The Academic Competitiveness Grant (hereafter referred to as ACG) and the National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent (SMART) Grant Programs are designed to both reward academic achievement and encourage the pursuit of degrees in math and sciences among low-income and the most needy students. Students who qualify for these programs must be Pell-eligible students (the Pell is the Federal grant program which is designed to provide aid to the students with the lowest income / highest need) and must be U.S. Citizens (permanent residents are not eligible for these programs).

Under the ACG, the student must demonstrate that she has pursued a high school program of academic rigor (more about that later) and, for Sophomores, that she has maintained a 3.0 (on a 4.0 scale) during her Freshman year. The amount of the award will be $750 for Freshmen and $1300 for Sophomores.

Juniors and Seniors are eligible for SMART grants. These grants provide $4000 annually to students studying in eligible majors (a list can be found on the government's web page). These students must also be U.S. Citizens, Pell eligible, and have a least a 3.0 cumulative GPA (on a 4.0 scale).

So, what does this mean for students at MIT? Well, if you have a Pell Grant (and you would know this from your financial aid award, and because you have an MIT Pell Matching Grant, and you are a U.S. Citizen) then you may be receiving one of these awards.

For Freshmen and Sophomores, we are in the process of reviewing high school transcripts to determine if your program met the definition of academic rigor. We are working with the Admissions office to determine this. The government has defined academic rigor very specifically, but most of our students will qualify under one of the following two options:

1. having taken at least two Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) courses, and received passing grades on the exams (a 3 or higher on the AP exams and/or a 4 or higher on the IB exams); or
2. having taken a combination of high school courses determined by the Secretary of Education to be rigorous (defined as including four years of English, three years of Math [including Algebra I, Algebra II and a higher level course such as Geometry, Pre-calculus, or Data Analysis and Statistics], three years of lab science including biology, chemistry, and physics [one of these courses can be substituted with a higher level course], three years of social studies, and two years of a language other than English.

We are also in the process of working on converting GPAs, which at MIT are measured under a 5.0 basis, to a 4.0 basis, so that we can determine the eligibility of Sophomores.

For Juniors and Seniors, we are looking at the CIP codes to translate our major codes to the CIP codes to determine which programs are eligible. Once we have this, we will use the GPAs to determine eligibility of students.

These awards will, we hope, reduce the Self-Help (student employment and student loans) and/or Student Contribution (summer earnings expectation) of eligible students. In this way, the money which students receive under these programs will be applied to the maximum benefit of students.

With the work ahead of us, we hope to have awards made by mid-August, but stay tuned.

Questions? Comments?