Hacker News Reader

Comment by ubernostrum | Hacker News Reader

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)

View on HN

> Pretty abysmal idea, really.

Please keep toxic comments like this as far away from Show HN as possible.

Ubernostrum is referring to "scholarships available based on grades" as a bad idea, not the OP's link.

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.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."

This tool hides the complexity of the process.

Like I said, I once was tasked to write an admissions calculator. This was in 2006, and was for the (at the time) member schools of the Big 12 Conference:

* Texas, Texas Tech and Texas A&M looked only at class rank, with automatic admission to the top 10 percent.

* But Baylor looked only at SAT or ACT score.

* Nebraska would admit based on a flat minimum in any of class rank, ACT score or SAT score.

* Colorado had a flat minimum to satisfy in any of class rank, ACT score, SAT score or GPA.

* Kansas and Kansas State could look at either SAT score or ACT score, or a combination of GPA and class rank.

* Oklahoma and Oklahoma State would use either a combination of GPA and class rank, or an ACT score plus a GPA and class rank, or an SAT score plus a GPA and class rank.

* Iowa State University had automatic admission based on any of six possible combinations of class rank, GPA, SAT score and ACT score.

* The University of Missouri had eight possible combinations.

Assembling the calculator for that required getting information from each of the 12 universities regarding their official admissions standards.

This site tries to calculate automatic scholarship awards based on unofficial sources. Please forgive me if I have concerns over whether the data they have is correct or they've been able to capture the full range of possible options (or whether there really are consistent automatic scholarship-award tiers in the first place).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com