DRAFT: Chestnut Hill publishes a fully automatic, GPA-only merit grid ($12,000–$24,000/yr) with no test scores required and an award tier for every GPA band — even below 2.5 — plus stackable legacy and Catholic-high-school awards.
Verified Jun 20264 days ago· COWORK
Merit tiers72 automatic on stats
Last verifiedJun 2026Analyst COWORK
Rules that bite at Chestnut Hill
The trip wires we'd flag in a custom playbook. Each is derived from Chestnut Hill's own published policy, not generic advice.
displacementDifferent aid types are displaced differently
Chestnut Hill treats loans, work-study, and institutional grant under different rules. The same $5,000 outside award can land against any of them depending on category.
Common merit-aid mistakes at Chestnut Hill
CHC policy: outside grants/scholarships plus institutional grant funding 'can never result in a credit balance' — if they would, 'the student's institutional funding will be reduced and no refund will be credited.' Outside money can displace CHC aid once your account would go into credit.
The Financial Aid Policies page states federal regulations require all financial resources to fit within the student's COA; overawards are resolved by reducing aid, and any resulting balance is the student's responsibility.
The types-of-aid page states 'Students must be full-time to receive scholarships and grants from CHC.'
Students 'are eligible to receive institutional funding for a maximum of four years (8 semesters).'
The page says Legacy of Service 'is a stackable scholarship with the exception of students in IDHP' — Honors students cannot add it.
The page warns: 'If these requirements are not met the athletic grant may be rescinded. Should this happen, the rescinded athletic grants may not be replaced by other grants.'
Who this school is for
DRAFT: Students who want guaranteed, application-free merit money based purely on high-school GPA — including B/C students, since even a sub-2.5 GPA earns $12,000/yr; Catholic-high-school grads and alumni-family students can stack extra awards on top.
Institutional merit aid tiers
Every tier below is sourced to the school’s own published financial aid pages. Renewal terms apply only if the student maintains the stated GPA.
Must be full-time; GPA is based on a 4.0 sliding scale; no additional application required
Renewal terms
These awards are renewable as long as you remain in good academic standing; institutional funding limited to a maximum of four years (8 semesters).
Notes
Awarded by the Admissions Office at admission. Grid bands skip 2.90-2.99 as published (Rise Award 2.5-2.89, Promise Award 2.49 and below) — gap reproduced exactly as on the page.
Up to 25 first-year students interested in pursuing a major and/or career in STEM
Notes
Includes book stipend and support services. A separate program page lists eligibility criteria (min cumulative GPA 2.5, FAFSA financial-aid qualification, STEM major) — see Section C.
Outside scholarships plus institutional grant aid can never produce a refundable credit balance — if they would, CHC reduces the student's institutional funding instead. Federal overaward rules cap all aid at cost of attendance. Some named awards (Alumni Legacy, Legacy of Service) are explicitly stackable, but Legacy of Service does not stack with IDHP.
The Financial Aid Policies page states institutional funding is reduced when outside grants/scholarships plus institutional grants would create a credit balance, and that students may never receive refunds from institutional funds. It also restates the federal COA overaward rule. The types-of-aid page labels specific awards 'stackable'.
Named awards that don’t always surface on the main financial aid page. Each one has its own eligibility rules.
Amount$250-$21,950 per year depending on fundEligibilityRecipients determined by the Admissions Office on the basis of academic excellence, leadership, community involvement and other special talents; no additional application required.
Full published list ranges from the Sister Patrick Flood Scholarship ($250) to the Keohane-McDermott-Bellwoar Scholarship ($21,950).
AmountAmount not publishedEligibilityPer the program application page found in search: requires at least a 3.0 GPA; provides 'last dollar' scholarship support for four years (application form page; details not fully verified — see Section C).
Do I need a separate application for Chestnut Hill's merit scholarships?
No. The Admissions Office awards them automatically based on academic achievement: 'no additional application is required to apply for these awards.'
What is the scholarship deadline?
No separate merit-scholarship deadline is published — the matrix awards are automatic at admission. The only hard date on the aid pages is for Pennsylvania residents: PHEAA state-grant programs 'require that students submit their FAFSA before May 1st.'
How do I keep my scholarship each year?
Awards 'are renewable as long as you remain in good academic standing.' A specific renewal GPA for merit awards is not published; federal SAP minimums (1.65–2.00 GPA depending on credits, 67% completion) govern overall aid eligibility. Ask the aid office whether merit renewal uses a higher GPA than SAP.
Are test scores required for merit scholarships?
The published First-Year Scholarship Matrix is based on academic GPA only ('GPA is based on a 4.0 sliding scale'); no SAT/ACT cutoffs appear in the grid.
How Chestnut Hill compares across our verified dataset
86 of 751 verified schools in our dataset use mixed displacement.
Chestnut Hill is in the modest minority (86 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.
669 of 751 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
Chestnut Hill is one of them. The cohort minority (82 schools) only awards one-year scholarships, which means the four-year value families assume on a brochure quote isn't guaranteed at every school.
Sources used on this page
Every claim is checked against Chestnut Hill’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
