I have a talented pupil at my School, who wants to go on to University.
This pupil has an academic average grade just below A (and an international chess rating).
However there will need to be pretty much a full scholarship.
What University Scholarships can Dopers suggest?
Any Universities with a chess interest?
Does it matter that the pupil is ‘foreign’?
I found Boston to have an world-class set-up, but they (reasonably enough) wanted an A+ average.
Thanks for your help!
If he is “foreign” or a “minority”, how well did the student did on standarized tests? Can the student better the average during the next semester, or this spring semester?(Can the GPA get to be 3.0 or more?) There are some scholarships available to people who score high on the SAT’s or similar tests, and have a minimum of 3.0 GPA. It also depends on the university. This next fall I will most likely be going to UFL. This is thanks to the scholarship they offered. UFL was not the only university in Florida to offer me a complete or almost complete scholarship(plus some offers, like exemption of out of state tuition). So I will suggest to do some research, since it seems to be that Florida universities(at least the public ones) offer scholarships to students that ace the SAT’s.
I should of course have said that the School, the pupil and I are all in the UK.
So we don’t have SATs (presumably I could arrange for a postal test?), and will be applying via e-mail.
I found Boston U. to be very helpful - I’m really looking for advice on which Universities to research.
Here’s a web page that lists four places in the U.S. that offer chess scholarships:
http://www.kirshnerisms.com/GomesChess/Scholarships.html
The four colleges are the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Manhattan Community College; the University of Texas, Dallas; and Kenyon College. It’s not impossible that there are a few other places, but there certainly aren’t many.
Why would you want to send a student from the U.K. to college in the U.S. on a chess scholarship? As I understand it, the quality of chess playing isn’t much better or worse in the U.S. than in the U.K. Do you think that it’s going to be like football or basketball, where you mostly have to play college ball to work yourself up to the quality of professional ball? Why not let him go to university in the U.K., where tuition is more or less free, and let him improve his chess playing there?
You can take the S.A.T. in the U.K. They always give the tests at a few centers in the U.K. for American students who happen to be living in the U.K. during their last year of high school.
First, thanks for the info! 
Secondly, it’s true that the UK is probably as good for chess as the US.
Lastly I should have explained (where have you heard that before? :o ) that my pupil is not English. Foreign students in the UK now pay about $15,000 a year to go to University.
Have you considered Canada? Tuition costs there are, per some articles I’ve read, substantially less than in the US, for similar quality of education. Immigration hassles for a UK citizen might be less of an issue, as well.
Boston University, since you mentioned it, is known locally for a high percentage of European and other international students, but certainly not for its low costs. Their reputation, fairly or not, is for attracting well-off students with more of an interest in nonstop partying in one of the world’s great college towns than in academic achievement.
SAT scores aren’t necessarily required by US schools, and some are dropping the requirement as being inadequately predictive of performance. If there’s a UK equivalent (O-levels, or whatever they’re called?), that may be acceptable instead.
I mentioned the SAT’s because even though they don’t predict performance, some universities offer scholarships based on the score that you get on them (along with your GPA).
Also, $15000 sounds like a good price for going to the university in the UK, have you considered that if the student moves to the US, he may also have to pay travel fees, food, and housing? Unless the student moves far away from his home in UK, he may have the chance to live at home, or nearer his family and thus save some expenses.
Quite a few American colleges would be delighted to have students from England; it makes them look good if they have a students from a variety of countries.
Your pupil should get information on colleges in the US (there are several college guides for sale at Amazon.com), and can check out the interesting ones via the Internet. Then contact the admissions department and see what needs to be done (SATs may not be required).
As far as scholarships are concerned, schools subsidize most students’ tuition by some grant or other form of aid. You should contact the financial aid office of whatever schools you’re interested in and see what they might be able to do.
What country does your student come from? What prevents him from going back there for university? Knowing that would tell us something about whether a college in the U.S. would be willing to offer him a scholarship.
You wrote:
> I found Boston to have an world-class set-up, but they
> (reasonably enough) wanted an A+ average.
It took me a while to parse this sentence, and I realize it’s because you don’t understand how confusing the names of universities in the U.S can be. I initially assumed that you meant that that there are a group of colleges in the Boston area that have good chess teams. It’s not always a good idea to refer to a university by a one-word name. There’s a place called Boston University. There’s a completely different place called Boston College. There are many other colleges around Boston. That’s why I carefully referred to University of Maryland, Baltimore County and University of Texas, Dallas. There are other University of Marylands and other University of Texases (and many other universities in Maryland and Texas).
I’m just trying all possibilities. The pupil may well finish up going home, but I’ve got people working on that (and others e.g. Israel).
Yes, good point. (I went to University College, London, England. As far as I know, there’s more than one University College, but there isn’t a London University.)