5 ms·

Show HN: Calculate full scholarships available based on your grades

36 points by rhc2104 13y ago

dfc 13y ago
Are the forums from collegeconfidential.com a good/trust-worthy source of data? I am not very familiar with the site but it seems like anecdata at best. Looking at some of the postings it seems like there is disagreement over the validity of the figures some people have provided.
- rhc2104 13y ago
  I double checked all of the listings myself, and only included scholarships that covered full tuition or more.
  - dfc 13y ago
    I would definitely put that somewhere on the site instead of the link to cc.com that leaves people wondering how legitimate your numbers are.
jrockway 13y ago
Pretty abysmal list, even with a 4.0 GPA and perfect scores on every exam.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- ics 13y ago
  Starting at 3.5/700/700/700 and working my way up to 4.0/800/800/800 only added three or four schools. Changing states didn't make a difference, but adding an ACT score added just a couple more schools.
- rhc2104 13y ago
  At a minimum, it's a great way to make sure your "safety schools" are free.
- ubernostrum 13y ago
  Pretty abysmal idea, really. Granted I graduated over a decade ago, but I recall scholarships not generally being tied to either grades or test scores. Many public universities will grant automatic admission based on those (and a few years back I got to write a calculator that compared universities in a region based on their standards for that), but scholarships seemed to be very rarely awarded based solely on those factors. (during my own school search I went through multiple on-site scholarship-application programs, which typically involved analyzing my full high-school transcript, followed by on-site interviews and exams tailored specifically to the school)
  - itafroma 13y ago
    > Pretty abysmal idea, really. Please keep toxic comments like this as far away from Show HN as possible.
    - cloudwalking 13y ago
      Ubernostrum is referring to "scholarships available based on grades" as a bad idea, not the OP's link.
  - rhc2104 13y ago
    I agree that most merit scholarships have an additional competitive component, and that includes the more prestigious schools that offer merit scholarships. However, this tool is a good way of ensuring that you have free options (if you have the grades). Edit: Replying to ubernostrum's comment below: Based on the data given, I left out a few schools that required a particular school rank, and Utah State, which is a more complex case (http://www.usu.edu/admissions/scholarships/nonres-freshmen.cfm http://www.usu.edu/admissions/scholarships/nonres-freshmen.c...). I double checked the data, and while a few of the scholarships are first come first serve, none of the websites indicated that there was an additional competitive process involved. If I wanted to be more comprehensive, I would include National Merit status, and perhaps schools that are free to everyone. But as it is, I believe I have a first pass at "full scholarships that require certain grades and test scores but do not require any additional process."
jerrickhoang 13y ago
well this is quite upsetting
Evernoob 13y ago
The site wipes the content of the inputs if I submit without enough information. Since I'm not American and don't know what the score ranges should be, can you put a little tooltip or addendum to explain the test and what it's scored out of? I was interested in poking around to see if I would have scored scholarships anywhere in America if I input similar grades to what I achieved in Australia but the lack of usability made me quit.
- rhc2104 13y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. The site no longer wipes the inputs clean on a validation error. The SAT has three subtests with scores ranging from 200 to 800. Scores are multiples of 10. The ACT has a score from 1 to 36. You only need either an ACT or SAT score.
pattle 13y ago
I don't live in America so I haven't been through the school/college system here so I didn't know what either of the fields meant. Perhaps you could have some kind of tooltip telling you what to enter into each field (it took me about 5 attempt to get the form to submit because I kept entering wrong values). Although I guess the people using it will know what to enter but even so a little tooltip is always nice. Also when I failed the validation the values I entered disappeared which is a bit frustrating.
bryanbuckley 13y ago
Enlightening. Also, imo this explains why the University of Alabama has been attracting so many amazing people the past 6 years^. They implemented an automatic qualifying scholarship at least that many years ago (presidential) in addition to probably the best national merit scholarship in the country (free tuition, iPad, $1000 stipend per year, $2000 for summer research or study abroad, 1 year of free housing, not to mention your college will probably give you another scholarship) But then again this just shows automatic scholarships I guess. Otherwise other universities make more discretionary decisions. ^ bias, I went to school there in that time frame.

36 points by rhc2104 13y ago

dfc 13y ago

Are the forums from collegeconfidential.com a good/trust-worthy source of data? I am not very familiar with the site but it seems like anecdata at best. Looking at some of the postings it seems like there is disagreement over the validity of the figures some people have provided.

rhc2104 13y ago
I double checked all of the listings myself, and only included scholarships that covered full tuition or more.
- dfc 13y ago
  I would definitely put that somewhere on the site instead of the link to cc.com that leaves people wondering how legitimate your numbers are.

jrockway 13y ago

Pretty abysmal list, even with a 4.0 GPA and perfect scores on every exam.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
ics 13y ago
Starting at 3.5/700/700/700 and working my way up to 4.0/800/800/800 only added three or four schools. Changing states didn't make a difference, but adding an ACT score added just a couple more schools.
rhc2104 13y ago
At a minimum, it's a great way to make sure your "safety schools" are free.
ubernostrum 13y ago
Pretty abysmal idea, really. Granted I graduated over a decade ago, but I recall scholarships not generally being tied to either grades or test scores. Many public universities will grant automatic admission based on those (and a few years back I got to write a calculator that compared universities in a region based on their standards for that), but scholarships seemed to be very rarely awarded based solely on those factors. (during my own school search I went through multiple on-site scholarship-application programs, which typically involved analyzing my full high-school transcript, followed by on-site interviews and exams tailored specifically to the school)
- itafroma 13y ago
  > Pretty abysmal idea, really. Please keep toxic comments like this as far away from Show HN as possible.
  - cloudwalking 13y ago
    Ubernostrum is referring to "scholarships available based on grades" as a bad idea, not the OP's link.
- rhc2104 13y ago
  I agree that most merit scholarships have an additional competitive component, and that includes the more prestigious schools that offer merit scholarships. However, this tool is a good way of ensuring that you have free options (if you have the grades). Edit: Replying to ubernostrum's comment below: Based on the data given, I left out a few schools that required a particular school rank, and Utah State, which is a more complex case (http://www.usu.edu/admissions/scholarships/nonres-freshmen.cfm http://www.usu.edu/admissions/scholarships/nonres-freshmen.c...). I double checked the data, and while a few of the scholarships are first come first serve, none of the websites indicated that there was an additional competitive process involved. If I wanted to be more comprehensive, I would include National Merit status, and perhaps schools that are free to everyone. But as it is, I believe I have a first pass at "full scholarships that require certain grades and test scores but do not require any additional process."

jerrickhoang 13y ago

well this is quite upsetting

Evernoob 13y ago

The site wipes the content of the inputs if I submit without enough information. Since I'm not American and don't know what the score ranges should be, can you put a little tooltip or addendum to explain the test and what it's scored out of? I was interested in poking around to see if I would have scored scholarships anywhere in America if I input similar grades to what I achieved in Australia but the lack of usability made me quit.

rhc2104 13y ago
Thanks for the feedback. The site no longer wipes the inputs clean on a validation error. The SAT has three subtests with scores ranging from 200 to 800. Scores are multiples of 10. The ACT has a score from 1 to 36. You only need either an ACT or SAT score.

pattle 13y ago

I don't live in America so I haven't been through the school/college system here so I didn't know what either of the fields meant. Perhaps you could have some kind of tooltip telling you what to enter into each field (it took me about 5 attempt to get the form to submit because I kept entering wrong values). Although I guess the people using it will know what to enter but even so a little tooltip is always nice. Also when I failed the validation the values I entered disappeared which is a bit frustrating.

bryanbuckley 13y ago

Enlightening. Also, imo this explains why the University of Alabama has been attracting so many amazing people the past 6 years^. They implemented an automatic qualifying scholarship at least that many years ago (presidential) in addition to probably the best national merit scholarship in the country (free tuition, iPad, $1000 stipend per year, $2000 for summer research or study abroad, 1 year of free housing, not to mention your college will probably give you another scholarship) But then again this just shows automatic scholarships I guess. Otherwise other universities make more discretionary decisions. ^ bias, I went to school there in that time frame.