Testers Wanted: New College Scholarships

[jfade]

Ever wondered why your teens can get money for college for their jobs, grades, and skills, but not their talent badges? Apparently, despite the fact that most talent badges take longer to earn than it takes to earn 8 skill points, EA decided that it's not important enough to recognize. Well no more! This hack will allow your teens to receive an additional §1,250 for each silver level talent badge they have.

While this hack is something for Uni, it requires at least Open For Business or newer.

Pictures can be seen here.

Notes: Foreign language strings are not overwritten with this hack, though obviously the new scholarship names will only be in English since I don't speak any other language. The rewards for the talent badges cannot be revoked due to the fact that you can't normally (that I'm aware of) lose badge points. I'm open to any other suggestions for other scholarships as well since this was ridiculously easy to make.

Thanks to: Pescado, because I used the test to see which expansion packs are installed that he has in Macrotastics.

[Li'l Brudder]

Huzzah!

[jsalemi]

Neat!  I'll give this one a go...

[Gwill]

Is it at all possible to alter the exsisting scholarships?
I've always been annoyed that townie teens get the orphan scholarship because they have "no living parents", while playable teens with undead parents don't get it.  It does say no living parents, so zombies and vampires should count.  I'm hoping it's possible to either give the shcolarship to the children of the undead, or revoke it from teens who can't show at least one dead parent memory.

[Dark Trepie]

I'm open to any other suggestions for other scholarships as well since this was ridiculously easy to make.

Well, I guess you could give scholarships for reaching max enthusiasm in any hobby.  Though I think the payout for that should be small, since that's pretty easy to do.  Maybe you could do one for getting a certain number of vacation mementos as well.

Do werewolves get scholarships?

[mildlydisguised]

Great idea jfade (although I'm disappointed you didn't name the hack Badgerships).  I shall try it and report back.

Gwill, I wonder if it should translate as 'no current playable parents'.  What happens if you have a CAS parent and teen family then kill off the parent?  Does that qualify?

[spaceface]

This sounds great, I will give it a try.

A greater variety of scholarships would make sense. After all, there are prizes for creative writing, why should sims not get one if they have written a novel. That also takes long enough.

[Simergy]

This is an idea that makes sense.

If dancing can get a scholarship, I don't see why being good at robotery or fishing shouldn't. 

I've got it in my hacks directory and will let you know how it works.

[MidnightVoyager]

I will say that I HATE that the Goth children cannot get orphan scholarships if Mortimer dies before they hit college. WTF, people!? Bella's gone! *thud*

[Corylea]

The badge scholarships are a cool idea; thanks for implementing that.

One thing that always annoyed me about the skill points scholarships was that a kid would get $$ for having eight points in one skill even if s/he had no points in any other skill, whereas a kid who had, say, five points in every skill got nothing.  I was thinking that it might be nice if there were a "well-rounded" scholarship, for kids who were passably good (around 5?) at everything.

[BastDawn]

The badge scholarships are a cool idea; thanks for implementing that.

One thing that always annoyed me about the skill points scholarships was that a kid would get $$ for having eight points in one skill even if s/he had no points in any other skill, whereas a kid who had, say, five points in every skill got nothing.  I was thinking that it might be nice if there were a "well-rounded" scholarship, for kids who were passably good (around 5?) at everything.

Because there is never a prize for mediocrity?  Scholarships are for rewarding high achievement in a specific area, awarded by a group or organization that values the quality being rewarded.  I suppose you could have the scholarship given by the "Good Enough Society of Middle Managers" or something.   

[Corylea]

The badge scholarships are a cool idea; thanks for implementing that.

One thing that always annoyed me about the skill points scholarships was that a kid would get $$ for having eight points in one skill even if s/he had no points in any other skill, whereas a kid who had, say, five points in every skill got nothing.  I was thinking that it might be nice if there were a "well-rounded" scholarship, for kids who were passably good (around 5?) at everything.

Because there is never a prize for mediocrity?  Scholarships are for rewarding high achievement in a specific area, awarded by a group or organization that values the quality being rewarded.  I suppose you could have the scholarship given by the "Good Enough Society of Middle Managers" or something.   

How many people do you know who are pretty good at every area in life?  Personally, I don't know very many, though since my colleagues are mostly professors, they are a rather more-skewed-than-average group.  :-)  But I see plenty of kids who are, say, jocks (Body who can barely pass their courses (Logic 2) or smart kids (Logic who have no idea how to have a social interaction (Charisma 1).  There are plenty of artists (Creativity who can't find anything because their space looks like it was taken out by a hand grenade (Cleaning 0).  Oh, sure, there are exceptions, but these things are stereotypes *because* they are so often true.

So, I don't think that being pretty good at everything is being mediocre.  It seems pretty damned rare to me.

[V]

Just in time for a brand new testing hood.

[BastDawn]

But Corylea, a sim with 5 skill points or less in every category is not a jock, a smart kid, an artist, or anything else.  He's merely kind of average, sort of good at a bunch of things while utterly failing to stand out enough at any of them enough to be noticed.  You may be surround by people like that, but you'll never see them for what they are because their achievements aren't impressive enough.

[Zazazu]

It should be noted that, in the real world, being well-rounded helps you to get into college, but not to get your college paid for. For that, you need to excel at something, or have mommy & daddy shell it all out, or indept yourself to the goverment. In Sim-world, anyone who doesn't flunk out of high school gets into college regardless, and finishing a semester nets you more money instead of costing you.

The longer I play, the more this annoys me. I'm thinking of switching to some format where students can get scholarships beforehand still, but once in college they get no more money. Add in harder grades, and any student with a grade average below a B can't get into PU. B- to C- gets into some unnamed uncreated tiny crappy university with only dorms and minuscule rooms. D+ on down doesn't get Uni.

[V]

...and they should have to pay back all the "free" money they got while in uni. It should be automatically deducted from their paychecks until it has all been paid back.

[Emma]

...and they should have to pay back all the "free" money they got while in uni. It should be automatically deducted from their paychecks until it has all been paid back.

That would be a great idea.

[mitchellcjs]

And much more realistic as well.

[Zazazu]

...and they should have to pay back all the "free" money they got while in uni. It should be automatically deducted from their paychecks until it has all been paid back.

Oh, yeah. I already have the family pay if they want extra moneys, but for some reason I stopped charging them tuition when I moved to this new 'hood. Quite stupid since the sims in Prospect Beach so far are incredibly rich (when you have a three bedroom decked-out house with $400,000 in the hopper and only work the shop two days a week, that qualifies as incredibly rich to me).

Yes, I believe that's how I'll explain a certain sim's (who is a child now) inability to go to college. Momma gave all her money to a plastic, gold-leafed statue.

[jfade]

...and they should have to pay back all the "free" money they got while in uni. It should be automatically deducted from their paychecks until it has all been paid back.

Hmmmm.....

* jfade approves of this idea...

I think I shall have to find some way to do it. How much free money DO they get thrown at them while in college anyhow? I never really payed attention.

[Emma]

I think it is §1200 per semester if they get top marks. Ooh-this would be great if you could do it!

[Ellatrue]

It should be noted that, in the real world, being well-rounded helps you to get into college, but not to get your college paid for. For that, you need to excel at something, or have mommy & daddy shell it all out, or indept yourself to the goverment. In Sim-world, anyone who doesn't flunk out of high school gets into college regardless, and finishing a semester nets you more money instead of costing you.

The longer I play, the more this annoys me. I'm thinking of switching to some format where students can get scholarships beforehand still, but once in college they get no more money. Add in harder grades, and any student with a grade average below a B can't get into PU. B- to C- gets into some unnamed uncreated tiny crappy university with only dorms and minuscule rooms. D+ on down doesn't get Uni.

Pfft. Being well rounded doesn't do shit for you. The majority of students who apply to college fall into the "well-rounded" category, therefore it is a competitive disadvantage against students with more "focused" interests. Colleges are more likely to admit/give scholarships to students who excel in a single area (so, jocks with no other skill points or interests, or students that only have narrow interests like music or drama and NOTHING ELSE). So if you think about it, the game is realistic in that way.

I'd like a hack where they didn't get money while in university. Maybe good grades could just reduce their bills a little.

[Corylea]

But Corylea, a sim with 5 skill points or less in every category is not a jock, a smart kid, an artist, or anything else.  He's merely kind of average, sort of good at a bunch of things while utterly failing to stand out enough at any of them enough to be noticed.

I think a lot of people confuse personality points and skill points.  Five points is indeed average for personality but not for skills.  The fact that skills go up to ten doesn't mean that halfway up is average.  For example:

5 Charisma points will get you as far as President (Level in the Business career
3 Body points will get you as far as Starter (Level 4) in the Athletic career
5 Cooking points will get you as far as Executive Chef (Level in the Culinary career
5 Logic points will get you as far as Scholar (Level 7) in the Science career

Being a starter on a professional sports team is a pretty elite level of skill.  Being the president of a company is not something that happens to Joe Average.  Five PERSONALITY points is average, but five skill points is not.  We think of five skill points as nothing special because we're all expert slave drivers :-), but in fact, the person who has enough athletic ability to be a starter on a professional sports team AND enough cooking ability to be an executive chef in a restaurant AND enough brains to be a scholar AND enough to reach the same levels in the other skills is wildly rare.

I think that average for skill points is more like 1 or 2, and the person who had 5 in all of the skills would be admired as an incredible polymath.

I think the kind of Mr. or Ms. Ordinary that you all are thinking of is more likely to have one or two points per skill, and I agree that such people don't get scholarships.

[SnootCB]

This was a brilliant idea, thank you for sharing.

Does this hack include scholarships for the new FT badges as well?

[seelindarun]

I took care of the money problem in college by making the students re-pay the money needed to build their dorm, with interest.   Originally, I'd intended for some family to endow the uni, but the parents are still up to their eyeballs in debt with their mortgages.  Tyrant Overlord back in the base 'hood holds all the mortgages, and comes by to try to eat someone's brains as punishment, if they can't make at least the interest.   The YAs are in no danger of missing a payment because they get so much money every semester, but I priced the dorm as a residential lot in a regular 'hood first, so they'll be paying back the money for generations.  A hack would be better though, the bookkeeping is irritating.