Daughter Refusing to fill out Scholarship applications

Parents Forum
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<p>I agree with other posters that at this time of year, most successful high school students are burned out. I made a file for my DD with scholarship applications and requirements and asked her to complete one each weekend after all of the college aps were in. She did it for about three weeks and said that she had had enough. I think that a full tuition offer arrived during that time as well.</p>

<p>In the end, she received no money from the three apps and I was THRILLED that I had not pushed her to do more. She ended up accepting one of her full tuition offers and was happy that she hadn’t wasted any more time on the little scholarships. </p>

<p>Perhaps your daughter just needs a break and will change her mind in a few weeks. It is really hard for a high school kid to understand why mom and dad can’t just write the check.</p>

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<p>While everyone is chilling out this week at your house, maybe you can tell her YOU are applying for a raffle to win a Samsonite luggage set, just in case she threatens again to move out! But of course, if you win, it’s “yours” so you get to travel…</p>

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<p>Unless she’s at the tippy top of the local graduating class or hits the financial need/diversity/community service criteria the scholarship seeks to reward, coming by money can be tough. A friend of ours who was a big fish in a small pond (salutatorian, 2070 in a school where most kids don’t go to college) got lots of local $$. Both my kids had a couple of schools on their list where they were in the range to have a shot at merit money. One of my kids also did well in science competitions and earned some scholarship $$ there. As for local $$ – nothing.</p>

<p>Our kids were told in middle school that if they wanted to attend an expensive school, they’d have to have skin in the game. For our family, that means Staffords (at the subsidized amount, unless they choose to pay the difference for a private room), which goes directly to tuition/R&B. They are also expected to work 8-10 hrs. a week during the academic year and as many hours as they can get in the summer in order to pay for books and spending $$. That can add up to 15-20% of COA in pretty short order. </p>

<p>$100k is roughly the equivalent of four years as an in-state student at the flagship (depending on your state). There are many parents here who have told their kids that’s the budget and anything else is on them. That is perfectly reasonable to me, esp. since you have three kids to worry about. </p>

<p>We are lucky that both guys are fairly frugal and low-maintenance. One of the benefits of asking your kids to work in college is that they quickly learn that that cool $35 shirt will cost them four or five hours of slinging burgers or herding kids at day camp!</p>

<p>Time for parents and D to have a non-confrontational pow-pow about how she plans to earn her share of the nut for next year. Sit down and review sources of income (loan, jobs available locally, jobs she could get on campus) and compare to the COA of each of the schools where she’s been accepted. </p>

<p>I know kids are pretty punchy by this time in senior year – there is a lot of stress between the reality of leaving home and friends, choosing a school, paying for it all, AP/IB exams, having a roommate, senioritis, etc. One of my kids had stress-induced migraines by this stage of senior year. We parents all know things will work themselves out, but the kids can’t quite embrace that reality just yet. I’d let the “I’m going to leave home” roll off my back as the stressed-out venting of a 17 yo and gently redirect to how we can work together to make this happen.</p>

<p>ETA: Now, when <em>I</em> needed to vent, I’d come here! CC is good for that – we ALL get it…</p>

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<p>^^^^^^^^^^ post #22</p>

<p>hahahahaha</p>

<p>took me back </p>

<p>my step-dad started giving us luggage when we were 15 and when the 4 set piece was done, he said “now use it.”</p>

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<p>^^What a great guy.</p>

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<p>I find it appalling that she does not even have a tiny bit of appreciation for the 100k you are giving her. Maybe you should defer her matriculation for a year. Make her go out and work for a year, then maybe she would understand the value of money and education instead of having this sense of entitlement. The problem is not money here, it’s her lack of common sense and empathy for her parents and reality.</p>

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<p>It is difficult, time consuming and stressful…Harumph!</p>

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<p>I was THRILLED that I made my daughter fill out QB and Gates, fighting her tooth and nail the entire time (she received them both.) My mantra was “you can’t win the lottery without buying a ticket.” Even if she hadn’t won either, I hope it would have shown her that the only defeat would have been in not trying.</p>

<p>I admit that I made Amy Chua look like lamb mom instead of tiger mom during the period of scholarship applications. My daughter forgave me. :)</p>

29

<p>We were in a similar boat…high FAFSA and no financial aid. We limited the schools D applied to to those that gave merit aid, but realistically we knew we’d be paying close to $40K to $45K a year even with some of her merit offers.</p>

<p>So we made it clear to D that despite her hard senior course load and despite how sick she was of doing applications/ essays, that she was under house arrest and could not leave until all her local scholarship forms were totally completed for a Monday deadline. (If she was unwilling to do that, then we were unwilling to spend a cent more towards her education than the cost of our state U.) We got some initial grumbling of disbelief because no one else’s parents were keeping their children home from the movies, but to her credit, she buckled down and completed everything by Sunday. (Her friends–many equally good students-- went to the movies etc, but did not apply for these local scholarships.)</p>

<p>Fast forward to senior award night. D’s grand total in local scholarships was almost $11/K!!! They were all merit based. We were approached by several parents who couldn’t believe that D won so much and their darling D’s and S’s won nothing. I smiled sweetly and asked if they had even applied!</p>

<p>Trust me, no movie was worth $11K.</p>

30

<p>She has a job and worked full-time last summer. She’s received merit offers between $1,000 and 13k from several of her schools. Just got $8700 a year from Ohio state today ;after i started this thread. we are in many ways probably a lot like most of you-- hard working families. None of those several schools are her top choices, and frankly, she’s been pretty realistic in that she crossed off a number of $50 k++ schools from her original list on her own. I am pretty confident she’ll be able to handle the loans as we’re estimating them.</p>

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<p>Thank you for your post, uskoolfish. Very sensible and I’ll be stealing a little of your strategy. I doubt my d will get $11k, but she’s very likely to get something from our own well supported town scholarship fund. Who knows, beyond that…? Congrats to your D; well-deserved.</p>

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<p>I told my daughter that I would deduct the amount of any scholarship for which she was qualified but refused to apply. I did not search for any of them; these were the ones on the list her high school gave her. She didn’t have to win any of them, but she was not permitted to leave money on the table. If her time wasn’t worth the money to her, neither was the time that I had to spend to earn that money.</p>

<p>She applied. She didn’t get any of the local ones. She got a good merit award at her college, has worked every summer and during the year. We’ve paid for the 4 years. And she now appreciates it.</p>

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<p>GA2012mom–My daughter was not applying for the big-name, big-dollar scholarships. Had she won all three, she would have gotten $3K. For her schools where we would have been full-pay (COA $58K and $60K), that amount of money would not have made a dent.</p>

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<p>^
Sorry, I wasn’t specifically responding to you, just using that as an example of how kids HATE filling out applications. Sorry for the misunderstanding.</p>

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<p>Not a problem and congrats to your daughter.</p>

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<p>If you are willing, perhaps see if there are 2-3 scholarships which you think your child has a reasonable chance of winning. Provide encouragement why you think your child could win this scholarship (special talent, etc.). If you think there are a few scholarships, even one scholarship, that has good potential to win, then I would encourage your child to fill out the scholarship application.</p>

<p>Also, do you have an idea which school your child wants? Perhaps your generous $100,000 is sufficient, especially for an in state school.</p>

<p>Last, if you have filled out financial aid forms, and your child is aware of these forms, might want to point out if bills are over 100k, your child may have to take loans and/or work study.</p>

<p>If your child does not want to pursue the scholarship forms any further, I suggest letting it go. Good relationships with your children are what is most important.</p>

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<p>I don’t know what to say about the scholarship/loan issues here. But I would be very, very hurt and disappointed if my D took that attitude with me.</p>

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<p>Are you sure the scholarships would even do her any good? It wasn’t clear from your post whether you were applying for any need-based aid, or whether your financial situation put you in the full-pay category. The schools you listed were in several states, I’m guessing only your in-state would provide much in the way of need-based aid. Many on the Financial Aid forum have found that scholarships reduce the amount of need-based aid they receive, but don’t change the family contribution. So it’s hard to figure out whether it’s worth her time and your frustration to pursue this at all.</p>

<p>If the scholarships will reduce your family’s (yours and hers) contribution, then the next thing you have to make clear is what you meant by $100,000. Does that mean $12.5K per semester for 8 semesters, or does that mean as much as it takes till the money runs out? You probably didn’t plan to go into this much detail, but since she’s pushing back, you need to figure out where and how you plan to draw the line. The key is to decide before trying to work with her what your limits are, then calmly and firmly stick with them. If you let her drive you into an argument, you’ve already lost.</p>

<p>Good Luck</p>

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<p>Chedva, Wise words, thank you for sharing them.</p>

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<p>I agree that the kids are suffering from burn out this time of year but to be honest- so are grownups. I’m exhausted from working way too many hours at work, dealing with parental illness, etc. and yet by April 15th my taxes need to get filed, the electric bill still needs to be paid, and someone has to take the rattling old Honda in to have the muffler reattached.</p>

<p>I don’t think it’s mean to set an expectation (we are happy to contribute 100K to your college education) which also requires the kid to step up to the plate (i.e. fill out a few more forms and basically cut and paste from essays already written for the applications.) And the attitude that the local scholarships are small potatoes and not worth applying for got one of my kids 4 years worth of a scholarship he won for Freshman year (a one time only thing.) He got a letter in August before sophomore year that since nobody applied (that would be zero applications) the organization was giving it to him again and by the way, the thank you note he wrote the previous year was much appreciated by the trustees who had never before been thanked. And then he got the money direct deposited to the college junior and senior year.</p>

<p>So he spent one hour in his senior year cutting and pasting to fill out “one more form” which netted him 1K. And then they gave it to him again for the next three years. If I could find a job which paid me 4K for one hours worth of work I’d be all over it. (and kid had no marketable skills during his senior year, making his haul that much more dramatic.)</p>

<p>Nobody likes applying for things. Nobody likes sending thank you notes. Which is why sometimes scholarship committees get desperate finding a kid to give money to. Not “we will alter your life” kinds of money- those get tens of thousands of applications. But hey- it’s not like the kid had to create an essay out of whole cloth- it’s just the same application essay formatted into a different space with the “Why Tufts” edited out.</p>