The University of Texas at Tyler: merit scholarships by ACT score
The University of Texas at Tyler publishes merit aid criteria as a published grid keyed to the ACT alone, with no GPA criterion. Awards start at an ACT of 24 and reach $2,000 a year. Because the bands are steps rather than a slope, one point is worth nothing inside a band and the whole step at the edge of one.
Enter a score and a GPA below to see which band it actually lands in, what that band pays, and exactly how many points the next one needs.
Read this first
Neither award is a guarantee. UT Tyler files the $10,000 Honors Scholars award under a heading reading "Competitive Awards" and adds "Funding is Limited: Not all students that are reviewed will be selected"; the $2,000 Academic Excellence award needs no application but is "awarded on a first come, first serve basis" from limited funding. The ACT is an ALTERNATIVE to a transcript requirement at both, so the GPA axis here is deliberately open. UT Tyler never prints a period next to the $2,000 figure — it is read as annual because the award carries four years of eligibility with a renewal test each year.
Unweighted, as the school asks for it.
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Example — an ACT 29 with a 3.60 GPA
Academic Excellence Scholarship
$2,000 / year
About $8,000 over four years, if it renews.
There is no higher band to reach at this GPA — more points would not change the award here. They may still matter for admission, for honours programmes, or at other schools on the list.
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The published UT Tyler merit aid grid
Reproduced in full from The University of Texas at Tyler’s own pages for 2027-2028 entry. Nothing here is estimated: where the school states a benefit rather than a figure, that is what the table says.
Incoming first-year freshmen — the ACT route
Both awards need the admission application in by December 1, and an admitted student must confirm intent to enroll by May 1 to keep the offer. The Honors Scholars award is a competition — an Honors College application, official transcripts, a 500-word essay on a set Aristotle prompt and an interview for shortlisted students — so it is shown without being promised. The Academic Excellence award needs no scholarship application but is paid out first come, first served while the funding lasts.
$2,000
Academic Excellence Scholarship
ACT 24–36 · ACT route — a 24 or above is UT Tyler's published alternative to a top-25% class rank with a 3.0 GPA (or a 3.5 GPA for homeschool, non-ranking and international applicants); no GPA is required on this route
| Award | With a score | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Academic Excellence Scholarship | ACT 24–36 · ACT route — a 24 or above is UT Tyler's published alternative to a top-25% class rank with a 3.0 GPA (or a 3.5 GPA for homeschool, non-ranking and international applicants); no GPA is required on this route | $2,000 |
Competitive awards — not automatic
Meeting these makes you eligible to be reviewed, not to receive the award, so they are kept out of the calculator above.
- Honors Scholars Scholarship (competitive — application, essay and interview) — ACT 29+ with ACT route — a 29 or above is UT Tyler's published alternative to the 3.75+ high school GPA; no GPA is required on this route: $10,000
Source: Freshman Scholarships, 2027-2028 Academic Year — amounts and criteria · verified 2026-10-23
Does UT Tyler superscore for scholarships?
Not stated. The word superscore appears on none of UT Tyler's scholarship, Honors College or first-year admissions pages; the criteria give a bare threshold ("ACT: 29+") with nothing said about combining sittings. With the admission and scholarship documents both due December 1, the practical question is less whether sittings can be combined than whether a later one arrives in time.
With nothing published, plan for the stricter reading: look up your best single sitting in the grid above, work out your superscore as well, and ask UT Tyler’s financial aid office which one they read before you count on the higher band.
Comparing schools? See which colleges superscore for scholarships — 66 of 501 commit to it, 52 say they do not, and the rest never say.
UT Tyler scholarship deadlines
| Entry term | Due |
|---|---|
| Admission application, Honors scholarship application and official transcripts — both awards | December 1 |
| Confirm intent to enroll, or the scholarship offer is not secured | May 1 |
Scores take roughly two to four weeks to arrive, and official reports sent to schools can take longer, so the last useful test date is several weeks before the printed deadline. Check which test dates still make it.
Where these numbers came from
Every figure on this page was read from The University of Texas at Tyler’s own published pages, linked below with the date we last confirmed them. We do not estimate a missing band or interpolate a value.
- Freshman Scholarships, 2027-2028 Academic Year — amounts and criteriaverified 2026-10-23
- Freshman Scholarships, linked as 2026-2027 — same amounts, and also headed 2027-2028verified 2026-10-23
- Honors College Scholarships — states the Honors award as $10,000 per yearverified 2026-10-23
- First-Year Admissions — automatic admission, additional criteria and test scoresverified 2026-10-23
- A merit award with a means test attached: renewal "requires completion of a FAFSA every year". A family that skips the FAFSA because they expect no need-based aid can lose a purely academic scholarship.
- The ACT is the way past class rank. On the transcript route the Academic Excellence award wants a top-25% rank as well as a 3.0 GPA, so a student at a strong high school can be ranked out of money a 24 would have delivered outright.
- Six ACT points separate $2,000 from $10,000, and a 29 is the single most valuable threshold on this page — but the $10,000 above it is a competition, not a step, so the two should not be read as one ladder.
- The $10,000 is per year and UT Tyler only says so on a different page: the Honors College writes "the $10,000 per year Honors Scholars Scholarship ... renewable for four years", while the scholarship page says just "Amount: $10,000". For the $2,000 Academic Excellence award no page states a period at all.
- UT Tyler links the same figures twice under two different years. The page reached by its "2026-2027 Freshman Scholarships" link is itself headed "2027-2028 Academic Year" and carries identical amounts and thresholds, so there is no separate prior-year grid to compare against. Both pages are cited here.
- A second $2,000-a-year award sits with the Honors College rather than financial aid — the Honors Endowed Scholarship, for freshmen invited to Honors who do not win the Honors Scholars award. It publishes no ACT threshold, so it is not in the grid. Stacking is explicitly allowed either way: "Accepting a scholarship from the Honors College does not preclude you from accepting or maintaining a scholarship from another department or program."
- The region-keyed Patriot Scholarship — $1,000 to $5,000 at an ACT of 26+, restricted to a published list of about 40 East Texas "College Readiness Schools" — has been withdrawn for new students from 2027-2028 and is not in the grid. UT Tyler's Spanish-language copies of these pages still advertise it, as they still state the old $80,000 income limit.
- Two pots of money here are not additive with the grid and are not UT Tyler merit awards. Patriot Promise covers full tuition and mandatory fees for Texas residents with household income up to $100,000, with no score or GPA threshold, but pays last-dollar only — a merit award can reduce it to nothing rather than adding to it. The TEXAS Grant is Texas STATE money awarded on the state's own need rules, not a UT Tyler scholarship at all.
Check before you rely on it. Grids change by entry year and schools update them without notice. This page is a reproduction with a date on it, not a guarantee, and it is not financial aid advice. ClutchACT is not affiliated with The University of Texas at Tyler.
Frequently asked questions
What ACT score do you need for a scholarship at UT Tyler?
Automatic merit aid at The University of Texas at Tyler starts at an ACT composite of 24, alongside the published GPA minimum, and reaches $2,000 a year at the top. The bands are steps rather than a slope, so the only score that matters is the next threshold above where you are now.
Is UT Tyler test-optional?
A score is not required: a top-25% rank admits automatically and a 2.75 GPA is the regular-admission route. The sentence UT Tyler still uses to say so is years out of date, naming a COVID-era waiver for 2023-2024 on a page describing 2027-2028 entry, so confirm it rather than relying on the wording. A score can still matter for admission in one place — the state's additional criteria can be satisfied either by the distinguished-level curriculum or by meeting ACT's College Readiness Benchmarks. For merit aid the answer is different: optional, and the page is at odds with itself about it: the section heading says merit awards rest on GPA, class rank and region alone, while each award underneath publishes an ACT threshold as alternative criteria. Treat the score as a second route rather than a requirement — it is the route that works when class rank does not. Being admitted without a score and qualifying for money without a score are two separate questions.
How much is a 30 on the ACT worth at UT Tyler?
On UT Tyler's published grid for 2027-2028 entry, an ACT of 30 with a 3.6 GPA qualifies for Academic Excellence Scholarship at $2,000 a year, about $8,000 over four years if it renews.
Does UT Tyler superscore the ACT for scholarships?
Not stated. The word superscore appears on none of UT Tyler's scholarship, Honors College or first-year admissions pages; the criteria give a bare threshold ("ACT: 29+") with nothing said about combining sittings. With the admission and scholarship documents both due December 1, the practical question is less whether sittings can be combined than whether a later one arrives in time.
When are UT Tyler scholarship deadlines?
Admission application, Honors scholarship application and official transcripts — both awards: December 1. Confirm intent to enroll, or the scholarship offer is not secured: May 1. The application and the official score report are both due by that date, and ACT scores take roughly two to four weeks to arrive — so the last useful test date is several weeks earlier than the deadline suggests.
Is this UT Tyler scholarship data current?
Every figure on this page was read from The University of Texas at Tyler's own published pages and last verified on 2026-10-23. The sources are linked at the bottom of the page with that date. Grids change by entry year, so check the source before relying on a figure for a decision.
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What to do next
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