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Title: Yes, your grades mean a lot Highlight: Doing well in class can mean doing well in the financial aid stakes Author(s): Alex Kingsbury Article Text: Vickie Pon studied hard and it paid off. This spring, she graduated from Dakota Ridge High School in Littleton, Colo., having raked in more than $269,000 in scholarship and grant offers, thanks in large part to her academic performance. The University of California-Berkeley offered a $12,038 "Cal Bears" scholarship; the University of San Francisco put $12,800 on the table; and the University of Colorado-Boulder's Norlin Scholarship promised $8,000. Pon, now 18, also won a Boettcher Scholarship (tuition and living expenses for Colorado's top 40 graduating seniors, provided they go to school in-state) and a $3,600 National Merit Scholarship. And these were just some of the awards she turned down. Sure, it's important to get good grades so that you can get into the college you want (to say nothing of the bonus of actually learning something in high school). But the benefits of 4.0s don't stop there: Scoring top marks is the most lucrative way to earn money for school, since academic performance is usually a top criterion for distributing scholarships from many foundations, universities, and states. And not only in the world of need-based aid: "If you are a good student who works hard and gets decent grades, you can expect to find at least a few thousand dollars in scholarships," says Kelly Tanabe, who has coauthored several books about college funding, including 1001 Ways to Pay for College . "One of the misconceptions about merit-based aid is that you have to be Einstein to get money. Don't rule out scholarships because you are not the valedictorian." Pon--who will enter the California Institute of Technology with a grant covering tuition and most of her living expenses--got nearly all of her money automatically, from her good grades and financial aid application, but she had to seek out other awards, like the $2,500 Discover Card Tribute Award Scholarship she won. "By graduation day, most of the money has already been handed out," she warns, "so start looking early." There are no secrets for finding the money. "Pay attention to the criteria, and really look around to find the ones that you have the best chances of winning," says David Miller, the director of college counseling at the private Stevenson School, in Pebble Beach, Calif. He suggests that students browse scholarship notices at high school counseling offices, in local newspapers, and at websites like www.fastweb.com and www.finaid.com . Students who have good grades but not a 4.0 can still get awards that meet the full cost of a degree. Georgia's HOPE (Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally), West Virginia's PROMISE (Providing Real Opportunities for Maximizing In-State Student Excellence), and similar programs in 15 other states offer large grants to in-state students based on high school grade-point average and standardized test scores. State-funded programs distributed nearly $1 billion in undergraduate merit-based aid in 2002-2003, according to the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs. "I will graduate from West Virginia University with zero debt," says Jared Jones, a sophomore political science major. Jones, 19, had a 3.8 GPA and scored 28 on the ACT, not good enough for a full ride to his first-choice school, New York University, but more than sufficient to qualify for the PROMISE scholarship, which requires a 3.0 GPA and an ACT above 21. More money. Even if you don't seek out outside scholarships, grades give you an advantage if you also need financial aid. Micah Ziegler, a freshman at Yale University from Bethesda, Md., who gets more than $23,000 in yearly aid from Yale, says the greatest advantage that comes with a good transcript is acceptance to schools with need-blind admissions--in other words, those with the biggest endowments--that will meet the full demonstrated financial need of all accepted students. And wealthier schools sometimes offer merit aid as a way of competing for top students, regardless of need. Michael Maguire, a classics teacher at Boston Latin Academy, tells his students that scoring top marks is like getting $800 per week to do homework (which adds up to the yearly cost of a top university). "Their eyes light up, and then we start going through the math," says Maguire, who received a full merit-based scholarship to Boston University in 1989. This year, 11 Boston Latin students won the same BU scholarship for public high school kids. "You don't have to like every subject," Maguire says, "but it's worth it to try your best." |
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