The Money GPA

For public, private and home school students who plan to attend a two year or four year institution of higher learning, the fact of the matter is this:  GPA is crucial!!  If your student desires to compete for merit scholarships, then their SAT, ACT scores and GPA are extremely important. For the purpose of this post, I'm discussing the type of scholarship that a student qualifies for because of their grades in high school courses.  There are need based scholarships, but I'm only discussing merit scholarships  In my experience(my disclaimer that you need to do your own research:  don't depend on mine) merit scholarships come in two forms:  institutional and third party.

We'll talk institutional in this post.  Each school  has there own set of guidelines as to how they disburse their merit scholarships.  The key is to know what each school requires and when everything is due.  Many  schools require the student to apply separately to their scholarship program with reference letters, an application and essays. Based on these applications, some schools invite students to scholarship interview days in January/February. Other schools don't have interviews, but base scholarships on SAT, ACT scores,   GPA, and application information. Students usually find out in late March to mid-April if they've been awarded scholarship money. 

With all that said........all these applications, scores, GPA, etc. must be in the hands of the schools by mid-December of the students' Senior Year.  Let that soak in~  Your students' eligibility for scholarships is based on their GPA at the end of their Junior Year.....yes, that's Money GPA~~  Many institutions generously reward students who are ranked 1st or 2nd in their class.....again, based on their Junior Year.  Also, your student needs to have taken their final SAT or ACT by the first of December in order for schools to receive scores to determine eligibility for scholarships.

The moral of this blog is that you have to be thinking about GPA, SAT and ACT long before Senior Year.  It all starts when your student starts taking high school credits. 

Until Next Time,
Johnna