Anonymous
Post 01/11/2024 19:02     Subject: How common is it to lose merit aid?
Anonymous wrote:I was an engineering major with merit aid at a top 25 school. I had to maintain a 3.0 GPA. I did drop below that one semester, and was put on probation for the next one, but got my GPA back up and graduated with a 3.5 GPA. The semester I got below a 3.0 was sophomore year, and I was taking a lot of engineering pre-reqs along with very motivate pre-meds (like Organic Chemistry). I did not lose my scholarship.


The scholarships that are received all of terms and criteria. Some are very general, some of GPA requirements. Some are only for the first year. Each school and program will have a GPA policy for satisfactory academic progress - many schools that is students are required to achieve a 2.0 GPA.

We reviewed all the merit offers very carefully and asked for additional details on each to see what our student needed to do to keep the aid. Especially in Engineering it's very hard to keep a high GPA. We also reviewed the schools to ensure that it was something we could still afford if there was no merit aid.
Anonymous
Post 01/11/2024 18:50     Subject: How common is it to lose merit aid?
Anonymous wrote:I went from a 4.0 unweighted in HS to a 2.7 in Mich Engineering pretty quickly. It happens. Another kicker: sometimes you cannot transfer OUT of the school you are in to an easier major until you have a certain GPA. 2 of my friends transferred to other colleges due to this issue.

My niece is experiencing this at Cornell. She wants to transfer out of the School of Engineering to Arts and Science, but they won’t let her till she gets a 2.5 GPA. It sucks because no one is supportive of female students in the school of engineering.
Anonymous
Post 01/11/2024 15:50     Subject: How common is it to lose merit aid?
Anonymous wrote:I worked extremely hard in HS to qualify for top merit aid. I then entered my “dream” school on a full tuition scholarship with 3.0 minimum requirement vs tuition room and board with 3.3. I was concerned about burnout as a double science major and wanted to finally “enjoy my youth”. Best decision ever to have that GPA wiggle room.

Despite that planning, I missed the fine print that it was GPA every semester and not academic year or cumulative average. After being 0.0X points away one semester my scholarship was pulled. I was able to appeal with strong GPA from the prior semesters and medical documentation. Stressful but again I would have been much further away from goal if I had to maintain a 3.3.

I am recommending similar plan for DC. Outside scholarships and summer internships helped cover room and board. Future career goals required a 3.0+ anyways so everything aligned. 3.3+ requirement *every* semester would be overkill.


Well, being a double science major did not help. That is not the school’s fault. You put yourself (including your health and your bank account) at risk.
Anonymous
Post 01/11/2024 15:44     Subject: How common is it to lose merit aid?
Read the fine print. For example, some have you lose it if your GPA falls below the magic number for just one semester. Others go by your cumulative GPA (over all semesters).

So some are trying to reduce the size of the pool that gets aid.

You can detect this somewhat by looking at the percentage that gets merit aid freshman vs later years. (Princeton Review Best Colleges guidebook shows those figures). It is a way to spot schools that are disingenuous.
Anonymous
Post 01/11/2024 15:38     Subject: How common is it to lose merit aid?
I went from a 4.0 unweighted in HS to a 2.7 in Mich Engineering pretty quickly. It happens. Another kicker: sometimes you cannot transfer OUT of the school you are in to an easier major until you have a certain GPA. 2 of my friends transferred to other colleges due to this issue.
Anonymous
Post 01/11/2024 15:15     Subject: How common is it to lose merit aid?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My kid lost his full tuition scholarship. He just didn’t study.


That's leartning a lesson the hard way.


It was a hard lesson but he got what he deserved. He learned his lesson so it wasn’t a complete loss.


How did he learn his lesson? Did you guys pay his tuition? Did he have to get loans? Did he drop out for a time?
Anonymous
Post 01/11/2024 14:06     Subject: Re:How common is it to lose merit aid?
My engineering-major son has a merit scholarship that requires a 2.0 GPA. I thank God he got that one because the professors really like to grade harshly. He was in danger of getting a D in a class. I went on Rate My Professor to see that this teacher had a review that said, “you will be fighting for your life in this class. Avoid this professor at all costs.” It would’ve been nice to know this beforehand, but it’s hard to get the professor you want and make your schedule work out with all the other requirements.
Anonymous
Post 01/11/2024 13:23     Subject: How common is it to lose merit aid?
My college junior, liberal arts major, has maintained a 3.0 (actually has a 4.0) and has kept his scholarship. At this point, aiming for summa cum laude
Anonymous
Post 01/11/2024 12:05     Subject: How common is it to lose merit aid?
I worked extremely hard in HS to qualify for top merit aid. I then entered my “dream” school on a full tuition scholarship with 3.0 minimum requirement vs tuition room and board with 3.3. I was concerned about burnout as a double science major and wanted to finally “enjoy my youth”. Best decision ever to have that GPA wiggle room.

Despite that planning, I missed the fine print that it was GPA every semester and not academic year or cumulative average. After being 0.0X points away one semester my scholarship was pulled. I was able to appeal with strong GPA from the prior semesters and medical documentation. Stressful but again I would have been much further away from goal if I had to maintain a 3.3.

I am recommending similar plan for DC. Outside scholarships and summer internships helped cover room and board. Future career goals required a 3.0+ anyways so everything aligned. 3.3+ requirement *every* semester would be overkill.
Anonymous
Post 01/11/2024 11:25     Subject: How common is it to lose merit aid?
One really ought to take a school at its word when it says “conditional upon X GPA”.

OP is correct that GPAs in Engineering often are curved to a lower number (3.0 as median in E School is pretty common) than in the arts & humanities.

Go read the recent thread on Engineering Degrees. Even the very smart and well prepared students have to work very hard in virtually any E School. Further, outside maybe the top 10 national E Schools, like MIT/ CalTech/ Stanford, which Engineering college one attended is not as critical to jobs and careers as it might be in other disciplines.
Anonymous
Post 01/11/2024 10:58     Subject: Re:How common is it to lose merit aid?
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.


"Freshman engineering" and "will get into her major" sounds like Purdue. Could be others, though.
Anonymous
Post 01/11/2024 10:34     Subject: How common is it to lose merit aid?
Anonymous wrote:My dc has gotten several offers from colleges with merit aid. They, of course, all have gpa requirements to maintain (3.0 or 3.2). Dc is planning to major in engineering and I'm concerned about him maintaining the gpa for merit aid. I went to a big state univ and I recall many engineering students did not have a 3.0. In fact, 3.0 was considered really good. And even if they graduated with that, there were certainly years that it dipped lower. I don't want to send him off to private school and then be stuck paying $70k the next year because he lost his merit aid. How common is this? Anyone have any experience with this?


my kid lost in junior year. he completely got off the track. graduated with 3.0 barely but once you lose it, it's gone.
Anonymous
Post 01/11/2024 10:30     Subject: Re:How common is it to lose merit aid?
I found this 2019 thread to be helpful, and wonder if there are any updates?

We are now in a situation where we are worried about our DD and her merit aid package, which requires her to maintain a 3.0 cumulative GPA at the end of each spring semester.

(Even if no updates to this thread, I recommend reading this thread if your child has merit aid and is in a difficult major like engineering, where a high GPA is hard to achieve. In one of the comments above, one person said that this is the most valuable thread that he/she has read on DCUM.)
Anonymous
Post 01/11/2024 10:23     Subject: Re:How common is it to lose merit aid?
Anonymous wrote:Its ridiculous to have the same gpa cutoff for humanities students and engineering students.
The engineering GPA cutoff should be a 2.5


+1000.
Anonymous
Post 02/04/2019 02:59     Subject: How common is it to lose merit aid?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:So no one in engineering/math classes get A’s? Sounds like more of a grading issue by professors with no background in education assessment.


Most don’t get A’s in the beginning. They are literally trying to get rid of a good 50% of the class. If you aren’t going to work your arse off nonstop they don’t want you. The grading the first two years is crazy harsh. We’re talking failing half a class, lots of D’s and a few C’s, 4 B’s and an A- out of a class of 100+. It’s terrorizing. Some of the kids who get B’s and C’s drop out too because they just aren’t used to that.

I got mostly A’s my junior and senior years, but the most generous those classes ever were was 1/4 A’s in the class. Often just a few were given out each semester.

It’s nothing like being a humanities major. Nothing


Stop stereotyping. This completely depends on the school and the child.

Most kids are used to easy A’s with little studying or being hand held by parents.
Other kids don’t use the resources

There are some great schools out there.

MIT - hard to get into. Hard to fail out of
Cornell - easier to get into (for any Ivy) and easy to fail out of

Get the stats for the engineering program up front