PROMISE SCHOLARSHIP REQUIREMENTS INCREASED - Maintain Financial Stability Of Fund

(10/08/2003)
Attention students who want the PROMISE scholarship.

The requirements are going up, and will continue to increase.

State education officials voted yesterday to increase requirements for the ACT and SAT tests (soon to be replaced), effective immediately.

The minimum composite score on the ACT is still 21, students must now earn a minimum sub-score of 19 in each of the subject areas -reading, math, science and English. The minimum sub-score will rise to 20 next July.

Students must still earn a combined score of one-thousand on the SAT, they must earn at least a 470 in verbal and a 460 in math, starting yesterday. The minimum scores will increase next July to 490 in verbal and 480 in math.

The minimum grade point average for the scholarship remains 3.0.

The PROMISE board wants to keep the program financially manageable, which will restrict the number of applicants.

The new guidelines, the board said yesterday, would have reduced the number of scholarships this year from about 4,300 to 3,400, a savings of about $2.5 million for the state.