Are there differences in GPA requirement to maintain, etc for financial aid vs merit scholarship?

My nephew got a 50% scholarship to Cornell, that "surprise" went away after his freshman year. 100% bait and switch. He took out loans and finished

The GPA requirement to maintain merit is usually on the website. It wasn’t in my DS’s acceptance letters.

Anonymous wrote:DD has a full tuition scholarship - letter says she gets it all four years as long as she maintains at least a 3.0. I assume the letter means what it says - did other people have similar wording and their offer still got yanked? I don’t see how that’s possible, since the four year offer was accepted and terms were met.

I'm the one who posted about my own and my nephew's experience. In both cases, it came as a complete shock because there were absolutely no indications of any conditions under which we had to maintain a certain grade point average, or any other conditions for renewal of the award. My parents would have been very vigilant that I was meeting the requirements, if there had been any. I got straight A's, was elected a freshman rep in the student government, played on teams, made good friends -was pretty much a model citizen. Same for my nephew - he was given no indications that there were conditions for his award.
I know that people want to believe that these colleges' decisions must have a rational basis, and my conclusion is that it has to do with wealthy private colleges hanging on to their wealth while simultaneously pumping up the stats for test scores of first year admits and their "yield."

DD has a full tuition scholarship - letter says she gets it all four years as long as she maintains at least a 3.0. I assume the letter means what it says - did other people have similar wording and their offer still got yanked? I don’t see how that’s possible, since the four year offer was accepted and terms were met.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s a really nasty practice some private colleges have of granting a full ride for the first year to attract the top students they really want (and increase “yield”) and then significantly cutting back the amount of aid for the next year, regardless of how well the student is performing. They expect that the student and/or parents will then apply for a huge amount of loans. Awful. It happened to me years ago at one of the top 5 wealthiest private colleges and again to my nephew recently at a different private college It’s devastating. In my case, the chair of the department I was as majoring in found a private scholarship for me but it was too little too late and I had to go into debt. In my nephew’s case, he transferred to a state university. It’s a horrible and hidden practice.

Please name the schools. You can help others to avoid the same issues. Thank you.

Not OO, but I heard hints if this at American U and Vassar. As someone posted above, guides like Princeton Review post the % of kids getting merit by grade. It should not go down significantly after freshman year.

Looking at Vassar's common data set, I see $0 for non-need (merit) aid for all undergrads.

For American, it looks like average non-need aid is similar between freshman ($13,231) and all undergrads ($13,845), but also that freshman are about 40% of all undergrads receiving non-need aid. So perhaps there's truth to the claim that the merit aid disappears for at least some of the students.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had a lot of considerations for our '22 high schooler.

Here is what we avoided -

- Most rabidly Republican states. Texas, Florida were no go.
- Schools that had lax Gun laws as mentioned in another thread, was a red flag - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campus_carry_in_the_United_States
- Party schools and schools with a strong Greek life
- Schools that had incidents of sexual harassment, rape or violence against women etc, racist tweets by their professors, attracted White supremacist's.
- Schools that had a lower percentage of diversity - racial and gender.

We also paid more attention to the ranking of the STEM major we wanted for our child vs the prestige of the school.

Doesn’t look like you are seeking diversity, at least not in political views, but rather more group-think.

No. I don't care to have Right Wing, Trumpian, Anti-vaxxer, COVID denier, NRA moron kind of diversity. As I mentioned very clearly it is mostly racial and gender diversity which is important for us. These kinds of diversities also automatically lends to economic diversity and acceptable cultural diversity. Now you will ask what I mean by Acceptable Cultural Diversity? By that I mean the diversity of food, language, national origin, sexual orientation, attire, religious practices, arts etc. I believe in human rights and women's rights. I do not mean Misogynistic, InCel, Gun Fanatics, Polygamists, Racist and Homophobic, anti-Science and anti women's right, pedophile, Christian Right Wing people who watch Fox News.

There are plenty of misogynists, polygamists, pedophiles, and ant-science folks on the far left. It's just packaged differently. But if you don't want your precious worldview challenged, then by all means don't go to a college where this might happen.

Watch out for those leftist myrmecologists. They study red ants not doubt.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had a lot of considerations for our '22 high schooler.

Here is what we avoided -

- Most rabidly Republican states. Texas, Florida were no go.
- Schools that had lax Gun laws as mentioned in another thread, was a red flag - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campus_carry_in_the_United_States
- Party schools and schools with a strong Greek life
- Schools that had incidents of sexual harassment, rape or violence against women etc, racist tweets by their professors, attracted White supremacist's.
- Schools that had a lower percentage of diversity - racial and gender.

We also paid more attention to the ranking of the STEM major we wanted for our child vs the prestige of the school.

Doesn’t look like you are seeking diversity, at least not in political views, but rather more group-think.

No. I don't care to have Right Wing, Trumpian, Anti-vaxxer, COVID denier, NRA moron kind of diversity. As I mentioned very clearly it is mostly racial and gender diversity which is important for us. These kinds of diversities also automatically lends to economic diversity and acceptable cultural diversity. Now you will ask what I mean by Acceptable Cultural Diversity? By that I mean the diversity of food, language, national origin, sexual orientation, attire, religious practices, arts etc. I believe in human rights and women's rights. I do not mean Misogynistic, InCel, Gun Fanatics, Polygamists, Racist and Homophobic, anti-Science and anti women's right, pedophile, Christian Right Wing people who watch Fox News.

There are plenty of misogynists, polygamists, pedophiles, and ant-science folks on the far left. It's just packaged differently. But if you don't want your precious worldview challenged, then by all means don't go to a college where this might happen.

Anonymous wrote:There’s a really nasty practice some private colleges have of granting a full ride for the first year to attract the top students they really want (and increase “yield”) and then significantly cutting back the amount of aid for the next year, regardless of how well the student is performing. They expect that the student and/or parents will then apply for a huge amount of loans. Awful. It happened to me years ago at one of the top 5 wealthiest private colleges and again to my nephew recently at a different private college It’s devastating. In my case, the chair of the department I was as majoring in found a private scholarship for me but it was too little too late and I had to go into debt. In my nephew’s case, he transferred to a state university. It’s a horrible and hidden practice.

Sorry that you had to encounter this. Thank you for informing other parents about this negative practice. This is the type of information that I want to be aware about.
Do you or anyone here know the schools which typically do this?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When the college is located in a state with human rights views wildly opposite of our own. That could mean different things to different people. I know what it means to mine. I'm not spending money in a state that loves guns more than children. I'm not spending money in a state that hates gay and transgender people. Other people might have different values, but those our ours.

I am not recommending that anyone put themselves in danger, but nothing is going to change if people don't use their privilege to change things.

Which is to say, if your straight cis white boy wants to, let him go to Rice or Duke or Tulane and change his voter registration.

Texas and Louisiana = Lost cause
maybe that might work in North Carolina because it’s a swing state (emphasis on MAYBE)

Texas might surprise you in a few election cycles -- tilting blue in the big population centers. Houston and Austin don't feel like conservative strongholds. And, New Orleans certainly is not a buttoned up conservative sort of place.

Latinos in sourthern texas are trending republican. That was the hope for democrats. I've been hearing that Texas will flip any year now for decades. It isnt happening

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When the college is located in a state with human rights views wildly opposite of our own. That could mean different things to different people. I know what it means to mine. I'm not spending money in a state that loves guns more than children. I'm not spending money in a state that hates gay and transgender people. Other people might have different values, but those our ours.

I am not recommending that anyone put themselves in danger, but nothing is going to change if people don't use their privilege to change things.

Which is to say, if your straight cis white boy wants to, let him go to Rice or Duke or Tulane and change his voter registration.

Texas and Louisiana = Lost cause
maybe that might work in North Carolina because it’s a swing state (emphasis on MAYBE)

Texas might surprise you in a few election cycles -- tilting blue in the big population centers. Houston and Austin don't feel like conservative strongholds. And, New Orleans certainly is not a buttoned up conservative sort of place.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When the college is located in a state with human rights views wildly opposite of our own. That could mean different things to different people. I know what it means to mine. I'm not spending money in a state that loves guns more than children. I'm not spending money in a state that hates gay and transgender people. Other people might have different values, but those our ours.

I am not recommending that anyone put themselves in danger, but nothing is going to change if people don't use their privilege to change things.

Which is to say, if your straight cis white boy wants to, let him go to Rice or Duke or Tulane and change his voter registration.

Texas and Louisiana = Lost cause
maybe that might work in North Carolina because it’s a swing state (emphasis on MAYBE)

Longtime basketball coach looks like a rat.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had a lot of considerations for our '22 high schooler.

Here is what we avoided -

- Most rabidly Republican states. Texas, Florida were no go.
- Schools that had lax Gun laws as mentioned in another thread, was a red flag - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campus_carry_in_the_United_States
- Party schools and schools with a strong Greek life
- Schools that had incidents of sexual harassment, rape or violence against women etc, racist tweets by their professors, attracted White supremacist's.
- Schools that had a lower percentage of diversity - racial and gender.

We also paid more attention to the ranking of the STEM major we wanted for our child vs the prestige of the school.

Doesn’t look like you are seeking diversity, at least not in political views, but rather more group-think.

No. I don't care to have Right Wing, Trumpian, Anti-vaxxer, COVID denier, NRA moron kind of diversity. As I mentioned very clearly it is mostly racial and gender diversity which is important for us. These kinds of diversities also automatically lends to economic diversity and acceptable cultural diversity. Now you will ask what I mean by Acceptable Cultural Diversity? By that I mean the diversity of food, language, national origin, sexual orientation, attire, religious practices, arts etc. I believe in human rights and women's rights. I do not mean Misogynistic, InCel, Gun Fanatics, Polygamists, Racist and Homophobic, anti-Science and anti women's right, pedophile, Christian Right Wing people who watch Fox News.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s a really nasty practice some private colleges have of granting a full ride for the first year to attract the top students they really want (and increase “yield”) and then significantly cutting back the amount of aid for the next year, regardless of how well the student is performing. They expect that the student and/or parents will then apply for a huge amount of loans. Awful. It happened to me years ago at one of the top 5 wealthiest private colleges and again to my nephew recently at a different private college It’s devastating. In my case, the chair of the department I was as majoring in found a private scholarship for me but it was too little too late and I had to go into debt. In my nephew’s case, he transferred to a state university. It’s a horrible and hidden practice.

Please name the schools. You can help others to avoid the same issues. Thank you.

Not OO, but I heard hints if this at American U and Vassar. As someone posted above, guides like Princeton Review post the % of kids getting merit by grade. It should not go down significantly after freshman year.

But look close at those stats too because it isn't always indicative of a bad thing; some schools give "scholarships" to all students to cover the extra cost of studying abroad so everyone can go if they want to (not hidden, that is explicit), so those are one time awards that would show up in those stats as there for everyone one year and gone later, because they were used. My DC has one of those and it is awarded when you are incoming and used when go abroad.

That sounds like a way to mask removing large merit awards after freshman year. Those lost awards would be lost in the data of everyone getting a one time study abroad scholarship.

We'll see. Its the first year they are doing it, so I doubt there is a nefarious purpose to a generous program.