<p>Hello,
My son has been accepted at Colgate (yay!). It is among his top 2 or 3 choices. We did well this year and did not qualify for aid. That is not a surprise to us. What is a surprise is the reaction we are getting from our HS guidance counselor. He is not enthusiastic about Colgate because of the no financial aid offer and is making us feel sort of stupid for spending so much on an undergrad education. He (GC) was surprised that we were not offered anything even though Colgate doesn't award merit aid. Now my son thinks he only got admitted because we are full pay? His stats are decent with tons of EC: he fits the Colgate profile.</p>
<p>There seems to be excessive praise at our school for those students with similar grades that got big financial aid packages- mostly need based. I am fine with others getting help, but feel bad now that my son is starting to doubt his own intrinsic merit. I'd like him to enjoy his acceptance at Colgate! Any advice or reassurance would help us out.</p>
<p>PS I should add that we did get decent merit packages from other schools that my son is also considering, but Colgate is probably the best fit for him.</p>
<p>Per Colgate’s website, the admission process is not totally need-blind. However, rest assurred that your son would not have been accepted without qualifying on his own merits. Did he have a slight edge over other equally qualified students who needed a full ride? Perhaps, but that’s the reality at schools that are not fully need-blind.</p>
<p>BTW, my son was also accepted to Colgate with no financial aid. </p>
<p>Assuming that you can afford to pay for his education on your own and Colgate is your son’s top choice, then he should go for it!</p>
<p>Congrats to your son! That counselor is being ridiculous.</p>
<p>It’s unfortunate that Colgate is not yet able to be need-blind, but that doesn’t mean that full pay students get priority. The only time it matters is if it’s down to the end and they’re out of aid money and there are two comparable applicants - the one that doesn’t need aid will get in. Everyone who is accepted definitely deserves to be there, and unfortunately they have to wait list or reject many more who deserve it as well - there are only so many spaces each year - and your son is one of the lucky few!</p>
<p>Colgate is small enough that they read all of the applications very carefully, at least twice. Clearly something stood out about your son that made them think that he’d be able to contribute to Colgate. He wasn’t just a number, accepted for his stats only - the admissions officers liked what they saw of his personality through his essays and recommendation letters.</p>
<p>Colgate is a wonderful place with amazing opportunities. If you can afford it without going deep into debt or using up your retirement savings, then go for it! Does he know yet what he wants to study?</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your kind responses. I feel better now. My son is interested in economics and I think Colgate is very strong in this area. In addition to that, Colgate just seems to be a great school in every way. I need to get the fact that he was accepted RD on his own merit through his teenage brain. </p>
<p>My problem is that we come from a relatively poor school/area so that no one is a full pay student. It seems like everyone’s success is judged by how much they get in scholarship/aid. Crazy. As I said more power to people that get much needed help to go to college. I just did not expect our ability to pay to play into the college acceptance drama!</p>
<p>My main fear is that my son will want to accept at another college that is not as good for him as Colgate because he does not want me to spend “all that money” that everyone around here seems to think is a “waste”. Not to me, that is what I saved and invested for all of these years. He is the last child to go through school. We have decent retirement accounts and good job security. I can do this.</p>
<p>Thanks again, it helps to talk on the boards with folks who understand where you are coming from.</p>
<p>I think something to remember here, is that after he graduates from college–his resume will only state where he graduated from, not how much aid he received. If your family can afford it, it seems like a shame to choose a lesser school that would not be as great a fit. I can certainly say that my friends and I at Colgate never really compared financial aid packages, and the one time it came up, it was never a discussion of how easy/difficult it was to get into Colgate as a result.</p>
<p>Colgate does have a great economics department, as far as I could tell. Many of my friends are now at top investment banks and successful consulting firms after graduating with an economics degree. I can’t really say more about it than that though.</p>
<p>If you can afford to send your son there, and that’s where he wants to go, then I wouldn’t worry about what other people say. For some of those families, the aid may be critical, and they don’t have the same options that you do. They may have a hard time understanding how someone else could spend that much out of pocket. </p>
<p>My D was accepted at Colgate, with no aid. We were not willing to spend that much. She received a full merit scholarship at W&L, and that’s where she will attend. Fortunately that was her first choice. I think she would have fit in well at either school, but Free vs. $220,000+ was pretty much a no-brainer decision. What I do find strange is that W&L told us that her regular aid package would have been about $30,000, if she hadn’t gotten the merit scholarship. They were surprised that Colgate offered nothing. What I took away from the comparison is this: W&L must have a lot more money to spend on financial aid than Colgate does. I’m sure they’re trying, but it would be really nice if Colgate could increase their endowment so that they can eventually go need-blind and offer more aid to students from “not rich, yet not poor” backgrounds.</p>
<p>Thank you everyone again, for past and recent posts to my thread. Your advice and insight has been so supportive and helpful as our family navigates these final days of the college decision process. Congratulations sciencewoman on your daughter’s accptance at W&L…first choice and a full ride, well the decision cannot get much easier, can it? I am not too savvy about all of the acronyms but if W&L is Washington and Lee, I visited that campus years ago- what a beautiful place! </p>
<p>My son re-visited Colgate last week and really likes it. He asked for some space as he makes up his mind. So we shall see…maybe I will be seeing some of you at Colgate in August. </p>
<p>Again, many thanks. It helped clear my head of those odd emotions and conflicted feelings that can crop up during the strange and often convoluted process of helping your child find the right school that is a good fit for him/her. Too bad we are not getting much in the way of local support, but as others have so wisely pointed out you need to find your own way and ignore the little slings and arrows from those who are probably trying to be helpful (I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt).</p>
<p>The Colgate Passion for the Climb capital campaign now nearing its June 30 culmination has raised over $440 million which includes a financial aid component of more than $128 million. It was launched precariously just before the '08 recession and at $400 million and yet President Herbst extended it with a challenge for another $40 million. And it’s been achieved! The upshot is that in time Colgate will be need blind with 46% of students receiving aid. To get there will require more funds to the tune of $150 million or so.</p>
<p>Until the 1920s the Colgate family underwrote the university’s budgets. As you can see with the above alongside 46 years of balanced budgets, strong costs controls and the generosity of Colgate’s supporters, these financial challenges are well in hand.</p>
<p>Good luck to your daughter and to chvall’s son with his choice!</p>
<p>You say you did well this year. Will you be able to pay over all four years? Are there other children coming up?</p>
<p>Do you have better offers at schools he likes?</p>
<p>These are questions that bear consideration.</p>
<p>As for the GC’s attitudes, those are cruel and ridiculous. Many brilliant students go to colleges full pay. If parents can afford it, those parents support the schools enough so that scholarship kids can attend. Even need blind schools have about half their student body attending full-pay. Anyway, financial matters should be private. I don’t think it’s any of the GC’s business, or anyone else in the community for that matter.</p>
<p>(FWIW my kids did not attend their schools full-pay, but this had nothing to do with their merit, just our finances.)</p>
<p>Colgate will reevaluate aid each year, so even if you don’t need financial aid the first year you can apply in following years if circumstances change.</p>
<p>I do want to say that I really understand your situation. </p>
<p>I wasn’t accepted to Colgate for freshmen admissions though my profile was a bit lower than the average and I was a legacy. They were/are picky! I did get admitted for transfer and chose to go because I had EARNED that acceptance and LOVED Colgate. It never occurred to me that they would accept me because my parents could pay full (I did receive some aid at my first school). I don’t believe the admissions accept students unless they believe that these students are truly deserving. Our acceptance rate is highly competitive and has gone down over the last 5-8 years. When I applied in 2004, it was 32% acceptance rate, now it’s down to… what? 25%?</p>
<p>But I can understand your son’s feelings. I’ve just gone through PhD admissions where I felt that one of my funding packages was truly deserved while the other seemed… well, it wasn’t all that difficult to get it given the circumstances behind it. I did love both of the schools. My adviser made a great point: I have two wonderful packages that are about the same so the question really is, whom do I really, REALLY want to work with? Her underlying point was that on the long run, if you’re accomplished, you will show yourself to be deserving of that acceptance and funding package. Another professor assured me that the “undserved” funding package was really deserving in the professor’s mind when he decided to give me it. I might not see it that way but he did.</p>
<p>So, really consider the fact that the admissions DID think your S is deserving of such an acceptance. They could have said, “eh” and passed him on for another similar candidate. That professor of that “undeserved” package could have said “eh, I won’t give her this particular funding package, maybe something else… or just first year funding.”</p>
<p>It’s a hard thing to wrap your mind around but just have to try to keep perspective that where you really want to go matters more than your perception of how your acceptance came about. How you will make the most of your experience matters far more than the worth of the fin aid offer/acceptance.</p>
<p>Chvall, I know what you are going through! My daughter, was accepted at Colgate which was probably one of her top 2 choices. We visited again last Wednesday and she was even more in love with it. We just got back from visiting Tulane where she was offered quite a large scholarship. I knew before we went to New Orleans that she was not going to like it as much as Colgate, but felt we could’t turn it down without making an informed decision. Not to say that Tulane isn’t a great program, it just wasn’t the right place for my daughter. I do feel bad about walking away from money, but I also know that Colgate is the perfect fit for my daughter. I could just see it in her face! A lot of people in my area have picked schools based upon scholarships, but I just know that the intellectual environment of Colgate is exactly what my daughter needs to thrive.
Good luck with your son’s decision and I wouldn’t worry about what anyone else thinks. It’s what works for you and your son!</p>
<p>Just thought that I would update the thread that I started and let everyone who was kind enough to offer support that my son has decided to attend Colgate in the fall. We could not be happier and I am certain this is the right decision for him. The LONG college selection and acceptance ordeal is over. I continue to get the occasional thoughtless remark, but thanks in part to everyone’s input, it matters not.</p>
<p>I can relate to your story jandnmon…all I had to do was observe my son’s excitement and rapport with Colgate students during the accepted students day to know that Colgate was the right place for him. Maybe we will meet in August!</p>
<p>Thank you ticklemepink and everyone else for your insight. It really helped me through a rough patch.</p>
<p>Just thought that I would update the thread that I started and let everyone who was kind enough to offer support that my son has decided to attend Colgate in the fall. We could not be happier and I am certain this is the right decision for him. The LONG college selection and acceptance ordeal is over. I continue to get the occasional thoughtless remark, but thanks in part to everyone’s input, it matters not.</p>
<p>I can relate to your story jandnmon…all I had to do was observe my son’s excitement and rapport with Colgate students during the accepted students day to know that Colgate was the right place for him. Maybe we will meet in August!</p>
<p>Thank you ticklemepink and everyone else for your insight. It really helped me through a rough patch.</p>
<p>Congratulations chvall for your son’s decision. My ds will be finishing his first year in about 2 weeks time and he is very happy there. It is a big place. Your son will find people with similar interests there.</p>