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I received a scholarship to Georgia State that makes the school affordable to me. I have PI goals and want to work in Atlanta, so the school is a great fit. The stipulation on my scholarship is that I maintain a 2.2 GPA. The scholarship agreement also notes that "the waiver is based on university funding and cannot be absolutely guaranteed from one semester to the next, even if I meet GPA and credit-hour requirements."

I feel like this second stipulation, while scary, isn't something to actually be concerned about. Probably just something that they put into scholarship agreements in case the school goes into serious financial strife. If I'm wrong please correct me.

2.2 also seems like a pretty reasonable GPA requirement. If I were below that, I feel like I would have to consider dropping out of school anyway.

Are these stipulations acceptable?

According to their ABA 509 report they don't issue conditional scholarships because they are only based on maintaining good academic standing, and therefore they don't have to tell us how many people kept them. Based on that I wouldn't worry about the GPA stip but the second part looks a little odd. If you ask the school for the percentage of scholarships lost they will probably tell you. If it's lower than like 95% I'd ask a few more questions.

The first stipulation is fine. I'm guessing that is basically just being in good standing. But as for the second one, ummmm you def. should be worried and follow up with that. None of the scholarship offers I got had a stipulation like that. That means they literally could stop giving you money and cite 'budgetary issues' which is the easiest thing to fake, and also, what schools don't have budgetary issues and restrictions at various points throughout the year? You should def. call them or email and see what is up with that. This sounds like they can offer you any amount of money just to get you to enroll, and then trap you if they take it away because you already committed to attending/are attending.

tinyvessels wrote:The first stipulation is fine. I'm guessing that is basically just being in good standing. But as for the second one, ummmm you def. should be worried and follow up with that. None of the scholarship offers I got had a stipulation like that. That means they literally could stop giving you money and cite 'budgetary issues' which is the easiest thing to fake, and also, what schools don't have budgetary issues and restrictions at various points throughout the year? You should def. call them or email and see what is up with that. This sounds like they can offer you any amount of money just to get you to enroll, and then trap you if they take it away because you already committed to attending/are attending.

Yeah it's concerning and I will be following up. But GSU isn't exactly Cooley in terms of shadiness, I think they would avoid pulling the scholarship unless the school was having very serious problems. They have a reputation to maintain and I think that pulling a scholarship for phony budgetary reasons would quickly become an ATL article. I'm not sure that with serious digging it would be *that* difficult to find how truthful the school was being.

beforethelaw wrote:

tinyvessels wrote:The first stipulation is fine. I'm guessing that is basically just being in good standing. But as for the second one, ummmm you def. should be worried and follow up with that. None of the scholarship offers I got had a stipulation like that. That means they literally could stop giving you money and cite 'budgetary issues' which is the easiest thing to fake, and also, what schools don't have budgetary issues and restrictions at various points throughout the year? You should def. call them or email and see what is up with that. This sounds like they can offer you any amount of money just to get you to enroll, and then trap you if they take it away because you already committed to attending/are attending.

Yeah it's concerning and I will be following up. But GSU isn't exactly Cooley in terms of shadiness, I think they would avoid pulling the scholarship unless the school was having very serious problems. They have a reputation to maintain and I think that pulling a scholarship for phony budgetary reasons would quickly become an ATL article. I'm not sure that with serious digging it would be *that* difficult to find how truthful the school was being.

Hopefully it's just a 'worst case scenario' caution they include in order to cover their bases, but it'll do you good to ask them regardless. Good luck!

In case anyone stumbles onto this thread in the future wondering about this particular stipulation, GSU has since clarified to me that they will not take away the money under any circumstances. They have a limited number of these in-state tuition vouchers, and if they need to offer more than had been anticipated to an incoming 1L class they might take the voucher away from an upperclassman and replace it with a research position and equivalent discount. They may even increase the discount to make up for the fact that you'd now have to be doing research to maintain the scholarship.

beforethelaw wrote:In case anyone stumbles onto this thread in the future wondering about this particular stipulation, GSU has since clarified to me that they will not take away the money under any circumstances. They have a limited number of these in-state tuition vouchers, and if they need to offer more than had been anticipated to an incoming 1L class they might take the voucher away from an upperclassman and replace it with a research position and equivalent discount. They may even increase the discount to make up for the fact that you'd now have to be doing research to maintain the scholarship.

I would ask that they put that in writing.

jjcorvino wrote:

beforethelaw wrote:In case anyone stumbles onto this thread in the future wondering about this particular stipulation, GSU has since clarified to me that they will not take away the money under any circumstances. They have a limited number of these in-state tuition vouchers, and if they need to offer more than had been anticipated to an incoming 1L class they might take the voucher away from an upperclassman and replace it with a research position and equivalent discount. They may even increase the discount to make up for the fact that you'd now have to be doing research to maintain the scholarship.

I would ask that they put that in writing.

Good luck with that.

Actually, OP, here's what I would do: write the person with whom you spoke, summarizing what they told you. Frame it as "I just want to make sure I understood you correctly." Ask them to correct you if you're wrong about anything. If they don't correct you or don't respond, you've got an undisputed record of the conversation.

That's probably as close as you'll get to a "put it in writing" guarantee.

rpupkin wrote:

jjcorvino wrote:

beforethelaw wrote:In case anyone stumbles onto this thread in the future wondering about this particular stipulation, GSU has since clarified to me that they will not take away the money under any circumstances. They have a limited number of these in-state tuition vouchers, and if they need to offer more than had been anticipated to an incoming 1L class they might take the voucher away from an upperclassman and replace it with a research position and equivalent discount. They may even increase the discount to make up for the fact that you'd now have to be doing research to maintain the scholarship.

I would ask that they put that in writing.

Good luck with that.

Actually, OP, here's what I would do: write the person with whom you spoke, summarizing what they told you. Frame it as "I just want to make sure I understood you correctly." Ask them to correct you if you're wrong about anything. If they don't correct you or don't respond, you've got an undisputed record of the conversation.

That's probably as close as you'll get to a "put it in writing" guarantee.

I actually already did this. But for anyone else in the same situation, you should definitely confirm with the admissions committee rather than relying on my experience.