Scholarships/Grants

devinejay

I'm currently in sixth year, and in a desperate dash to find some motivation to study I've been looking at what kind of scholarships are available. (while avoiding study, fancy that!)

I know it's usually above the 550 threshold that you get grants, but the course that interests me the most is "Physics and Chemistry of Advanced Materials" The points are around 355 which seems to be fairly low relative to the rest of the Science/Engineering courses. Any chance this relates to a lower threshold for grants? Or is it standard across the board?

Anyone who has any thoughts or experience?

Thanks,

P.S. I've tried asking the school guidance councilor and researching this myself but no luck. (She's a bit of a joke and maybe I am too!!!)

xeduCat

Just to ensure that you get accurate advice from your teacher or otherwise, make sure you don't get mixed up between grants (which are normally awarded on the basis of need) and scholarships or awards (which can be need-based or, quite frequently, merit-based).

I presume the thing you're thinking about here is the 'entrance exhibition' scholarship or award that TCD offers - if so, there's no variation there at all and the benchmark is 545 points or more - it doesn't change from year to year and it doesn't relate to the course or the entry points in the slightest. The only difference is for students from outside the Leaving Cert system where it starts to get more complicated. There is no cap on the number of awards in any given year.

The points for PCAM (a very good course, think there might be posters here who are doing it), like any other points, are not set in advance nor connected with any financial factor. The points will be set based on the number of places available (mostly TCD's call) and the number of applicants (varies every year) and the quality of their results (which isn't known until you and the rest of them go in and do the exams!).

Of course it's perfectly normal for students to get high points, get an entrance exhibition while entering a course that has a points requirement much lower. The publishing points are just a statement of the points of the last person to quality for a course - so if there are ten places on a course and the 10th best applicant for that course gets 350 points, then 350 points if the cutoff (cause obviously the best, 2nd best, .... , 10th best all got over 350 and everyone else got below). It doesn't mean that PCAM is any more or less difficult than other course.

Finally, I wouldn't get too excited about the entrance exhibition - it's a small bit of €€€ in the form of book tokens and a nice reception and photograph, but you won't be going on mad holidays with it.

devinejay

Thanks!

It's scarily refreshing to hear from someone who actually knows what they are on about as apposed to the "eh, I'll look it up" response I got at school.

You pretty much confirmed my suspicions but it's nice to know for sure.

And don't worry, the prospect of awards won't be influencing my final decision or anything, but it's nice to know and it might offer a feasible goal!

Just one last thing, the blurb for the course mentioned "bursaries of up to 1250euro available" is that the the same thing you're talking about?

xeduCat

(I used to be a full time student rep so we got phone calls about this sort of thing quite frequently, and it's hard to forget once you've done it 50 times!)

Anyway, do you mean these bursaries?

http://www.tcd.ie/Physics/news/Scholarships_Bursaries/IoPBursaries.php

If so, then they are limited (in the sense that there are qualifying criteria but also in the sense that there is only a certain number of bursaries). Because they are specific to a particular School within TCD, it might be a good idea to check with that school to get an idea on what happened with their award this year.

And this is separate to the College-wide system of rewarding students who get 545+ - I just assumed that was what you meant by your reference to the around-550-mark which a lot of applicants are told about by schools. It's of course possible to get more than one award of this sort

Also, just FYI and for general - you don't have to apply for the entrance exhibition (you just get it if your points are high enough), but other awards (like the Physics bursary at the link above, like the special one for Kerry students, etc) you may need to do a separate application form so watch out for that.

And of course none of this overlaps with the maintenance grant scheme which is managed by local authorities/VECs and not by TCD....

devinejay

Fair enough!

It's good to know the ins and outs of it all, cheers!