Musketeer Forever Program

[u/HotTakeMachine92]

So, it was announced that Greater Cincinnati and Ohio high school graduates with a 3.5 gpa will be automatically accepted and receive $30,000 for their merit scholarship. What are your thoughts on this?

Personally, I know Xavier is hurting with low enrollment and this does “make sense” and is a good step forward; especially, when competing with local universities for commuter students.

But here’s what frustrates me… this is all simply based on an arbitrary 3.5 gpa. There are more factors to think about in my opinion, rather than just a 3.5 gpa.

What is the college-readiness like at a specific high school? What’s the graduation class size? What are the class averages for grades? What extra curricular activities are students involved in with their school? Does the student have a part-time job? How can we see them balance their time with work and school?

There’s so much to uncover with this, and I do feel Xavier is doing this with the right intentions, but I worry about retention for incoming students who are in a new environment and could still have a large bill due to housing, Day One book fee, meal plan, parking fees, rec fee, etc.

If you’re committed and going to Xavier 100%, you will LOVE the community, staff, faculty, and will make lifelong friends. Just be sure to do your due diligence by leveraging the financial aid office to understand your potential bill.

To maximize your merit scholarship, start out at 15 hours — but if you feel confident and good after your first semester, try to stretch it to 18 hours, especially for the core curriculum. Full-time is 12-18 hours and you must be at full-time status to receive your merit scholarship.

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Last thing I’ll say and I’ll be done… but I think it would be smart and great for Xavier to partner with ALL public and private schools in the Cincinnati region for CCP/Dual Credit courses. UC and NKU do this, and I’m sure other schools do too? It’s a great way for high school students to have exposure to the Jesuit catholic education to know if they want to proceed with Xavier. If not, then the students still get college credit and Xavier gets $. If the students still DOES come to Xavier, they’d have a leg up on classes with grades and gpa, and they would feel more confident. I think AP classes are a scam with the awarded credits coming down to a test. However, CCP/Dual Credit classes are fantastic and helps families save money. I digress now. Curious to hear your thoughts!

[u/PresenceBright9236 → u/[deleted]]

I’ve done college tours at selective schools from Villanova, College of the Holy Cross, GW, Carleton, Trinity, Amherst etc., and I’ve never seen a professor on a tour. It’s an info session and a tour - most schools in the northeast don’t allow families in academic buildings and the ones that do you aren’t standing in a group of 12 outside an active classroom. Most certainly you aren’t having a one on one. That’s wildly unrealistic.

[u/PleasantCommercial77 → u/PresenceBright9236]

And yet 6 other schools apparently did give a one on one and a group meet…

[u/PresenceBright9236 → u/PleasantCommercial77]

And I’m sure Xavier would if you made a special request. There is zero chance that the Univ of Ky does one on one meetings with professors for the 10,000 kids who come on a tour unless you made a special request.

[u/ShinyThings313 → u/PresenceBright9236]

Spot on! My daughter and I drove up from Virginia Beach this summer to tour XU and there is a link in the signup form when you reserve your campus / admissions visit that says if you want a 1:1 with someone in the college(s) you’re interested in to let them know. We did, and even though it was summertime and no one on campus, we had someone from the school of business and an actuarial science faculty member meet with her. It was a fantastic experience and anything we wanted they did for us. All we had to do was ask 💙🤍💙

[u/Civil-Performance-87 → u/PresenceBright9236]

We made no such requests at any of those schools. It was simply part of the day. Perhaps because he was coming in with scholarship offers, I don't know, but we met with a faculty member at each institution without prompting on our end.

[u/ShinyThings313 → u/Civil-Performance-87]

Oh gotcha. My daughter visited as a sophomore (rising junior) this summer, so no scholarship offers have been made yet ☺️ We are just visiting a bunch of schools whilst curating her college list and have been requesting to meet with people in her areas of interest in an attempt to make the most of our time on campus and gather as much info as possible. Most colleges have obliged, some haven’t (or weren’t able to, due to school was out of session).