Students hoping to earn the tuition relief that comes with the Brandeis Achievement Award will now face slightly higher academic requirements, according to academic and financial administrators. The new requirements, administrators said, are part of an effort to make the $5,000-scholarship more academically oriented, a shift from a strong focus on extracurricular leadership.

The minimum GPA neeeded to apply for the scholarship was raised from 3.25 to 3.5 for the upcoming round of recipients. Additionally, the application now asks students to detail their "academic experience at Brandeis" instead of their "contributions to the Brandeis community at large," the essay topic on last year's application. The shift has troubled past recipients who say the award should honor achievements outside the classroom.

"I think that there are now students who will not be able to apply who have the commitment to Brandeis we were originally looking for in the spirit of the award," said Erica Lemansky '05, the former Student Union vice president who helped develop the award.

The Brandeis Achievement Award, a scholarship given to up to 10 student leaders who don't already receive a merit-based grant.

Director of Student Financial Services Peter Giumette, who also co-founded the three-year-old award, said last week that faculty members have said the honor should take on a more academic character.

"We initially focused on community service and academics were almost secondary," Giumette said. "I think this was an intentional effort to make [the award] more academically competitive."

Nevertheless, Giumette said that extracurricular activities will still be taken into account in the selection process.

"There wasn't an effort to eliminate other campus involvement [from consideration for the award]," he said. "You still want a well-rounded individual, not someone who focuses totally on academics."

Lemansky said that while Eddy and Guimette were considering a mandatory 3.5 GPA during the initial discussions regarding the scholarship, she argued for the lower requirement in her proposal.

"I thought a 3.25 GPA was enough to warrant academic achievement but easy enough for students to get," he said.

Union president Alison Schwartzbaum '08, who served on the first committee to select recipients with Lemansky and received the award last year, agreed that the GPA should remain at 3.25.

She argues that raising the GPA requirement "doesn't fit in with the ideal behind this scholarship."

"It changes who the award is for, and cuts out a lot of those students who have made a huge impact through their experiences outside academics," Schwartzbaum said.

Giumette downplayed these concerns, noting that since over 40 percent of the Class of 2009 has at least a 3.5 GPA, he wasn't concerned that many deserving applicants would be excluded from the process.

Schwartzbaum said the Union has been talking with Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy about reaching a compromise on the GPA.

In addition, Giumette said that the award's requirements will be re-evaluated on a consistent basis.

"This [award] is evolving; we can refocus it if we find that we have gone too far in this direction," Giumette said. "We will see how [the new academic focus] works, and make adjustments when we need to.