SAT, GPA, and other for merit scholarship

Paying for College
1

Hi everyone, this is my first post.

My son will be applying to a whole variety of schools and he wants to do pre-med. Thus, we both agree that going to undergrad for the cheapest possible will set him up for success in the future

First, my son goes to an elite prep school where there is no class rank and a very good average grade overall is A-. Many kids at this school go to ivies etc. Therefore, a good gpa here looks pretty bad compared to public schools.

For a schools like the UCs and other state unis that offers a lot of merit aid to achieving students, how much does the scholarship committee look at GPA in the context of the school? Does a very good SAT score back up an ugly GPA? (Again, unrepresentative of what he actually achieves). For example, he got a straight 2150 composite SAT, with 800 in writing, 700 in math and 650 in CR with less than two weeks of studying and zero prep classes or tutors, just Blue Book. He really wants to get 2300 + in the fall, if not a straight 2400. Could he do that? He also will get 750+ on Math II and Chemistry next week. Does that help significantly in the aid process? I’m not talking about admissions, btw.

His school calculates on a differents scale, but his gpa, unweighted, is about a 3.1 and weighted somewhere around 3.4, which doesn’t look wicked, but very impressive considering the school he goes to now.

So is the merit-aid system a game of numbers, or is it hollistic like admissions.

Thanks

2

Does his school rank? Give deciles? Have you seen your school’s profile that they send out with transcripts? (If you ask, they should give you one.) It will usually have enough information to let the adcom evaluate where your student fits in the context of the high school he attended. For example, if the highest gpa (weighted) is shown as 4.3, and the median gpa (weighted) is 3.3, then your son would be considered to be slightly above the midpoint of the class. It will also (usually) indicate the availability of honors or AP classes, and any limitations on registering for them. “Smallville H.S. offers 12 AP classes: AP Calculus AB, AP Statistics, AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP English Lang/Comp, AP Literature, AP Spanish Language, AP US History, AP World History, AP Music Theory, AP Economics. Students may take AP courses in junior or senior year, and may take up to three AP courses each of those years.” If your student has taken/will take 6 AP classes, then he has maximized his opportunities at THIS high school from the adcom’s perspective.

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For a schools like the UCs and other state unis that offers a lot of merit aid to a


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the UCs and other calif state univs do not offer “a lot of merit aid.” Calif schools focus on need based aid, not merit.

If you want merit, go elsewhere.

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Is he a rising junior? If so, he should prepare for the PSAT. You should look hard at your state schools and then investigate private schools that award merit aid. Unless the aid is an automatic award for stats, merit aid can be unpredictable. Run the NPCs for the schools he wants to consider. OOS publics tend to be expensive.

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His school calculates on a differents scale, but his gpa, unweighted, is about a 3.1 and weighted somewhere around 3.4, which doesn’t look wicked, but very impressive considering the school he goes to now.

So is the merit-aid system a game of numbers, or is it hollistic like admissions.


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Merit aid is a game of numbers.

For competitive merit, sometimes holistic methods are used to narrow the field for down selection, but at many schools a 3.1/3.4 would not make the initial pool for consideration.

Merit tends to work like this:

there is a large pool of students with high GPAs

There is a smaller pool of students with high test scores.

There is an even smaller pool of students with high test scores AND high GPAs. <= These are the students who typically get the merit awards.


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Does a very good SAT score back up an ugly GPA?

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Sadly, no. It just suggests to the school that the student is a slacker with coursework. Smart, but doesn’t do the homework or follow directions. It may not be true in your child’s case, but schools tend to think that way.

frankly, your son needs to examine why his GPA is so modest. If he truly wants to go to med school, then GPAs like that won’t get him there. The excuse that the school is competitive won’t wash. He’ll be in a very competitive situation as a premed with the “weeding” and “grade whores” that abound in premed.

Is he a Calif resident? If so, then Calif med schools are even less forgiving.

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For example, he got a straight 2150 composite SAT, with 800 in writing, 700 in math and 650 in CR


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Sadly, No one cares about the writing score.

he has a 1350 M+CR. That is very good, but not competitive for many top schools and not competitive for a lot of merit at many “more known” schools.

Are you certain that his GPA would only be a 3.4 weighted? Senior grades won’t really matter, I’m asking about grades 9-11 weighted.

Sat II scores mean nothing for merit. The point of merit is to help the school’s reporting profile. SAT II scores don’t get reported for profile or ranking purposes. Schools want to raise their reported middle quartile SAT/ACT scores. That helps their profile.


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My son will be applying to a whole variety of schools and he wants to do pre-med. Thus, we both agree that going to undergrad for the cheapest possible will set him up for success in the future

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Not a bad strategy. It’s one that my son took as well. Undergrad was practically free for him. He’s now starting his 3rd year as a med student.

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She’s right, don’t look at UC’s for a lot of merit. At our school, only top 1% of students were considered for UC merit. Look outside the state. And, the more popular state schools, like UW, Michigan, Texas, NC don’t tend to offer $ to non residents. Less demanded schools will be more generous, look at the midwest, mountain states, except Boulder, and the South. Look at WUE schools or SLO.

My S is a senior, and in my experience with him and his classmates, merit aid was very closely tied to SAT/ACT. Admissions was more holistic, GPA and activities factored in, but that led to a LOT of disappointed kids who got into dream schools but got NO MONEY from them.
Private schools offer more scholarships, but your net cost may still be above the UC cost of around $28,000. If that cost is more than you want to spend, look at schools that guarantee full tuition for specific SAT levels. Also, apply to schools where 2150 is at or above their 75th percentile. He should be solid financially for schools “ranked” 35-80 in USNews. My opinion is don’t bother with Reach schools (at least don’t get your hopes up), if you want to keep your cost down, unless you have an EFC of below $5000 or so. In that case, the higher ranked schools may offer a good amount of need based aid.
Look at the financial aid policies and scholarships carefully on websites and keep in that 75-80% range on SAT score.

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His school calculates on a differents scale, but his gpa, unweighted, is about a 3.1 and weighted somewhere around 3.4, which doesn’t look wicked, but very impressive considering the school he goes to now.


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Are you from the NE??? If so, then why are you even looking at UCs? UCs are the last place to look as an OOS premed.

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Stats aren’t that different than S16’s. GPA around 3.4 with a few D’s in the mix, but 1460 M+CR and 224 PSAT. Not turning things he didn’t want to do in has limited his options. We’re visiting Ole Miss, where he’s guaranteed big money presuming he makes NMSF. Drexel is his financial reach, and he’s thinking about Muhlenberg as well. He’ll probably also apply to one or two state schools (we’re in MD).

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If you are at an elite prep school then discuss these goals with the GC. The GC will know your school’s track record for UCs, especially if you are instate. UCs use a separate UC calculated gpa. UC does not give a lot of merit. Students can get from 2 to 10k per year but vast numbers of great students don’t get any. One kid I know last year did get 10k from Riverside, I don’t know if qualifying for admissions early under the Jr year program and/or being local helped, but she didn’t get any award from UCI, UCLA and UCB (but need was fully met.)

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http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1678964-links-to-popular-threads-on-scholarships-and-lower-cost-colleges.html#latest

Read the links in this thread. Some discuss merit awards…and the criteria to get them.

12

We live in New Hampshire, and my S is looking all over. I want him to stay relatively close but he wants to cast a wide net so to speak. Just doing a little research, BU gives good merit aid it seems, and so do the UMASSES and also Emmanuel College. Also, Boston’s great for unis, esp for him since he wants to do premed and there are a lot of hospitals in Boston.

I guess the question would be where to apply early and whether that would help for merit based scholarship. I feel that the UMASSes would be more generous since he would be a higher stat applicant. Do a lot high stat applicants still apply for state unis that are nowhere near as good as their dream school? Would it be enough applicants that merit aid would be really difficult to get? It seems like the smart thing to do, but I know people who went all reach and had maybe 1 or 2 match/safety and ended up having to choose from that 1 or 2 schools since they got rejected from the Ivies.

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Also, calculating his unweighted GPA on this website http://www.ohe.state.mn.us/sPages/gpa.cfm yielded about 3.55

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^^
Is that what will be on his transcript? If so, that can make a difference for merit AT THE schools that give merit. However, many schools that you might want to get merit, won’t.

UC’s shouldn’t even be on your radar

How much do you want your net cost to be?

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I feel that the UMASSes would be more generous since he would be a higher stat applicant
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At this point, I don’t think he’d be a “higher stat applicant” at UMass Amherst. His 1350 isn’t high enough for much merit. Do you mean Umass Boston?

The NE can be LOUSY with merit if you want your net cost to be lowish (say $15k or so).

I highly doubt your son would get any merit from BU without higher scores and higher GPA. I know plenty of kids with better stats who got nothing from BU. look at what their upper quartile numbers are. The bottom of the upper quartile has a 1410 M+CR.

You seem to need a better strategy otherwise you’re not going to get what you want.

Just hearing that certain schools give a lot of merit is meaningless unless your child has the high stats to get that merit. And, his GPA is likely going to freeze him out at many schools that require a 3.7+ with a high test score.

First figure out how much you want your net cost to be.

Then find a few schools that your child LIKES that will give your child ASSURED merit for his stats. Those awards would need to be big enough so that the net cost would be your target price.

Then find a few schools that would have competitive merit.

Avoid all Calif schools if premed. Avoid ALL.

16

So let’s say his senior fall he gets very good grades, especially in his APs, where it will affect the weighted gpa, and his SAT improves to, say, a 1500 CR+M or higher. He thinks he can definately get 800 on Math, with CR being a little more tricky. Would that help any more?

A good net cost, ideally, would be around 5k per year, which I know is very low, but we want to keep the debt low before med school.

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Fall Frosh grades aren’t usually used for merit, particularly BIG MERIT, which is what you’d need to have that low of a cost.

Many of the BIG merit awards are decided BEFORE first semester grades are in (which is usually about January). And, even with a 4.0 for fall semester, that is just one semester out of 7…won’t bump his GPA up much at all.

If you need a net cost of $5k, then why would you even be looking at schools like BU, or UMass, or UCs???

for him to have that low of a net cost (or even $10k net cost), he’d need to be looking WAY DOWN the ladder.

18

Hoping for a 1500 SAT score in the fall is a bit naive. You need to plan with his current scores plus develop a contingency if his scores do go up. Look over this list.

http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com

You DS doesn’t qualify for all of these scholarships but this will give you an idea of the sorts of schools he will need to apply to and give you an idea about the stiff competition he will face.

What is your EFC? You need to understand if you will qualify for financial aid. $5000 is a very low budget for college. Did your DS do well on his PSAT? There are full rides out there for NMF.

I live near an “elite” private and honestly the acceptances from this school are not all that different from the acceptances at our local “elite” public.

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Even here, “pickin’s are slim” based on GPA:

http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/

Arkansas at Monticello?

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I looked at it this way - schools that offer merit aid are doing so to raise their stats by admitting kids who could have gone to higher-ranked institutions (but at a higher cost). That’s really what it’s all about. It is much less holistic than admissions - they’re looking for kids who will help raise their standings in rankings. Some colleges require interviews, or have competition days, but you still have to be in the top 10-15% of test scores/GPA for admitted students to get invited to interview or compete.

Definitely apply as early as possible - if there is an early action date, get apps in before then and be sure to check dates on school’s web sites as oftentimes the applications MUST be in early to be considered for merit. Also be sure to check whether or not their is a separate application required for merit scholarship consideration.

As others have said, great aid in the NE is hard to come by. Also note that Emmanuel is now test-optional. Typically what happens in that case is the only kids who submit standardized test scores are those who are confident their scores are solid for the school’s range. A lower GPA might be even more of an issue at a test-optional school unless he can get the SAT where he’s hoping.