place in a statewide individual math or writing competition would count for a lot, but mere participation in a group or inclusion in something like NHS, which accepts strong but but not necessarily elite students, doesn't mean much when it comes to things like an institution's "Presidential Scholarship" or the like. My sense, for pure merit based aid, is that good colleges offer the full ride scholarships for the top fraction of the top 1%, with the size of the fraction being determined by the school's reputation. Many high schools have zero students that would meet this criteria.
How high performing does a HS student have to be academically to get a full ride scholarship to college? Top 1% of their class, top 10%? Is it even possible for anyone besides a handful of very top performing students? s
I couldn't read your wall of text. But it depends on the school you're applying to. Stanford University (if you qualify to get in at all) provides full 4-yr scholarships to anyone who demonstrates financial need. U Penn provides full non-loan financial aid packages (including work-study) based on financial need alone. There's a college that allows you to work on campus in exchange for tuition. Do your internet research and see what you come up with. Have you even tried to look this stuff up? That would be a better use of your time than posting here.
There are other sources of scholarships, as well. For example, based on ethnic heritage. There's a Swedish heritage organization that offers college scholarships. There are all kinds of oddball sources of scholarship money out there. There could be DAR scholarships available for women, if they qualify ("Daughters of the American Revolution"--it's a nationwide organization).
The amount of money your kid receives, in my experience is related to the prestige of the school.
For example, I had a 3.9 GPA, and was 46 in a class of 650- at my current school I did not get a full ride but I am just 3000 short of the absolute most merit that the school gives, its all relative.
School who have lower standards (which does not mean they are BAD) will give more money for students along the line of your friends daughter.
Things might have changed, but back when my siblings and I were in high school(late 90s to early 00's) the full ride merit scholarships were mostly based on test scores rather than GPA, as high school grades vary widely by location, and a 4.0 at one school might be easier than a 3.0 at another. One of my sisters and I had several full ride offers, as we had SAT scores over 1500, and my brother had a higher GPA but lower test scores (around 1450) and he didn't get any full ride offers. It may seem cynical, but involvement in sports only seems to matter, for actual monetary aid, when the student is good enough to help the varsity team. Other extracurricular activities can be important for admission, but unless they are competitive at an elite level they don't translate to merit aid very easily. In other words, a top place in a statewide individual math or writing competition would count for a lot, but mere participation in a group or inclusion in something like NHS, which accepts strong but but not necessarily elite students, doesn't mean much when it comes to things like an institution's "Presidential Scholarship" or the like. My sense, for pure merit based aid, is that good colleges offer the full ride scholarships for the top fraction of the top 1%, with the size of the fraction being determined by the school's reputation. Many high schools have zero students that would meet this criteria.
Thank you for sharing Chemisty_Guy. It makes sense that test scores would be a very important factor in determining financial aid. Hearing other people's experiences is helpful.
I couldn't read your wall of text. But it depends on the school you're applying to. Stanford University (if you qualify to get in at all) provides full 4-yr scholarships to anyone who demonstrates financial need. U Penn provides full non-loan financial aid packages (including work-study) based on financial need alone. There's a college that allows you to work on campus in exchange for tuition. Do your internet research and see what you come up with. Have you even tried to look this stuff up? That would be a better use of your time than posting here.
There are other sources of scholarships, as well. For example, based on ethnic heritage. There's a Swedish heritage organization that offers college scholarships. There are all kinds of oddball sources of scholarship money out there. There could be DAR scholarships available for women, if they qualify ("Daughters of the American Revolution"--it's a nationwide organization).
Thank you very much Ruth4Truth. My daughter isn't a strong enough student to get into ivy league or top 50 ranking schools but it's still good to know that there are schools out there offering full rides based on financial need. I suspected that might factor into things with most schools. The friend who's daughter I was referring to in my opening post has a very comfortable income so I did wonder if that factored into the amount she was offered from the university. I was able to find several online sites that list various scholarships that you can apply for which I will look through and have my daughter apply to any that she would qualify for. In this post I was mainly asking about university academic merit scholarships and how they are determined.
Yes, I have spent more hours than I can count looking this stuff up but there is such a huge amount of information on the internet to wade through that it can get overwhelming, especially considering this is not something I know anything about. Posting here seemed like a great way to get some starting information to guide my search. Thanks again for the info.
The amount of money your kid receives, in my experience is related to the prestige of the school.
For example, I had a 3.9 GPA, and was 46 in a class of 650- at my current school I did not get a full ride but I am just 3000 short of the absolute most merit that the school gives, its all relative.
School who have lower standards (which does not mean they are BAD) will give more money for students along the line of your friends daughter.
I was wondering if the prestige of the school was a factor in determining how much they would offer in scholarships but I wasn't sure which way that went. Which is information I was hoping to find out here. I thought the more prestigious school would give less money because every top performing student wants in the best schools and the less prestigious schools would give out better scholarship packages because they want to entice the high performing kids to their school from the better schools. I'm not sure what class ranking my friend's daughter had but I assume it was very high because she got accepted into University of Michigan which is not an easy school to get into. I also assume that her GPA was way up there for the same reason even though all I know about her GPA is that she qualified for the highest level of scholarship the "presidential scholarship" which she said required at least a 3.8 GPA. I also assumed that she went to the less prestigious school over U of M because the scholarship package was better. Thanks for posting. I appreciate the information.
My kids were in the top 5%, excellent SAT scores, 4s and 5s on AP tests, over 4.0 GPAs.
One got just $10K/year; the other got full tuition for 4 years. Both private schools and they did not qualify for need-based.
It really does depend on the school.
Thanks Pitt Chick! That is what makes researching this so difficult. It just seems that they're all different and there isn't a general rule like I had hoped. I guess we'll just apply for any scholarship we can that my daughter qualifies for and apply to the schools she's interested in and pick the one that offers her the best scholarship package. Hopefully between what the school offers and any additional scholarships my daughter can get, most of her school will be paid for. My daughter is a very strong student but not strong enough to get into the best schools. She currently has a GPA of 3.934 unweighted and 4.176 weighted and is 38th out of a class of 686. On her PSAT last year she tested in the 96th percentile in reading and the 98th percentile in writing but only the 48th percentile in math. It's always been like that. She tests really high in everything but math which is her nemesis. She always gets an A in her math class because she gives it 300% but she doesn't test well in the subject.
Last edited by searching4info; 02-03-2015 at 01:06 PM..
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