It so happens that the Gates Millennium Scholarship has created many of those misleading reportings by naïve or clueless reporters. The Gates Scholarship is a last dollar scholarship that supplement the financial aid of the colleges and contains a graduate school component that can reach 20,000 of 1/2 of private tuition. A number of schools have taken a liking to reporting the scholarship value at 6 to 10 times an annual COA and multiplying the number by all accepting college.
It’s silly but flattering the ego of a successful applicant and his or her parents are just part of the April to June landscape.
I believe that some schools weight an A in an AP class as a 5.0, as you are alluding to, but also weight an A in a college class as a 6.0. So if she took a class or two at U Chicago or Loyola, for example, that would explain it. In fact, it appears that Kenwood is very close to the U Chicago campus.
I really don’t like the way all of this is being reported. This student is very impressive and she should be extremely proud of her accomplishments, but the way this is being reported and publicized suggests that they don’t understand what is and is not significant/impressive.
First of all, as many have already asked, were any financial aid packages included in this $3 million figure? Receiving a financial aid package worth six figures is not at all impressive. That only speaks to a candidate’s financial need. Including financial aid in a scholarship total that is being used to suggest academic prowess is extremely misleading.
My bigger problem, though, is something I haven’t seen addressed yet. How much of this $3 million figure is comprised of what I call “duplicate scholarships”? Basically, when a student applies to multiple schools that are very similar to each other and gets similar scholarships at each of these schools, I view them as duplicates. For example, in my state, there are dozens of small, private schools with ACT averages in the low 20s that will automatically, upon application and admission, give an 80k - 100k scholarship to any student with an ACT score in the 30s. Being able to earn one of these scholarships is impressive because it indicates intelligence and achievement. However, how would it be more impressive to apply to 8 of these schools and get one of these scholarships from each of the 8 schools than to just apply to 3 and get 3 of these scholarships? On the contrary, I think the only thing that anyone should take note of in a situation like this would be if a student were NOT able to get these scholarships from some schools, but got them from other, similar schools (Note: I’m referring to automatically awarded scholarships, not scholarships that require separate applications). If a student applied to 8 of these types of schools and got 80k at 4 of them and nothing at the other 4, I’d be really curious about what was up with that applicant that similar schools that tend to give similar automatic scholarships arrived at vastly different conclusions. Really, any student with an ACT score over 30 could apply to every single one of these small, private colleges in my state and rack up millions of dollars in scholarships, but what would that prove?
In my opinion, if they wanted to correctly display how impressive this student is, they should have highlighted three things:
She got into 6 Ivy League schools. Most students with great standardized test scores and GPAs struggle to even get into one. The fact that she got into 6 is astounding.
What was her largest scholarship offer? It was certainly six figures. Any student who is able to get a six figure scholarship to any school is much more accomplished than the average high school student.
Did she get any really prestigious scholarships? If she was able to get one of those scholarships for which there are hundreds or thousands of applicants and only 25 scholarships were awarded, that would certainly be an impressive accomplishment.
Years ago my brother’s classmate and friend received many full scholarships to play D1 football. The school listed 12 or so in the graduation program, but he’d received many more so he could have claimed $500k or more (this was 35 years ago). He could still only go to one college, so in fact he received one scholarship ($20k or so for 4 years).
“Receiving a financial aid package worth six figures is not at all impressive. That only speaks to a candidate’s financial need. Including financial aid in a scholarship total that is being used to suggest academic prowess is extremely misleading.”
Just the fact that she was accepted to 6 Ivies seems to me to show her academic prowess. Students who are not academic standouts don’t generally get into the schools which give the amount of FA the top schools give.
Did you read my entire post? I pointed out that the fact that she was admitted to 6 Ivy League colleges was truly astounding and certainly something worth publicizing. However, talking about the amount of financial aid she received from these schools says nothing more about her academic abilities than her admission. As I’m sure you’re aware, financial aid is based solely on need. There could be many students at those schools whose academic achievements are just as strong as or stronger than hers, but they will receive no financial aid if their parents are millionaires. When commending this student’s achievements, the focus should be placed on the fact that she was able to gain admission to 6 Ivy League colleges, not the amount of financial aid she got.
I thought the entirety of my post conveyed that I find this student’s achievements to be very impressive, I just find the specific way in which they were publicized to be off the mark. Did my last paragraph fail to indicate that I do actually find her accomplishments to be great? I certainly did not intend to imply that she is not worthy of commendation.
“However, talking about the amount of financial aid she received from these schools says nothing more about her academic abilities than her admission.”
i disagree. Everyone who gets accepted at those schools are meritorious - which is why they don’t get any merit aid.
“As I’m sure you’re aware, financial aid is based solely on need.”
Yes, so?
Merit awards from lesser schools than those which give only need based aid is nothing more than a way for the school to get higher quality students to enroll - and I say this as a parent whose student received a ton of merit aid from schools for which we qualified for zero need based aid but who ended up at his first choice need based aid school where he got more in FA than any of the merit aid only schools - and for which we qualified for need based aid with an income over 6 figures.
The student in the article could have gotten merit aid up the wazoo at dozens of schools wanting to attract higher stats kids. But she didn’t need to seek out those types of schools because she was meritorious enough to get accepted at the schools which don’t give any merit because everyone they accept is meritorious. Only a very few students out of all the students applying to colleges get that kind of opportunity and to get that opportunity one needs to have the stats to get accepted.
You seem to be missing my point about the reporting of her financial aid at Ivy League universities. I am not saying that a student who gets financial aid at an Ivy League university has not demonstrated any exceptional achievement. I’m saying that the achievement is tied completely to getting into the school in the first place and not at all to the aid that student receives. For example, my point is that saying: “I got into Harvard and I’m getting $50,000 per year in financial aid,” is no more impressive than saying: “I got into Harvard.” Any student who was accepted to Harvard and had the same financial situation as that student would have received the same financial aid as that student, regardless of who was a more impressive student. This is the reason I have repeatedly stated that they should be focusing on her admission to 6 Ivy League schools instead of how much financial aid she was getting.
It really seems that you don’t understand my point about this. You quoted my post about how a student’s financial aid award at an Ivy League university says nothing more about that student’s abilities than his or her admission to the Ivy League school and said you disagree with that. Then you said that you understand that financial aid is based solely on need. How can you understand that Ivy League financial aid is based only on need, but think that it indicates something more about a student than his or her acceptance letter to an Ivy League school indicates? That would mean that you believe there is some level of merit attached to being poorer than other students.
The scholarship amount is a joke. She may apply to even more safety schools to get $10 millions perhaps. The average is around $120k per school or $30k per year. That is great but not that impressive.
Actually, no, you have not adequately explained your position. As I pointed out, you contradicted yourself when you said that you understand that Ivy League financial aid is based entirely on need, but you disagree with the idea that receiving a lot of financial aid at an Ivy League university says no more about a student than that student’s admission to Ivy League schools. I am asking you to explain why you think saying: “I got into Harvard and got 50k per year in financial aid,” says anything more about the student’s achievements than saying: “I got into Harvard.” Please explain this. I honestly just don’t understand your point.