Automatic Academic Scholarships For Freshmen

There isn't a parent on earth who hasn't thought about their children's future - especially their academic education and forthcoming careers. The stress begins slowly crushing parental hearts once high school commences and their children progress through each year. The question which burns is, "How am I going to finance college?" That's why today, we bring you information about easy academic scholarships for freshmen or first-year students.

As you well know, parents (and students) aren't only concerned about the initial tuition costs; they also anticipate the ongoing expense that student loans bring to the picture.

There is hope for some help with the costs of college, however. Many colleges and universities offer automatic academic scholarships for freshmen!

Specifically, schools seek students with high SAT or ACT scores combined with good, unweighted GPAs. The upside of these automatic scholarships is that students can avoid extra labor; aka, the detailed application process and information exchange many school-based or private scholarships require. To make it even easier, college counselors at Empowerly can assist you in identifying available scholarship money!

In essence, SAT or ACT scores combined with the unweighted GPA   will determine whether freshman students receive automatic consideration. If you pass, you are in the running for available merit scholarship money or automatic scholarship money right off the bat. For those with automatic consideration for finite funds, consider personally contacting an admissions representative at the specific school in order to further your chances.

SAT or ACT score scholarship amounts depend upon the specific college or university making the offer. Overall, scores per each area (reading, writing, and math) range from 200-800, with 800 being the highest possible per area and 2400 the highest possible score. Many colleges and universities use only the comprehensive reading and math scores from the SAT, making the writing score unnecessary.

On the SAT, students receive one point for each correct answer and are deducted a quarter point for each incorrect or blank answer. Overall, those who write and administer the SAT exam aim for the average test result to fall at approximately 500 points each for reading, math, and writing, or 1500 points total. Scores falling from 1801-2400 are considered to be among the best results for the reading, writing, and math combination, while 1400-1600 are considered the best for colleges and universities requiring only the reading/math combination.

On the ACT there are four sections, reading, writing, math, and science. Correct answers garner points. Nothing is deducted if an answer is wrong or left blank. The four area scores are averaged together and rounded up to the nearest whole number to attain the total test score (which ranges between 1-36).

There are differences between the ACT and SAT, but nothing defines which is better to take. Each individual student must examine the differences and determine which one will result in the best score for himself/herself.

Though the following is not an exhaustive list, the information will provide students with the requirements for a number of colleges and universities and give an idea of the score and GPA requirements. Students must thoroughly investigate the specific schools they are interested in.

In general, the money amount shown can extend per year for four years. Also, some schools have multiple variations. These are either listed in this table or are detailed in additional tables further on in the article. "See chart below" notes which schools have their own specific tables.

 *The school noted requires SAT scores based on comprehensive reading and math combined results. The writing score is not used.

**See charts for specific schools as noted in above table