Large Vincentian Catholic private in Chicago whose four automatic academic scholarships — Presidential, Deans', DePaul Scholars', and St. Vincent DePaul — run $14,000 to $33,000 a year with no separate application, but Music and Theatre admits are excluded.
Verified May 20268 days ago· B2-2
Merit tiers11 automatic on stats
Last verifiedMay 2026Analyst B2-2
Rules that bite at DePaul
The trip wires we'd flag in a custom playbook. Each is derived from DePaul's own published policy, not generic advice.
renewalAcademic Scholarships (Presidential / Deans' / DePaul Scholars' / St. Vincent DePaul): renewal floor that quietly knocks awards out
Renewable for up to four consecutive years (12 quarters) of undergraduate study with good academic standing; must enroll full time each quarter and complete a minimum of 36 quarter hours across Fall, Winter, and Spring. A single rough term can end a four-year award here without warning if the GPA floor isn't met cumulatively.
displacementNo published displacement order
DePaul's policy doesn't specify whether outside scholarships hit loans, grants, or only the COA ceiling. Get a written aid-office answer before chasing private awards.
Common merit-aid mistakes at DePaul
DePaul states 'Students admitted to the School of Music or The Theatre School are not eligible for the academic scholarships listed below.' Those programs run their own talent-based aid through audition. A strong academic profile does not buy back the academic award if you enroll in Music or Theatre.
DePaul renews academic scholarships for up to 12 quarters only if you 'maintain good academic standing,' are 'enrolled full time each quarter,' and 'complete a minimum of 36 quarter hours for the Fall, Winter and Spring quarters.' Dropping below the full-time quarter pace can put the award at risk.
DePaul does not publish a stat-banded ladder mapping a GPA or test score to the Presidential vs. Deans' vs. Scholars' tier. Placement within the $14,000–$33,000 range is decided inside admission, so do not budget off an unofficial cutoff table.
DePaul's four automatic academic scholarships — $14,000 to $33,000 a year
DePaul packages its core merit aid as one of four automatic academic scholarships: the Presidential Scholarship, Deans' Scholarship, DePaul Scholars' Award, and St. Vincent DePaul Scholarship. DePaul tells applicants 'You're automatically considered for one of our four academic scholarships...when you apply to DePaul. You do not need to submit a separate application.' The published range is '$14,000 to $33,000' annually, and DePaul says freshman award packages can reach 'up to $38,400 annually' once other aid is layered in. DePaul does not publish a stat-banded GPA/test ladder mapping a number to a tier — placement is decided inside admission. Two structural rules to plan around: scholarships renew for up to 12 quarters of good academic standing with a 36-quarter-hour full-time pace, and 'Students admitted to the School of Music or The Theatre School are not eligible for the academic scholarships listed below.'
Students wanting a big-city Catholic university where the core academic award is automatic on the admission decision. Strong for liberal arts, business, and computing applicants; Music and Theatre School admits should look to those schools' own scholarships instead.
Cost of attendance$74,574 for 2025-2026Each bar is the full published cost for that scenario, sized against the highest figure so totals compare at a glance.
On-campus$74,574
$48K
$20K
Tuition & fees
Housing & food
Books
Travel
Personal
First-year resident (on-campus) standard-college budget (Business/Communication/Computing/Liberal Arts/Education/Science & Health, entering class 2025). Tuition & fees = $46,776 tuition + $900 comprehensive fee. Travel/Personal split from the official COA detail page (transportation $1,263, misc. personal $4,635). Sums exactly to published $74,574 on-campus budget.
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.
$14,000–$33,000 per year
Academic Scholarships (Presidential / Deans' / DePaul Scholars' / St. Vincent DePaul)
AutomaticRenewable
View requirements+
Eligibility
Awarded automatically as part of the admission decision — no separate application. DePaul does not publish GPA or test-score cutoffs mapping to a specific tier. Students admitted to the School of Music or The Theatre School are not eligible for these academic scholarships.
Renewal terms
Renewable for up to four consecutive years (12 quarters) of undergraduate study with good academic standing; must enroll full time each quarter and complete a minimum of 36 quarter hours across Fall, Winter, and Spring.
DePaul requires students to report all outside scholarships and other external resources, and those resources are factored into eligibility for federal, state, and institutional aid — including tuition-restricted and need-based aid. DePaul's public compliance page does not publish a fixed order of reduction (loans first vs. institutional aid first), so families should confirm whether an outside award offsets institutional aid before counting on stacking.
DePaul's 'Complying with Terms & Conditions' page states outside resources 'will be factored into your eligibility for federal, state, and institutional aid, including tuition-restricted or need-based aid' and that adjustments are made if necessary, but it does not state whether loans/work-study are reduced before institutional aid. Confirm the reduction order with the Office of Financial Aid.
Named awards that don’t always surface on the main financial aid page. Each one has its own eligibility rules.
AmountMerit award packages up to $100,000 over four yearsEligibilityStudents who earn a 3.75 GPA or higher at the point of admission. Boosts the academic award package for high-GPA admits.
Do I have to apply separately for DePaul's academic scholarships?
No. DePaul says 'You're automatically considered for one of our four academic scholarships...when you apply to DePaul. You do not need to submit a separate application.' The four are the Presidential, Deans', DePaul Scholars', and St. Vincent DePaul scholarships.
How much is DePaul's academic merit aid?
DePaul publishes an annual range of '$14,000 to $33,000' for the four academic scholarships, and says freshman award packages can reach 'up to $38,400 annually' once other aid is included. It does not publish a GPA-to-dollar grid.
What keeps the academic scholarship for four years?
DePaul renews academic scholarships 'for up to four consecutive years (12 quarters) of undergraduate study if you maintain good academic standing,' provided you stay enrolled full time each quarter and complete at least 36 quarter hours across Fall, Winter, and Spring.
Are Music and Theatre applicants eligible?
No. DePaul states that 'Students admitted to the School of Music or The Theatre School are not eligible for the academic scholarships.' Those schools award their own performance/talent-based scholarships through audition.
Will an outside scholarship reduce my DePaul aid?
It can. DePaul requires you to report outside resources, which 'will be factored into your eligibility for federal, state, and institutional aid, including tuition-restricted or need-based aid.' The public page does not state whether loans are cut before institutional aid, so confirm the reduction order with the financial aid office.
How DePaul compares across our verified dataset
44 of 203 verified schools in our dataset use unclear or unpublished displacement.
DePaul is in a recognizable cluster (44 schools share this category). That framing matters when comparing peer schools that may publish the policy differently or not at all.
44 of 203 verified schools publish no clear displacement order.
DePaul is one of them. The right move is the aid-office email script below, not a guess.
178 of 203 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
DePaul is one of them. The cohort minority (25 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 DePaul’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.
