Congratulations! You’ve received a scholarship offer with your offer of admission. In this tab, we’ll help you understand the details of your scholarship offer.
Award Terms and Regulations
All the terms and regulations for entrance awards can be found in the Undergraduate Calendar.
Deadlines outlined in your offer letter
The deadline for accepting an offer and paying any deposits are included in your offer letter. If you have any concerns regarding these outlined deadlines, please connect to our RO Student Services team
Final vs Conditional awards
A conditional entrance award offer means the value of your award may be adjusted/cancelled based on your final admission average.
A final entrance award offer means the scholarship is guaranteed once you register as a full-time student in the fall term. Please note that entrance awards are applied on the student account after the add/drop period.
What happens if my GPA changes?
Your conditional scholarship offer was made based on your GPA at the time of your application to McMaster. If your final admission average changes, your scholarship offer may be impacted.
Your admission average goes up:
If you were offered the Faculty-specific Achievement Award and your final admission goes up to be within the top 10% for your incoming class, you will be eligible for the McMaster University Award of Excellence instead.
Your admission average goes down:
If your final admission average goes down and you are longer within the top 10% of your incoming class for the McMaster University Award of Excellence, you may still be eligible for the Faculty-specific Achievement Award if you meet the cut-off.
If you did not receive an initial scholarship offer but your final admission average meets the cut-off for either the Faculty-specific Achievement Award or the McMaster University Award of Excellence, you will be automatically awarded.
If you were offered the Faculty-specific Achievement Award and your final admission average does not meet the cut-off, you will longer be eligible for the award.
Please note that you can only be eligible for either the Award of Excellence or the Faculty-specific Achievement Award.
Entrance Bursary Important Information
By submitting your application for Government Student Aid by June 30, you will give us the opportunity to verify your financial situation and guarantee that there will be funding available for September.
Any bursary based on financial need will be OSAP exempt (meaning that will not affect your OSAP assessment), and you should not report it on your OSAP application. We will report the bursary for you. Please check your province’s reporting requirements if you are an out-of-province student receiving government student aid.
Faculty Awards
Did you receive an entrance award offer from your Faculty? Please visit your Faculty’s scholarship website for more information.
Offer Letter FAQs
When will I know if there are any changes to my award offer?
Admission averages are re-calculated in August after the receipt of all final grades from OUAC.
Once all required grades are received for your program, your automatic entrance may be adjusted. This typically occurs from the end of August to mid-September.
I didn’t receive a scholarship offer, what are my options?
If you don’t receive an automatic scholarship offer with your offer of admission, there are still many options available to you.
Automatic offers are given based on your average at the time of your application. If you increase your average to the automatic award cut-offs by the time final admission averages are calculated, can still be eligible for the award.
Also. there are many applications that you may be eligible to apply for on AwardSpring and through external sources.