Some U of A applicants found merit-aid info to be vague, confusing

Christopher Hsieh, a college and career counselor at Catalina Foothills High School, said UA’s vagueness about how it would divide merit-aid awards among individual student applications for the fall 2026 semester was frustrating.

“And to this day, we don’t necessarily know how they did it,” he said. “But we’re on the assumption that if we continue to help our students maximize their essays, their activities, their rigor, they can hopefully get as much money as possible.”

Some parents shared anecdotes suggesting a drop in merit-based aid for students with certain GPAs compared to past years.

Dan Shapiro, who has one child who applied to the UA in previous years and one who applied this year, said the former received a full scholarship with a 3.8 grade point average, but the latter received no merit with a 3.6 GPA.

This year, the UA changed its admissions model from rolling admissions to early action. Previously, colleges reviewed applications as they received them. This year, the UA first evaluated applications that came in by the early action deadline of Nov. 1 and gave out decisions by Jan. 15, after which it went back to reviewing more applications in the following months.

The UA also judged applications by a “holistic review” process this year, in which the UA considered students' experiences, achievements and aspirations as well as GPAs, different than in past years.

Hsieh told the Arizona Daily Star that the new holistic review made a “massive difference” to the amount of merit aid students got.

He said he heard disappointment from high school students and their families about the amount of financial aid they received.

This year, Hsieh said students with a 3.9 or 4.0 GPA mostly received the maximum award of $12,000, and students with a core GPA from 3.2 to 3.9 were given between $2,000 to $10,000.

According to information on the Wildcat Tuition Award, an undergraduate tuition scholarship offered annually to Arizona resident high school graduates, the 2025-26 year showed the scholarship range to be between $2,000 and $11,000 per academic year.

The 2026-27 academic year’s scholarship amounts weren’t listed on the UA website.

Shapiro said his son, who applied to the UA before the early action deadline of Nov. 1, “was accepted with a 3.6 (GPA) but received no merit. In years past, when our oldest was accepted, (students with) 3.8 and above received a ‘full ride’ and there were two other categories below that where they would have received some type of merit per semester as long as they took the needed units to keep up with the scholarship and a 3.0 GPA.”

Shapiro said there was no mention of how a student could receive a merit scholarship this year, as there was in years past. In the past, there were guidelines on exactly how much merit you would earn if you fell within a certain GPA, but nothing was publicized about that this year, he said.

“The biggest difference is what I’ll call the ‘transparency’ on how merit scholarship was awarded,” Shapiro said. “For my oldest, it was strictly by GPA and there were posted levels. For my youngest, their ‘holistic’ approach doesn’t detail how an amount is calculated. My oldest had a 4.0 and received 100% tuition coverage. My youngest applied with a 3.6 and got nothing. Under the old system 3.6 would have had a decent tuition coverage.”

UA Provost Prelock, who declined an interview with the Star but wrote an op-ed on admissions for the paper in April, said the university is increasing its financial support for Arizona applicants by raising need-based aid.

The UA is “prioritizing access” as approximately 41% of admitted students from the Tucson-area unified school districts are first-generation and approximately 68% were offered merit aid, she added.

Kristina Wong Davis, the vice president for enrollment management and dean of admission, said the in-state admitted students’ pool for Pell Grants — which are federal, need-based financial aid from the U.S. Department of Education for undergraduate students — had an eligibility rate of 37%. This is higher than last year’s eligibility rate, Davis said.