Brandeis· Renewal Rules
Keeping Brandeis’s Merit Aid for Four Years
What the financial-aid office actually requires after freshman year: minimum GPA, credit-hour pace, and the cliffs that quietly downgrade families mid-degree.
At a glance
- Renewable tiers
- 5 of 5
- One-time tiers
- 0
- Tiers with published renewal terms
- 5
- Renewal risk profile
- low
Renewal risk profile
Brandeis's published renewal rules cluster around a 3.0 floor with no major-GPA gating, which is survivable for the typical freshman with steady study habits. The risk is non-renewal due to enrollment status (dropping below full-time), not GPA.
- Justice Brandeis Scholarship: See notes
- Stroum Family Waltham Scholarship: See notes
- Community College Transfer Scholarship: See notes
- Brandeis-Sponsored National Merit Scholarship: See notes
- Giumette Academic Achievement Award: See notes
Renewal terms by tier
Justice Brandeis Scholarship
Amount not publicly disclosed; described as 'the most prestigious scholarship offered by Brandeis'To keep it: Renewable for up to eight semesters of undergraduate enrollment.
Source: https://www.brandeis.edu/student-financial-services/financial-aid/scholarships/merit/index.html
Stroum Family Waltham Scholarship
Full tuitionTo keep it: Renewable for up to eight semesters.
Source: https://www.brandeis.edu/student-financial-services/financial-aid/scholarships/merit/index.html
Community College Transfer Scholarship
Full tuitionTo keep it: Renewable for up to eight semesters of remaining undergraduate enrollment.
Source: https://www.brandeis.edu/student-financial-services/financial-aid/scholarships/merit/index.html
Brandeis-Sponsored National Merit Scholarship
$500 per yearTo keep it: Renewable per NMSC terms.
Source: https://www.brandeis.edu/student-financial-services/financial-aid/scholarships/merit/index.html
Giumette Academic Achievement Award
$5,000 per semesterTo keep it: Awarded for junior and senior years; not available to first-year or sophomore students.
Source: https://www.brandeis.edu/student-financial-services/financial-aid/scholarships/merit/index.html
How families lose this aid
- Treating the Giumette Award as a first-year scholarship decision.
The Giumette pays $5,000/semester for junior and senior years and is awarded to enrolled Brandeis sophomores. It cannot factor into the original enrollment decision, only into junior/senior-year planning once already at Brandeis.
- Missing the CSS Profile for the Stroum Family Waltham Scholarship.
The Stroum (full-tuition for Waltham High School seniors) requires the CSS Profile alongside the admission application. Waltham residents who only file the FAFSA forfeit eligibility for one of Brandeis's most generous niche awards.
How Brandeis compares across our verified dataset
- 133 of 150 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
Brandeis is one of them. The cohort minority (17 schools) only awards one-year scholarships, which means the four-year value families assume on a brochure quote isn't guaranteed at every school.
- 50 of 150 verified schools publish a dedicated National Merit Finalist package.
Brandeis is one of them. NMF packages typically carry their own stacking and renewal carve-outs separate from the standard automatic merit ladder; confirm those before assuming the headline NMF value is final.
Sources used on this page
Every renewal claim is checked against Brandeis’s own published materials.