GPA and Scholarships

[goldberry]

Many scholarships seem to focus heavily on GPA, even compared to test scores.  Does that put a homeschooler at a disadvantage?  We will have a GPA, but no class rankings, etc.  And I know sometimes homeschool GPAs don't carry much weight.

[clementine]

We found that ACT scores were the main factor in merit scholarship amounts.  

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Many scholarships seem to focus heavily on GPA, even compared to test scores.  Does that put a homeschooler at a disadvantage?  We will have a GPA, but no class rankings, etc.  And I know sometimes homeschool GPAs don't carry much weight.

 

It will depend on the school and how selective it is.  Test scores may weigh more heavily for a homeschooler.

 

This was one reason why we started dabbling in outside courses.  DS took math as a dual enrolled student, to have an outside grade and to also have someone not related who could write a letter of recommendation.

 

About 9 of his 26 high school credits were from outside sources.  Some were online and self-paced, some were online with a live teacher and weekly graded work, some were dual enrollment at community colleges.  The rest were home based courses.

 

He has gotten merit aid from all three schools that accepted him.  No one has asked for additional verification of grades, though one school (a reach school) did want to see Subject Test scores from all students and another said they would welcome outside info such as Subject Test results.

 

My attitude has been that I want to give schools enough information on which to make a judgement.  For us, that has been a combination of several different things (test scores, specialty tests (Subject and AP), online courses, and dual enrollment).

 

Having said that, we have friends who had few outside courses and also got good scholarships.  A lot depends on the SAT/ACT scores in relation to the average score for that school.  

[teachermom2834]

Most of my son's schools used GPA (along with ACT) as part of the criteria for automatic scholarships. Class rank was not considered. One admissions lady told ds that they disregard class rank for students with less than a hundred students in the class or something similar.

 

I used to think the GPA was not that important for homeschoolers and I did not believe weighting grades made sense. So, I did not designate honors classes or weight grades. I saw through the process that could really hurt on scholarships. Ds had enough dual enrollment which his umbrella school automatically weighted to make it up and his GPA was fine. I am more aware for my second ds of the importance of a high GPA especially competing against school kids with heavily weighted grades.

 

I doubt a high homeschool GPA would mean much alone but if the test scores are high enough for scholarships I would be careful not to be unfairly harsh on the GPA or child could lose scholarships.

 

Our flagship only gives merit aid for 3.8 GPA or higher. Pretty hard without weighted grades.

 

For most schools with merit aid it is the GPA + test score that is most important.