<p>I completely agree with nova2nola’s post #39. In our town, community service is king when it comes to scholarships, and most local awards have service as a primary requirement. I have no problem with that at all. However, I do think people assume that the top students and top athletes will get money from other sources. Unfortunately, that’s not always true. My D was good enough in her sport to be recruited to a nationally top 15 program, yet that school offered her only “book money” as far as athletic money. Also, we watched really superb kids all around–vals and sals–get NOTHING on scholarship night, despite having excelled in both service and studies. People assume they’ll get money from other sources, but I don’t think they always do because national scholarships are super tough to get. And frankly, my son got the supposed “top” merit scholarship at a couple of LAC’s. While generous, they didn’t even cover half the COA, since tuition is super high at those places. So it’s not as though top students would be getting full rides everywhere and have no need of the money.</p>
<p>There were many renewable scholarships given. One for $5000 a year. The young man who won it is not what I would call that community oriented. Just well coached on what to write down and what to do.</p>
<p>Not enough. Going into debt is now part of the process. Every bit was going to help since we were in line to get merit scholarships at other universities.</p>
<p>Wow, what a hornet’s nest I stirred up. Guess I’ll try to address what some people consider ill will to good fortune or someone else’s luck.
If disappointment over monetary award is considered a lack of gratitude when we got into an Ivy, then I am guilty. One year ago, my son did not want to be a college athlete, but when two Ivy’s flew him out to recruit him, he changed his mind. The reasons they liked him were his strength of schedule (five AP’s), SAT’s, and GPA. These schools know that they need to compete at the Division one level with kids who can handle the academic rigor and the extra hours of training. He was considered one of a small group. Their actions speak louder than my words.
Lack of monetary award - Some of the kids that won large sums of money ($6,000 and $2,000) are his best friends. They are teammates and classmates. They are great kids and will be great adults. They are at the house all the time and admittedly had no community service, lower grades, and less athletic achievement. But they somehow cleaned up fairly well financially. Am I jealous? You bet. It was money and we needed it just as much as they did. Their parents are in the same socioeconomic bracket, so I was pretty shocked at the discrepancy in awards. Some of the biggest winners were big into volunteering and were into school organizations such as Interac or school council. Most of these organizations occur in a class, at lunch, or once a week. My youngest son is in school council. In my opinion there is not a lot of sacrifice in some school functions. (As a 26 year veteran coach I am a bit biased. Never coached my son though.) As for volunteering, I will trust that nobody padded their hours. Although one of my best friends from college is a high school college counselor and says that many of the smart kids pad their hours and accomplishments like there is no tomorrow. It’s hard to pad your practice and game hours when you have a set and mandatory schedule.
As for getting into an Ivy, my son had the grades, SAT’s and athletic ability which is why THEY RECRUITED HIM as well as MIT. At these schools, there are no athletic or merit scholarships. Every dollar accumulated is important since the cost is twice the amount as one of our state university’s. As far as volunteering, he practiced an average of two to three hours a day almost year round. Competitions were on weekends, summer football camp, and ten days with the National team ate up a chunk of the summer. In addition, four hours of practice split between two sports Mon. through Thursday all summer. Hard to find a job or truly volunteer as much as you like when your all over the place. Or just tired.
Is he perfect? No way. Is he smart? Yes. Did he have a hook? Yes. His spot was awarded since he will be competing for the school and training two to three hours a day. How many of you angry souls got into your college with the plan of training five days a week? Is this a good deal? Don’t know. Check with me in four years.
TheGFG and nova2nola get it. I can tell they know what it’s like to drive all over creation and spend thousands in allowing their children to fully realize their potential while being elite student/athletes.
My message in my post was for the parents who bank on athletic scholarships and pour all their resources into one direction. We thought we had the balance for many community scholarships and were wrong. In the end, disappointment was there (financially).</p>
<p>I think you got what I really meant. Maybe that is why you are IVY bound. Congrats. Sounds like a Princeton admit to me.</p>
<p>HS awards are often distributed by the guidance dept, and the decisions they make are frequently rather odd, to say the least. I’m sorry your son didn’t get much money, even though he needed it. To be a heavily recruited football player with those stats he must not only be talented but have a lot of self-discipline and indeed be a special kid. I’m sure he will do well. Good luck to you.</p>
<p>BTW, when you reply to a specific post you need to quote at least part of it or mention the number, or people won’t be able to tell who you are talking to.</p>
<p>OP, I am in no way here to discredit your son’s hard work or his achievements. I’m not sure if you already understand this but it is possible to do service while training five days a week with a sport plus competitions and whatnot on the weekends. I know. I’ve done it. I stopped after two years because well it was exhausting, but was it worth it? Yes. </p>
<p>Good luck to your son.</p>
<p>I was actually on the PTO scholarship committee for two years. We picked the winners blind (used the school student number no names). I was surprised by how in my seemingly upper middle class town there were several unemployed parents. We were definitely swayed by any hardship such as that when picking the winners. </p>
<p>BTW the students were required to list any other scholarships they had been given (included merit money from the college), the cost of attendance, and also attach the EFC from the FAFSA. Kids with very low EFCs were definitely given priority.</p>
<p>What I noticed with my two older kids is that the awards seldom went to the best students or even those most dedicated to service. They went to ordinary nice kids/kids with connected parents; kids who the teachers thought needed the money most (whether that was actually true or not); and kids the committees assumed weren’t quite accomplished enough to get scholarships from their colleges and other sources. Therefore, the best and brightest tended to get slighted. They were so impressive that the local people figured they were going to get bigger awards elsewhere. </p>
<p>I started a thread on the subject of high school awards 3 years ago. One thing I wrote about that stunned me back then was that the valedictorian of my D’s class did not win even one award–just a certificate for being the Val. How is it possible that the overall best student in the class gets not one academic award or scholarship? I felt sad for him. And while the top athletes might get their participation trophies at the varsity awards ceremonies and might get the glory of having their names in the local newspaper, those things have no money attached. In our high school, the good athletes did not win any of the local scholarships. People seem to perceive sports as a selfish activity, but somehow things like debate club, Model UN, robotics club, and FBLA are not seen as selfish. So while I do understand why charity work helping others is valued over playing sports, I don’t see how participating in those non-service clubs is necessarily more noble than participating in athletics.</p>
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<p>It seems to me that this is either a contradiction or a tautology meant to encompass all candidates: rarely are the kids who need the money most the ones with connected parents.</p>
<p>While I agree that participating in sports is time consuming and needs a fixed hrs of pratice etc… Never underestimate the work put in by the student who win debates/academic teams/ science fairs etc- while the time spent on preparing for debate is not quantifiable as the sports practice- lots of good debaters spent endless amount of time preparing for it. Agreed there is a lot of flexibility with time- but there is good effort for sure.</p>
<p>LoremIpsum–“Connected” and “wealthy” are not at all the same. PTO and athletic club volunteers come from all socio-economic brackets. In fact, one of the most active and well-known high school volunteers around here is a guy who lost his job a while back and hasn’t yet found another. He is connected to school people, but does not have money. By connected I also meant locally known, eg. mom is teacher or dad is a cop–and neither of those occupations imply large incomes.</p>
<p>DONIVRIAN–I totally agree with you about the time commitment of other activities like debate. My point was that for local scholarships, activities like that are viewed much more favorably than sports, yet they aren’t community-service oriented either.</p>
<p>TheGFG: I was refering to post # 39, but I agree that most awards are not sports based. Perhaps comminuty needs to come forward and offer more sports based scholarships. Popular sports persons should take the initiative in estabishing such awards in school.</p>
<p>OP, when you respond to someone specifically, it would help if you would quote the post. When you don’t do that, it makes it hard to follow what you are talking about, and most of us don’t want to have to go back through the thread to find the post to which you might be referring.</p>
<p>To Tiger2017 - your post #16 makes more sense. Sending my son to an Ivy is still a financial stretch in some ways. I have another son college bound and won’t drain the coffers to benefit one son over another. Our family is grateful for his opportunity. My guess is that you are Princeton bound. Good luck.</p>