How common is it to lose merit aid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD has a 25K merit scholarship to a small private college and needs a 3.3 to keep it. So far so good 2 years in and she knows if she loses it she will need to transfer.

She is obviously not in engineering or a high math/physics type major.

I think SLAC’s do a good job of keeping kids on their toes too. Does it have any option if she goes to a 3.2 or is it a straight cut off?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When my son was selecting schools it came down to two schools. One’s merit award required a 2.0 and one a 3.0. I explained to my son that things happen in life and whether it was because he got sick or distracted as one can easily do in college esp. being away from home for the first time that he should take into account the gpa requirement for merit because if he lost it I wouldn’t be able to afford the school. My son selected the “2.0” school and has done very well but it’s nice knowing he has some wiggle room as he grows into a young man.

Agree.
I think the 3.2 are harsh. Most kids see them and think no problem, but they forget classes aren’t weighted in college.
I will say many colleges curve severely though. Makes it a bit easier. And kids start to figure out what professors to get.

[Anonymous]

Its ridiculous to have the same gpa cutoff for humanities students and engineering students.
The engineering GPA cutoff should be a 2.5

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my son was selecting schools it came down to two schools. One’s merit award required a 2.0 and one a 3.0. I explained to my son that things happen in life and whether it was because he got sick or distracted as one can easily do in college esp. being away from home for the first time that he should take into account the gpa requirement for merit because if he lost it I wouldn’t be able to afford the school. My son selected the “2.0” school and has done very well but it’s nice knowing he has some wiggle room as he grows into a young man.

Agree.
I think the 3.2 are harsh. Most kids see them and think no problem, but they forget classes aren’t weighted in college.
I will say many colleges curve severely though. Makes it a bit easier. And kids start to figure out what professors to get.

Engineering classes always curve down.

[Anonymous]

My kid lost his merit aid too. Took too many courses, overextended himself, did not take help and was doing two tough majors. We paid for the last year and he graduated with 3.4 and two STEM majors. He is doing very well. It was a great lesson that he had to learn - self care and take all help when you need. He felt he was letting us down. We had to tell him that there is nothing he could do that will make us less proud of him. He is an exceptional person. His department went above and beyond to get him tremendous opportunities and professors gave him steller recommendations for grad school and for internships.

[Anonymous]

I am just curious for all of those that lost their merit aid. With the kids knowing it ahead of time, did you have an agreement in place? Do the child take the loan? Does he leave the school and have to pay for community college.

I just don't see where the lesson is if the parents still pay the bill and let them continue on

[Anonymous]

Just remembered another angle. Make sure the scholarship holds if the student changes majors. Knew a family w/ a student be recruited. Long drive to visit school. Asked : what if I change fields. Answer: lose scholarship. Parents said: couldn’t you have asked that before the full day of driving?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am just curious for all of those that lost their merit aid. With the kids knowing it ahead of time, did you have an agreement in place? Do the child take the loan? Does he leave the school and have to pay for community college.

I just don't see where the lesson is if the parents still pay the bill and let them continue on

My kid hasn’t lost his merit aid, but I will answer anyway.

There can be many lessons. The first is read the fine print.

I know that if my kid lost his merit aid because he was mucking around, he’d be at GMU next year. If he lost it despite his best effort to achieve something hard to achieve (not every kid is willing to take a ton of hard science classes), we would probably find the money but there would be some loans for sure. Not every lesson has to be “I won’t pay for you”.

I have a PhD in a technical field. Despite the eventual success, the beginning was rough. I had to repeat my first year despite trying my best. What I learned from my parents is that they are on my side.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am just curious for all of those that lost their merit aid. With the kids knowing it ahead of time, did you have an agreement in place? Do the child take the loan? Does he leave the school and have to pay for community college.

I just don't see where the lesson is if the parents still pay the bill and let them continue on

My kid hasn’t lost his merit aid, but I will answer anyway.

There can be many lessons. The first is read the fine print.

I know that if my kid lost his merit aid because he was mucking around, he’d be at GMU next year. If he lost it despite his best effort to achieve something hard to achieve (not every kid is willing to take a ton of hard science classes), we would probably find the money but there would be some loans for sure. Not every lesson has to be “I won’t pay for you”.

I have a PhD in a technical field. Despite the eventual success, the beginning was rough. I had to repeat my first year despite trying my best. What I learned from my parents is that they are on my side.

The beginning is always rough - it’s part of the education. Without some challenges and failure you don’t produce good scientists and engineers. The idea of having the same GPA cutoffs for engineers and humanities majors is ridiculous. I’m not saying that students should be repeatedly having bad semesters but a 3.0 is not reasonable either.

[Anonymous]

Long ago I lost my merit & FA in a way that now to my adult eyes seems very shady. I was halfway through and suddenly became “full pay”. It was a terrible experience and it took me many years to pay it off. Now as a parent I read the fine print very carefully. 3.2 in a tough engineering school can be very hard. Also I felt the school was AOK with this result.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am just curious for all of those that lost their merit aid. With the kids knowing it ahead of time, did you have an agreement in place? Do the child take the loan? Does he leave the school and have to pay for community college.

I just don't see where the lesson is if the parents still pay the bill and let them continue on

In our case (I’m the DSS one from above), he had to repay us our out of pocket cost for his “lost year”. If he had gotten sick or we knew he’d worked hard and was just in over his head or something, we’d have just paid. But because we found out he was sleeping in classes, or just skipping them for weeks at a time, we told him he had to pay us back. And he did. And any further schooling was in his dime.

He ended up going into a career where a degree wasn’t required, although he did get an AA, but his organization paid for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When my son was selecting schools it came down to two schools. One’s merit award required a 2.0 and one a 3.0. I explained to my son that things happen in life and whether it was because he got sick or distracted as one can easily do in college esp. being away from home for the first time that he should take into account the gpa requirement for merit because if he lost it I wouldn’t be able to afford the school. My son selected the “2.0” school and has done very well but it’s nice knowing he has some wiggle room as he grows into a young man.

Excellent advice to keep in mind!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just remembered another angle. Make sure the scholarship holds if the student changes majors. Knew a family w/ a student be recruited. Long drive to visit school. Asked : what if I change fields. Answer: lose scholarship. Parents said: couldn’t you have asked that before the full day of driving?

Sometimes it is not majors, but schools. Moving from business school to engineering school. So dot just ask about majors.

But that is rare, especially if you don’t have to commit to a major prior to starting.

[Anonymous]

One thing to look at is if the GPA requirement is for each semester or cummulative. I have seen both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid lost his merit aid but wasn’t a great student. If your kid is a good student and mostly got As in high school hopefully he should be fine. Talk to him about it.

My kid got nearly all As in high school.

She is now in a big ten engineering program where she is above average according to the admission stats. Her merit aid continuation requirement is fairly low (good standing).

She is currently a B+ student (thank you, humanities elective!) with mostly Bs in her technical classes. Statistically she is well into the top half of the class but not in the top quarter -- she and I looked carefully at the distribution statistics for each class.

I'm telling you this detail because although I would like my kid to have done better, she is proud of her effort and her grades. I would not be confident that a freshman engineering student would do much better after watching my child this past fall. Maybe your kid will, but you aren't worried about that here.

She will get into her major, and she will keep her merit aid. We turned down other schools where these kind of grades might not have resulted in that outcome.

May I ask which Big 10 Engineering gives merit aid, please? And did that bring your out of state tuition to your state flagship? Thank you.

It brought tuition pretty close, but transportation is more expensive.

I should add, the state flagship would probably not have accepted her to not the engineering school. She didn’t apply because we weren’t impressed anyway — fine school, but not for my kid. The question I would ask any high school kid to answer if looking at a tough major is “will you be happy at that school if your major doesn’t work out?”