Hi,
My dear D high school is requesting information from students who have been awarded financial aid. They want to know how much each student was awarded in scholarships and grants. I am hesitant to offer such information because it my be in violation of confidentiality that schools may have regarding their financial aid award letters.
Can anyone please give some advice regarding this topic.
Unless they are merit scholarships, I wouldn’t tell them - if your aid is need-based, then it is based on your own individual financial profile, so the actual numbers don’t really mean anything to anyone else, and can lead to “why did she get more aid than me when we have the same need?” I see this as a tax preparer all the time - just because you think someone else’s situation is the same as yours doesn’t mean it really is. It is really eye-opening when you find out your neighbor who doesn’t manage money well makes significantly more than you, but can’t save a dime.
If they are trying to use the information to guide future students, in terms of which colleges are more generous, with their need-based aid, I would let them know that College A met our need with all scholarships, while College B used scholarships and direct loans, and College C included $20,000 in parent loans in our formula. That information would be far more useful
A lot of schools use that info for 2 reasons: 1) to know where their students are getting good merit money (to help figure out options for the next batch) and 2) to brag about how much their students got (cumulatively) in “scholarship” money. Treat your financial aid money as private and any named grants/merit money as you choose. One of ours got a bunch of named grants, and those were listed on the award day program (eg, Jones Foundation Fellow, Feldman Humanities Award). You can clarify in advance if you want it kept private (our collegekid missed that memo, so they were listed- that should teach her to read her mail!)
They just want to brag that their students received $10M in scholarships. Our school also had an senior awards night and all who told them about scholarships (merit) were invited and called up to get a certificate. One of my daughters had told them about one of her talent awards so she was invited. The other, who received a much larger scholarship, didn’t put it on her senior form so was’t invited. A boy going to the same school was there and recognized.
It was a very bizarre evening. No athletes (except the one going to the Naval academy),some kids who weren’t taking those scholarships didn’t show up so the presenters were left hanging, a lot of NHS awards for being the nicest, etc.
Our school asks for it so they can say how much students were offered. They lump together all offers not just the amount from where a student has decided to go. And since the guidance staff was totally unhelpful in the college process I told my S not to respond.
Just ignore. Nothing to do with confidentiality but the high schools don’t even use the information correctly.
Our HS asked. We graciously declined.
S’s high school asked. He told them about scholarships, but not grants.
DD’s HS asked for merit award figures. They use it as a marketing tool to say how much their students were awarded. I think they also do track which schools were most generous to help future students who are needing to hunt for merit.
I think my daughter’s high school likes it so they can brag “our students were offered $21 million and accepted $7 million in financial aid and scholarships “
I think that the information is valuable to future students. I know the information was valuable to me when Iooked at the “Big Book” of college info for each of my kids. It gave the real life outcomes of applications with whatever hooks etc were noted and the outcomes, including financial aid and merit awards. Financial aid was just % need met as defined by FAFSA EFC and a composite figure for the schools listed. The information was not complete as some did not want to share the info with GCs but the info was verified.
In order to verify the merit awards as well as actual admissions status–Accepted, WL, Rejected, early or regular, deferred and then outcome, the actual letters were requested or info not used. That was because, sadly, people lie. So in order to have this information useful to others, it has to be verified. It’s each student, and family’s business as to whether they want to share this information, but with the schools I know, it’s for a good cause. I shared because I wanted to give back the info that was useful to us.
The info also gave accolades to those students who did get merit money, because the info was noted at certain award ceremonies and at one school, on the graduation program. Again, all of this only with expressed permission of student and parent. The consolidated numbers were used as “brags”, yes in marketing. Those totals, IMO, are not as useful. as the info in the “Big Book”, in fact, hardly useful at all. THe amounts attributed to the actual students in the programs were also very valuable to those parents who were going into the process. When you see a kid you know has gotten $25K from School A and $5K from School B, you can get some idea of the process at those schools and perhaps mentally list them for future use.
accolades<<<<<<<
I saw a kid paraded on stage for getting 30K scholarship to Georgetown (FA, but why let the facts get in the way of a good story) but he was “choosing” the local 4 yr instead ,and the Princeton admit that got a similar scholarship, who was choosing the religious school for free. The high school was straight up selling these kids admission stories as merit awards. It was the first and last time I saw that happen. It was horrible.
@cptofthehouse except that’s not how our HS did it. They listed the total awards a student received…just the total…not by school.
And frankly, for some families it’s need based aid…and it’s none of the neighbors business that this family qualified for need based aid.
We just said…no. And you know, they never asked a second time.
Oh, and I should add, our HS discontinued this listing of scholarships anywhere.
No one should have to give any info they do not want to release whether it’s an admissions, denial, wait list, let alone a scholarship or financial aid. You release what info you don’t mind sharing to whoever… or not. It’s foolish for a school not to verify what it’s putting out there and not understanding the privacy issues of these things, particularly financial aid.
@cptofthehouse What is a Big Book? I’ve never heard of this. Is it from the HS?
Knowing what aid other families receive doesn’t help anyone unless it’s given in context. Unless you’re also releasing information about your income and assets the information is useless to them. If they want an idea of what a particular college might cost they should run the Net Price Calculator. That’s what they’re for.
Yes, people make crazy assumptions. “Oh, their track captain kid got a great athletic scholarship to Dartmouth. Sweetie- you should apply to Dartmouth, you’re a much better athlete”.
I think seeing where seniors received scholarships would help the sophomores and juniors know where to look for merit aid, but it didn’t do much good at our school since only a few seniors and their parents were invited to the awards ceremony. Which school the student was going to and the scholarship was not published in the graduation program.
My nephew went to an all boys private school where almost every student went to college immediately after graduation. The program listed the college and the name of the scholarship (President’s, Chancellor’s, Regent’s) but not the amount. If you wanted to go look it up you could.
Yes, a database of past college decisions (e.g. like Naviance or similar) would be more useful to future college applicants if it included notations of merit scholarships as well as admission. But that would have no need to see the full FA letters.
It would also be more useful if, for colleges that admit by division or major, separate listings or plots for divisions or majors that have enough applicants were done.
To be honest, probably about 75% of those headed to college from our high school went to instate public schools so the GC’s were more knowledgeable about those, and the main scholarship was Bright Futures, but they knew very little about OOS schools or even the private schools in Florida.