Thursday, May 10, 2012

Maxis Scholarships, Expanded

My post on SPATs garnered a lot of attention and a few simmers have adapted different ways to have university admissions into their games. During a discussion on N99 I was reminded that I hadn't posted anything about my system for scholarships. Here's briefly some ways that I make Maxis scholarships expanded as well as some suggestions on how to adapt it to your hood.
First are the ways I "expand" the Maxis scholarships

Hogan Award for Athletics

Usually this scholarship gives the teen §750. I decided that teens that gain this scholarship also gain a Sports Scholarship worth half tuition. The student "plays" for a university sports team and the requirements differ for each team, but mostly a few soccer or basketball games each semester.
S'Ahmisa Warwick and Benjamin Endeavor both earned this scholarship during their university years. S'Ahmisa played soccer and Benjamin played on the basketball team.

Will Wright Genius Grant
Usually this scholarship gives the teen §750. I decided that teens that gain this scholarship also gain a laptop or computer.
Bui Engineering Award
Usually this scholarship gives the teen §750. I decided that teens that gain this scholarship also gain a laptop or computer.
SimCity Scholar's Grant
Usually this scholarship gives the teen §1000. I decided that teens that gain this scholarship also gain a laptop or computer. 
Suggested Usage: If you play with the Harder Grades hack, this scholarship could be worth full tuition since it is more difficult for teens to get an A with that hack. I don't use the hack, so a lot of my students earn As
Young Entrepreneurs Award:
Usually this scholarship gives the teen §750. I decided that teens that gain this scholarship also gain a paid internship with a local business for one simyear. 

Suggested Usage: If you have any enterprising teens, then this could earn them start up costs for their own business or business plan. For example, if a teen has a business plan for a bakery, then perhaps this could award them $5000 in startup costs.

Tsang Footwork Award
Usually this scholarship gives the teen §1000. I decided that teens that gain this scholarship also gain a dance scholarship worth half tuition if the student decides to major in drama with an emphasis on dance.
Other suggested usages: You can increase the scholarship amount for students that enroll in a similar major, for example, the London Culinary Arts Scholarship could pay for partial tuition if the student that earns it decides to major in culinary arts.
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Next are the additional scholarships I have in my game

Extracurricular Grant Program (credit to Laurel Crossing).
This scholarship gives each student §500 for each CHE (hobby) that is maxed out

FENSA Award (credit to Laurel Crossing for scholarship; credit to Aldaleigh for FENSA society).
This scholarship gives any student inducted into Apple Valley's FENSA chapter will receive a one-time award of $20,000. FENSA induction requirements are a level 10 in every skill (70 CSE)

Fighting Owls Sports Scholarship

Students receive full tuition, but must play full time on one of the university sports teams: basketball or soccer. Scholarship is renewed each simyear. To recieve this scholarship, students must have 6 CHE (hobby points) in sports; 8 CSE (skill points) in body and 6 CIE (interest points) in Sports. To maintain this scholarship, students must earn 10 CSE (skill points) in body and 10 CHE (hobby points) in sports before they graduate, otherwise they must pay the grant back.

Interhood Connection Scholarship
Designed to promote students studying in other hoods and build interhood connection. This gives me an incentive to send students to other hoods for university and to accept students from other hoods as well. 
Students receive a tuition wavier for up to two years of study at an interhood university affiliate. Can be used for undergraduate or graduate studies. This award is applicable for students entering Pierce University as well as students applying to an interhood university.
To gain this scholarship, students must have B+ GPA, 15 CSE (skill points); Essay concerning the benefits of interhood study (Score of 6 CIE (interest points) in Travel)

Warwick Excellence Award
This award ensures that lack of affordability will not deter exceptional students from receiving higher education. Recipients of this award will receive a full scholarship that covers tuition, room and board as well as a laptop. This award will cover four years of study, as long as an GPA of A is maintained each year. The award can be renewed for up to an additional four years of study in advanced degree programs.
To gain this scholarship the student must have A- GPA, 20 CSE (skill points), Letter of Recommendation (overachiever memory earned), Tier I household income status (my poorest category for taxes).
Military ROTC
In exchange for a service commitment, the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program provides money for college. Sims must take all required military courses and training along with your other college courses and, upon graduation, enter the service as a commissioned officer for at least 4 simyears. This scholarship provides for full tuition, room and board. The student must be part-time employed in the military career, and then after graduation must enter the military career for at least four simyears.

Verde Herendez utilized this program to pay for university. He served his required term, but decided to stay with the military.
Community Service Scholarship:
This is more of a "soft" scholarship with no real requirements. Usually I can tell if a simmie is into community service during high school. They can earn a scholarship up to $5000. In the future I might allow blog readers to vote on who should get the scholarship based on applicants, or it might be due to a friend requirement as well. I haven't awarded this scholarship yet, the one simmie who would have qualified (S'Ahmisa Warwick for all her work with the Sweeny triplets and secretly dropping off food for needy families) didn't apply since she has plenty of money to pay for college, heck she could buy the university if she wanted to.
Dean's Merit Scholarship
This scholarship awards exceptional students of high merit ability. The scholarship gives full tuition and half tuition grants, along with full room and board. In order to gain full tuition, a student must have an A or A+ secondary school GPA and at least 40 CSE (skill points). For half tuition, a student must have a A or A+ secondary school GPA and at least 35 CSE (skill points). This award will cover four years of study, as long as an GPA of A is maintained each year.

This is a hard scholarship to gain and so far only one simmie qualifies for the full tuition, room and board grant as they should. They're not even close to graduation and already qualify.


A Note on Full Ride Scholarships
I tried to make a few different ways a simmie could earn a "full ride" to university, but still make it difficult enough that only a few simmies would earn such awards. So there are three avenues: full sports scholarship; military grant or the merit scholarship

Other Scholarships
From time to time, local businesses offer scholarships in order to recruit talented sims. For example, Tyisha Masters received a scholarship from A.Pentragnani that was targeting future fashion designers. The scholarship included an internship and possible full-time job offer after graduation. Other businesses offer scholarships occasionally, like a hair salon offering to pay half tuition for a cosmetology certification or a mechanic shop offering tuition for students entering mechanic programs with a high tinkering hobby score.

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Let me know what you guys think and how you adapted scholarships in your games.

10 comments:

  1. Thanks for putting this up! As you know, I expanded your system and added a few perks for some of the other scholarships. I'll put up my post and link to yours when I can. :)

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    1. Can't wait to see your post, I will probably be yanking some of your scholarship ideas. Thanks for commenting and reading.

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  2. I like the addition of computers, I think I'll do laptops for my sims too. I also liked the ROTC and the differing options. I'm going to be fleshing my college out soonish, now that I'm going to start having a real flow of students! Super geeked!!

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    1. Can't wait to see your simmies in university, isn't it exciting to have a crop of students old enough for school, yikes! Thanks for reading and commenting.

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  3. Once again, I love the ideas you're using for your hood - I'd love to do something like this myself but university doesn't really fit into Nuidya culture (and once again I'm thinking Nuidya culture might not fit into TS2 any more).

    I might start a second FSBS hood where things like that make sense, but would still be not!modern enough for me to actually play it. Any chance of some expert advice? *puppy eyes* :)

    - VT

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    1. Lol! I'm not an expert, but ask any questions you have. I think your Nuidya is widely creative, and fits perfectly into TS2! Instead of university for Nuidya, do some other sort of schooling where students take tests that assign them their lot in life-ie farmers, bakers, doctors, etc and then they enter apprenticeship programs. You could use interest scores or randomly select students for each career. And then perhaps only a select few are offered apprenticeships in each specialty. Of course class issues can come to play if upper class children are groomed for government positions or high society marriages and lower class children are groomed for other things. Maybe with inspiration from medival times or from the BACC challenges which place restrictions on the hood for additional amenities until certain goals are met. Thanks for reading and commenting.

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  4. A few things I should probably have mentioned:

    The Nuidya are a tribe, not a country. They're all related and they don't have a class system. They revere cats, ancestor spirits and nature. They have a chief and a shaman and a strong dislike of being overly restricted. Teens are considered to be adults, but only after they've gone through the rite of passage (which can be any point from the teen birthday onwards, and involves a year away from the village). There are 42 Sims in Kulo Seeri and not one of them has the Fortune aspiration - I don't even think of their family funds as money. They refer to law and technology as "The Twin Demons". Oh yes, and I hate medieval stuff. I like creating new cultures, not mangling old ones. :)

    Thanks for the input though, and if you still have suggestions after reading all this waffle, I'd love to hear them. :)

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  5. This is so great, Starr. Thanks for posting it! I really like how you make the scholarships more meaningful than some random money that the students are awarded when they step foot on campus. I also like your suggested usage for some of them, like the Scholar’s Grant and Young Entrepreneurs. Like I said in Carla’s post about her expansions of your scholarships, I’ll likely combine them both into one document and link to you both. Keep the great ideas flowing :)!

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    1. No worries, can't wait to see how you use them in your game. Thanks for reading and commenting.

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Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment! :)

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