<p>While it is not necessary to discuss the meaning of “full ride,” the practice would stop if some would not use the term inaccurately. This offense is particularly prevalent among local reporters and school officials. And it would go a long way to nip the myths about the vast availability of merit aid and low cost education in the proverbial butt. Not to mention the overly misleading “free ride at the Ivies” that is a fixture in local news. </p>
<p>It should not matter in the least to the applicants, but repeating falsehoods and mixing need-based and merit aid is not helping anyone, especially not when used in attempts to collect kudos.</p>
<p>Nobody at my offspring’s alma mater, a NYC public magnet, could pull this off. Why? Once he got into Harvard in December, the school college counselors would have demanded that he pull some of the other applications. They felt it hurt kids from the high school if the stars hoarded acceptances. So, once he got into Harvard, he would have been told that he should notify some of the schools that had accepted him that he would not attend.</p>
<p>UCB, In my post I was not referring to this young man’s town but MY town. I said that in my town (which is poor with a bad HS) very often the top kid gets accepted to all schools that he/she applies.
All my post was referring to my town and my town’s top kid.</p>
<p>Harvard is EA correct? How could GC demand he pull apps from schools when he would need to compare FA packages? Especially since he is low income and needing a ton of FA? On the FA forum it is advised to not apply ED for this very reason to apply to many and cast a wide net for FA purposes. He did exactly what he would be advised to do. He was 9 for 9, how is that hoarding?</p>
<p>My son was 33 for 34. Maybe that was your definition of hoarding. By our accounts it was the ability to obtain the best FA package available for the best education for son. With preferential packaging and the ability to contrast and appeal certain packages it was in son’s best interest. Hoarding, sure.</p>
<p>It’s only hoarding if he got in early to a top college with a good financial aid package. Harvard is single choice early action. He got into it in December. He would have known what financial aid package he’d get by January at the latest. I doubt there was any chance he would go to any of the UCals with the possible exception of Berkeley at that point. Moreover, I’m assuming he got a very generous aid package from Harvard and therefore since most of the other colleges on his list don’t give merit money and are also a long way away, there was very little likelihood any would give him more aid and/or cost less to attend.</p>
<p>Your S would not have been allowed to apply to 34 colleges by any NYC public magnet and/or private high school. It simply would not be allowed. I doubt any of the “regular” publics would allow it either.</p>
<p>It is not surprising that colleges drool over top students with near-maximum academic credentials from poor or disadvantaged backgrounds. If you consider that such a student has academic achievements similar to those of so many other applicants, but started “behind” in significant ways compared to the many from “middle class but won’t get financial aid” backgrounds, it is likely that they assume that such students are more “meritous” than the others. That is in addition to whatever benefits the schools see from added SES diversity.</p>
<p>You would be wrong about the variance in the financial aid packages. And yes son did get in EA. To several schools. And no not all financial aid packages were not forthcoming. You would only know this if you applied and were accepted to those same colleges.</p>
<p>And my son did attend a “regular” public. Only for ED is it required to formally pull applications.</p>
<p>The variance in son’s packages was $20,000 per YEAR. With preferential FA, outside scholarships, ROTC, and institutional aid it can vary greatly. Again addressed on the FA forum yearly. With 5 kiddos going through this process, each a year apart with undergrad and grad school we have been through the FA process rigorously.</p>
<p>And in our state I do not know of ANY school that restricts the number of schools a student can apply to. </p>
<p>Who the heck do they think they are to “demand”? How is it any of their business, really? That’s about as absurd as the bank teller directing me what to do with my money.</p>
<p>First, this kid got into Harvard in December. He knew the aid package then. I assume it was generous --he did, after all, ultimately accept it. Harvard is known as being generous with fin aid. I doubt that any of the other private colleges which accepted him offered him $20,000 a year MORE in aid than Harvard did because I doubt that Harvard was making him pay $20,000 a year in the first place.</p>
<p>The GCs here don’t force kids to withdraw apps from other schools if there’s a remote chance that the kid will accept the other offer. But if there isn’tt, then the GCs do demand that the kids withdraw other apps so as not to hurt their classmates.</p>
<p>Why is it their business? Because they want to help the kids who would go to those colleges if they are accepted. At the publics, which have limited resources, it’s also an attempt to control the amount of work involved so everyone’s applications get done.</p>
<p>All of the top public high schools here limit the # of applications for students. As far as I know, all of the prestigious private schools do as well. When almost everyone in the class is applying to the same top colleges, it hurts other kids when the stars rack up acceptances to colleges they have no intention of attending. It hurts more at the LACs than at the bigger schools, but it still hurts.</p>
<p>I think that this analysis is deficient on more than one level:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard is SCEA and there is ZERO obligation to withdraw the remaining applications</li>
<li>The financial net-net costs might vary among schools as the interpretation of outside scholarships or even student’s contribution might vary quite a bit. At this level, a few thousands dollars make a LOT of difference because this student will need every bit of his summer to pay the income taxes associated with having a “free ride.” In addition, budgets for travel might vary also. Traveling from California to the east coast is not cheap. Thanksgiving travel might or might not be included. Having to spend the holiday in Boston without support is not easy or cheap. Are the dorms and cafeterias even open?
2b. The financial aid package in the SCEA round might be delayed. This is not ED.</li>
<li>He would not have known the impact of winning the Gates scholarship until well after January. This is different from Questbridge</li>
<li>The is always the “chance” that his admission could be rescinded with SCEA. Improbable, of course, but nonetheless a risk. </li>
</ol>
<p>All in all, waiting until May was well within his rights, and considering his family finances, very much within his … obligations. </p>
<p>The fact that some high school “guidance” counselors are complete morons in establishing rules that step on students’ rights is something that should be condemned and not condoned. Time has long passed for high schools to become mere pass-thru of academic records and be drastically curtailed in their ability to influence the admission process by arbitrary decisions and blatant incompetence. The quicker colleges stop relying on those offices, the better all students will be. With today’s technology, we should not need the schools to be the custodians of academic records, and surely NOT control the application flows. All students should have a national account (similar to the College Board) that would be verified and verifiable at every step of the high school. Something similar to the medical passports that will become old news for the next generations.</p>
<p>Gates Millennium Scholarship notifies in April. That tops off his offers to true full rides.</p>
<p>But since he did not know if he got GMS in December, then it is conceivably possible that he may have wanted to compare Harvard’s offer (presumably a net price of $4,600 if he got maximum financial aid there) with others. If a $70 yearbook is a big deal for him, then it is likely that the difference between $4,600 (Harvard), $5,000 (Stanford), $8,500 (UC without Regents), and $0 (UC with Regents) would have been a big deal for him. While such differences may be small for the “middle class who does not get financial aid”, remember to look at it from the point of view of someone from a poor family.</p>
<p>Of course, getting GMS made all of his choices equivalent in price (unless one goes down to the level of how easy it is to go under or over the official financial aid budget at each school), so once he found that out, he could choose without regard to price.</p>
<p>HS counselors are told when their students are accepted/denied/waitlisted so they sometimes know the decision before the students themselves do. It’s their job to know the decisions. Good for this great kid! Of course he’d be okay to wait until all the decisions were in. Since he is in the Early Action category, it makes perfect sense for him. All the best to this young man.</p>
<p>“counselors are told when their students are accepted/denied/waitlisted so they sometimes know the decision before the students themselves do. It’s their job to know the decisions,”</p>
<p>Ugh. How is it their job to know what goes on between my kid / family and a school? Guess what? If we decide as a family that my kid wants to apply to all Ivies OR my kid wants to apply to comm college, how is it remotely their place to tell my kid what he can and cannot do? (Excluding things like applying multiple places via ED) </p>
<p>They’re an ATM for transcripts as far as I’m concerned. It’s like the bank teller telling me how to spend my money or the pharmacist refusing to fill my rx (for a reason other than a drug interaction). Complete overstepping of boundaries. Why do you put up with it?</p>
<p>That is just a myth fueled by a couple of anecdotes. </p>
<p>While it is not impossible that a college might notify a couple of well-connected GCs, the reality is that the admission decisions are made to the student directly. Except for a mid-year report, the student has no obligation to share anything with the GCs, and in my eyes, that remains, by far, the very best path to follow. The GC can find out about the results when this information is needed for graduation and other festivities.</p>
<p>Well, I don’t think most kids and/or their parents who get into NYC’s public magnets check out what the rules are for college applications before they enroll. Once they have enrolled, it’s too late to challenge those rules–at least successfully.</p>
<p>The fact that the # of schools you apply to is limited is included very prominently in the high school profile sent to colleges, so colleges are aware of the policy. The view of the high schools is that this benefits the kids. Colleges know that kids are applying to a limited number of schools and thus, in theory at least, are more likely to enroll if admitted.</p>
<p>I DO think that colleges, particularly LACs limit the number of kids they will accept from any one high school. I also think they take yield from a high school into account. If a good quality but not tippy top LAC accepts 5 kids each year for 3-5 years and nobody enrolls, it’s going to stop accepting as many kids from that school. </p>
<p>At the publics, it’s also a matter of limited resources. It’s simply not feasible to process 30 applications each for everyone in the class. But the only charge for getting a transcript is $1…which you attach as stamps on the envelope addressed to each of the colleges where you are applying.</p>
<p>But does it really matter the way you think it does?</p>
<p>Suppose a college decides that only the top 5 students at a given high school will be considered (i.e. a very strong class rank preference). If all of the top 5 students refuse to apply to the college, or withdraw their applications, it still does not help any student from #6 or lower rank who applies to that college.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Also, the actual number of applications that this student had was smaller than 9:</p>
<p>1 Common Application (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford)
1 UC application (Berkeley, Davis, Los Angeles, San Diego)
1 MIT application</p>
<p>So it seems that, from a high school counselor’s (or teacher’s) point of view, the student has only 2 counselor or teacher recommendations to actually do work writing (no recommendations for UCs). There are 5 sets of documents (transcripts) to send (again, not for UCs at application time, which trust self-reported courses and grades but verify after matriculation).</p>
<p>Perhaps there was more for the outside scholarships, but I wouldn’t be surprised if counselors or teachers would be falling over themselves to write glowing recommendations for the valedictorian student from a poor family.</p>
<p>In other words, it is not like this student’s college application list resulted in excessive amounts of work for the school staff.</p>
<p>I do hope that students eventually report their acceptances, for the benefit of making Naviance and other databases as correct as possible.</p>
<p>My daughter’s high school (5500-student test-in school) publishes the info in various forms. On the Excel spreadsheet it looks like many, many applications are abandoned before they are complete.</p>