Acceptance Shaming ("she only got in because she's _______")

Gee Tufts merit package is not what most would consider ‘a great merit package’ as stated a. … “Finalists who are eligible for financial aid will receive a $2000 annual Tufts National Merit Scholarship as well as any other need based aid for which they are eligible. Finalists who are not eligible for need based aid, or who do not apply for aid, will receive a $500 annual award”

I asked because my son2 will be a freshman at tufts and while he was awarded $120,000 by Tulane and was nominated for $180,000 from the university of Southern California and also nominated for a merit scholarship at WUSTL (he declined his acceptances), he didn’t receive any merit $ from tufts. But, we didn’t expect him to receive any because we had read that tufts doesn’t award merit scholarships. So, I’m just curious whether tufts does, in fact, award merit $.

Northwestern lobbied her especially hard, adding scholarships after admission that brought the annual cost for us to $14K! A full $10K better than the aid from Penn, but with the cost and hassle of travel it won’t be much different (we’re in the Northeast.)

Some schools “label” their need based aid as “scholarship grant” or “institutional scholarship award”.

That’s the reason why you hear “so and so student got a full ride from such and such Ivy or top ranked school”. In reality it’s all need-based aid.

RennaissanceMom, Tulane offered us a similar award, but that’s still only half the cost!

Some of y’all are the most irritating people I’ve ever seen on CC. I posted this article because it was published to Huffington Post and I was proud and wanted people to read it. STOP WITH THE RACIST BANTER. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ORIGINAL POST AND I AM TIRED OF THE NOTIFICATIONS. STOP OR MOVE IT TO ANOTHER THREAD.

Yes, I applaud them, but it doesn’t give them a free ticket into elite schools. Nothing is a free ticket. Please, get over it okay? You will be better served by doing something positive. The more you rail against URMs, the more your insecurities show…it’s so unbecoming! It’s not healthy.

And yes, when someone has a certain expectation of an outcome BECAUSE they want it, or because they feel it’s owed to them, it’s SPOILED!

Like a spoiled child who does his chores and doesn’t get the car keys to his parents car. It doesn’t belong to him, he didn’t buy it, he just worked really hard at his chores, as he was supposed to.

Should his parents just hand over the keys because he says so? No one ever said he would have use of the car, but in his head, he feels it should be so. I call that behavior spoiled.

STOP. Moderator, please close this thread.

Thanks @picktails‌ & @2018dad‌, that explains it. We’re a full pay family, so opting for Tufts over the money elsewhere was really difficult, but we didn’t make it about the money for our eldest son (who didn’t receive this kind of $) and therefore couldn’t in good conscience make it about the $ for our younger child. Fortunately, we began saving for their college funds 8 years before they were born!

Yes, please close it! Or streetcred will rupture a kidney with her rage!! Her rage (more like jealousy & hate) is quite comical I might add.

Sorry that your post has been overrun by racist comments. It was a well written article that brings up quite a few good points about how society reacts to students who get the big envelope. It’s rather sad that people have to defend themselves and even offer proof of their accomplishments as NewHavenCTmom stated on the first page of the comments.

For better or worse, this is why Clarence Thomas doesn’t advocate for affirmative action. A friend of my husband’s, a black attorney in his firm, feels the same way because even though he’s an accomplished attorney, he thinks that many believe he got where he is only through affirmative action. My husband, who like me is politically liberal and believes in affirmative action, recognizes through his friend’s perspective how difficult this issue is. All I know is that my son1, who is a student at brown and was a student at a private school that accepted URMs through prep for prep program, has had many URM and ORM friends who have made his educational and personal experiences worthwhile. Having diversity at these universities and in high schools makes for a much richer experience all around. We deliberately chose our neighborhood for its multi ethnic/racial schools (and son2 opted to attend our public school system all the way through high school). That’s what’s missing from this thread. Let’s respect and engage in what each of us brings to the table. We have a lot to learn from each other if we’re positive in our exchange.

The entire discussion has become an illustration of exactly the kind of shaming that the OP’s article described, though. Unfortunately.

BTW, I’d say that one thing the OP should take away from this is that the article did touch on a very hot topic and encouraged “debate.” (Not sure I can call all of this discourse debate, but that’s not the fault of the author.)

Duceandaquarter, I agree that streetcred has herself beyond worked up. Stress kills.

but if this thread is closed, @streetcred will head over to the Yale Forum in an attempt to turn those parents against @NewHavenCTmom‌ as she did last week. They quickly erased her horrible posts about URMs, but I’m sure she will be back over there with a vengeance!

So going back to the OP topic (and my apologies, OP, as your thread was clearly hijacked,) is the “shaming” aspect something I need to be concerned about once my D is on campus? Or does the college crowd not really think that way anymore?

Picktails, I asked my daughter about that since this thread was started. She said yes, some people subtlely insinuated that she “might” have got in because of her URM status but their assumptions were squashed once people knew her and her performance in class, labs etc.

Well, 300 points are NOT added for URMs. Period. Some poster is referring to some unrelated study that makes the rounds in various versions to prove something that- in reality- it does not. More important, the author of the original study says it’s incredibly limited, a look-see at a very narrow slice of data, under very particular circumstances. He says, do not assume anything about it.

There is no conspiracy. Move forward. Life’s tough enough. OP, don’t let this fussing get to you.

Picktails and GA, there will always be people who need to blame something and rant. And plenty more who look at the individual, not the labels.

@picktails‌, i can’t speak for Penn (visited it w both sons but for various reasons, neither preferred it over brown or tufts; s1 was accepted and s2 withdrew app), but at brown I haven’t seen or heard of anyone “shaming.” If anything, I’m really impressed with how integrated the student body at brown is. My s lives in a living learning house that is multi ethic/ racial. There is a lot of love and respect in that house. Of course, both of these schools are known for their liberal, quirky, intellectual student bodies and so I would expect them to have respectful, curious, open-minded students.

@lookingforward Read what I wrote. I did not say it was about test scores. I said that hooked status allows legacies and URMs do not have to stand out because their status does that for them already.

@collegebound752 The cutoffs typically have 20-point differences in each state. That’s a significant amount. Did I offend you by stating the truth? The standard is indeed lower.