Kenwood Academy Grad Awarded More Than $3 Million In Scholarship Money
Small wonder people are confused about paying for college with this kind of reporting. Ivy League schools have generous financial aid but do not give merit scholarships.
She is so wonderful that she was accepted to 8 of the 10 Ivies, according to the article.
“8 of 10 ivies” oh noooo
You know, I work in the guidance dept. of a high school probably not unlike Kenwood, I help seniors with their essays and answer all kinds of college related questions. I have read CC religiously for 10+ years, have a B.A. and a J.D. degree, and I didn’t know there were 10 Ivy League schools! I’m ashamed and embarrassed that I can’t name those 2 extra ones. I wonder how much merit money she got from the Ivy League schools that counts in that $3M number…
8-|
I actually think it is a waste of the GC’s time and resources to apply to 20 colleges when clearly 10 would have been plenty. How many application waivers does each student get? I think they are calculating $70k x4 years x each of the 8/10 Ivies, and probably the other big schools at the full COA too. They are counting the big outside awards like Gates too, even though the students doesn’t get double, and maybe even the Pell grant for each school even though she of course can only get it once.
So if she has 10 schools x $280k ($70k/yr x 4), that’s $2.8 million, and then the other schools making up the rest. She can still only go to one school.
The entire class of 2015 (500ish kids) at my school was only awarderd 4.4 million in scholarships. That amount seems tiny compared to her. Of course, they might have only counted the money for the school the graduate is actually going to, but even then its still a staggering amount because that would be 20 schools vs. about 300 schools that the kids in the graduating class are going to.
How the schools count scholarship money is inconsistent and relies on kids reporting it. One of my daughters didn’t report any and has about $200k for 4 years and another student going to her same school reported $25k but that would be for just one year. Other daughter reported $2k, and receives about $5k per year, so could have claimed $20k. Some kids report all 4 years, others report just the first year for one school, some report all scholarships from all schools for all 4 years.
It’s kind of meaningless. If a student applied to all three military academies and the coast guard academy, he/she could report almost $2M alone.
There are only EIGHT schools in the Ivy League
H
Y
P
Dartmouth
Brown
Cornell
Columbia
UPenn
So it is 6/8 actually and she was accepted to 26 schools so probably applied to 30.
http://abc7chicago.com/education/kenwood-academy-student-accepted-to-26-universities/778961/
I just want to say that regardless of how the $3 million in scholarship money is calculated, it doesn’t take away from this girl’s accomplishment.
My daughter’s urban history class did an exchange with a Kenwood class. They spent a day at Kenwood. Kenwood spent the day at her school. It was an eye-opening experience for her…starting with the metal detectors when entering the school to seeing her first food fight in a cafeteria. From the facilities to the differences in the student body, it would take a special person to excel in that environment. Props to her!
Mom2collegekids, WE know there are 8; the article posted in the OP said she was accepted to 8 of the 10 Ivies.
“Small wonder people are confused about paying for college with this kind of reporting. Ivy League schools have generous financial aid but do not give merit scholarships.”
The article didn’t say anything about merit scholarships. Fwiw, my S got need based aid and on his award letters it always referred to his FA as “Name of College Scholarship.”
I think some of the Ivys call their financial aid, “scholarships.”
I saw this reported on the news and was happy for the student, but hated the misrepresentation by the media. They made is sound like she had $3,000,000 to go to college. She was given $3,000,000 in scholarships but most of these scholarships are only given to her if she goes to that school. Consequently she may have really been awarded $240,000, which is the $60,000 per year from Harvard or wherever. Also she did “earn” these as the schools would not have accepted her unless her grades were on par and she fit the parameter of the student they wanted, however a lot of these were need based as Ivy’s do not give out merit scholarships. These type of reports on tv and in the newspaper really confuse the public. I know six years ago reading the local paper and seeing all the scholarships reported confused me. I now know better.
The annual “X Millions in schoarships” for the Senior class has been going on for a long time. A funny/insane twist on it was a John Oliver report about the Miss America pageant’s claim to be the single largest awarder of college scholarship money http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/09/22/john_oliver_on_miss_america_last_week_tonight_takes_on_the_pageant_s_scholarship.html
When the Ivy League schools refer to the need based grants that they give as scholarships (at least Harvard does on their NPC ) what are people to think? The average person doesn’t know the difference between need versus merit based. And it takes a pretty meritorious academic record to get in to the Ivy League which only adds to the belief that it is the same type of scholarship.
Very impressive young lady. The reporter needs to go back to school to learn research skills. 8 of 10 ivies…
There’s not a much more laudatory phrase than
“He/she got a full ride to Harvard…”
^^^^if only that meant what most people believe it means…
I think this is another type of bad college counseling (or maybe the kid and family just took things in their own hands). What’s the point of applying to those many colleges? The kid obviously knew he would be able to get in some of the best. It’s a waste.