The starting point
Every admitted full-time first-year student gets the automatic Main Street Scholarship ($20,000/yr, minimum $80,000 over four years), and a GPA-based Capital Merit award stacks on top of it — $2,000-$8,000/yr — pushing the combined automatic merit to $22,000-$28,000/yr.
More than one award path. Some awards use published academic thresholds. Others have different selection criteria. A score chart does not describe every award at this school.
Awards to discuss
First 3 of 11 recorded awards, in chapter display order. This is a selection, not a ranking. Read the full chapter for all awards. Amounts retain the original units and conditions; confirm the entering year with the school.
The Main Street Scholarship
$20,000 per year (minimum $80,000 over four years) · Published award terms
Recorded as automatic on academic criteria; all conditions apply.
Eligibility: All accepted, full-time, incoming undergraduate students entering their first year of college, including transfer and international students working on their first college degree. Students who started prior to Fall 2022 are not eligible. No separate scholarship application — the admission application serves as the scholarship application.
Renewal: Awarded annually and potentially renewable for up to eight semesters. Renewable for students maintaining Satisfactory Academic Progress with a minimum 2.0 cumulative GPA.
Other terms: The automatic base award for every admit. The Capital Merit Scholarship (GPA grid below) stacks on top of this. Comet Community Award ($1,000 toward housing/meal costs) is available to residential students.
https://www.capital.edu/admission-aid/office-of-financial-aid/the-main-street-scholarship/
Capital Merit Scholarship — 1830 Award (3.0-3.19 GPA)
$2,000 per year (stacks with Main Street for $22,000/yr) · Published award terms
Recorded as automatic on academic criteria; all conditions apply.
GPA: 3.0-3.19 high school GPA
Eligibility: Automatically determined by high school GPA; no separate application.
Renewal: Renewable for students maintaining Satisfactory Academic Progress with a minimum 2.0 cumulative grade point average and any other award-specific requirements.
Other terms: The Capital Merit Scholarship is a stackable award added to the Main Street Scholarship. The '1830 Award' is the lowest tier of the five-tier GPA grid.
https://www.capital.edu/admission-aid/first-year-students/first-year-student-scholarships/
Capital Merit Scholarship — Dean's Award (3.2-3.49 GPA)
$4,000 per year (stacks with Main Street for $24,000/yr) · Published award terms
Recorded as automatic on academic criteria; all conditions apply.
GPA: 3.2-3.49 high school GPA
Eligibility: Automatically determined by high school GPA; no separate application.
Renewal: Renewable for students maintaining Satisfactory Academic Progress with a minimum 2.0 cumulative grade point average.
Other terms: Second tier of the Capital Merit Scholarship grid; stacks on the Main Street Scholarship.
https://www.capital.edu/admission-aid/first-year-students/first-year-student-scholarships/
Ask before you decide
- Which entering-year policy and residency category apply to us? What are the admission and scholarship deadlines?
- What grades and credits are required to renew, and for how many terms?
- How would other school awards or outside scholarships change the offer?
Recorded stacking policy: Capital's GPA-based Capital Merit Scholarship explicitly stacks on top of the automatic Main Street Scholarship (the published grid sums the two, e.g., $8,000 President's Award + $20,000 Main Street = $28,000/yr). No published rule was found describing how third-party OUTSIDE scholarships displace Capital institutional aid for traditional undergraduates; the only displacement-style language found ('institutional scholarships cannot exceed the direct cost of tuition') appears on the Law School site, not the traditional-undergraduate pages.
Our unanswered questions / Family notes
