What GPA do I need to be considered?

A minimum 3.0 GPA (with some exceptions). Applicants must be matriculated; Macaulay Honors College students are excluded from this scholarship pool.

College of Staten Island· Renewal Rules

Keeping College of Staten Island’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.

Verified Jun 20264 days ago· CC

At a glance

Renewable tiers: 2 of 3
One-time tiers: 1
Tiers with published renewal terms: 2
Renewal risk profile: low

Renewal risk profile

College of Staten Island'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.

CSI Scholarship (single annual application — all institutional awards): See notes
Jeannette K. Watson Fellowship: See notes

Renewal terms by tier

CSI Scholarship (single annual application — all institutional awards)
Varies — amounts not published
Entry requirements: Minimum 3.0 GPA (some exceptions); matriculated students only; Macaulay Honors College students excluded GPA
To keep it: Renewal terms are not published on the scholarship pages. Most named awards are described as endowed funds where 'the available balance is awarded each year,' so amounts vary by fund and year.
Source: https://www.csi.cuny.edu/about-csi/president-leadership/administration/office-institutional-advancement-and-external-affairs/fellowships-scholarships
Jeannette K. Watson Fellowship
$7,500, $9,000 and $10,000 over three years, plus a $2,000 Discovery Fund
To keep it: Three-year fellowship; stipend escalates each year ($7,500 / $9,000 / $10,000) contingent on continued participation.
Source: https://www.csi.cuny.edu/about-csi/president-leadership/administration/office-institutional-advancement-and-external-affairs/fellowships-scholarships

How families lose this aid

Expecting an automatic, stats-based freshman merit scholarship.
CSI publishes no GPA/SAT merit grid that pays you automatically on admission. Every institutional scholarship runs through one faculty-reviewed CSI Scholarship application that also weighs community service and financial need.
Missing the single late-February scholarship deadline.
The CSI Scholarship application is due the last business day of February each year; the next cycle opens in October 2026. Miss it and you forfeit consideration for the entire pooled set of institutional awards for that year.
Treating CSI scholarships as pure merit.
Awards are scored on academic merit AND College/community service AND financial need together, so a high GPA alone does not guarantee an award.

Renewal questions families ask

What GPA do I need to be considered?: A minimum 3.0 GPA (with some exceptions). Applicants must be matriculated; Macaulay Honors College students are excluded from this scholarship pool.

How College of Staten Island compares across our verified dataset

669 of 751 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
College of Staten Island 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 renewal claim is checked against College of Staten Island’s own published materials.