That’s possibly the case that applies to domestic students, the international students who came to Denison this year weren’t that impressive for the amounts of full-tuition scholarships the school awarded to them. There are only a few international peers I’ve met that are “ivy-admissible” students.
I would assume for international kids, they prob award those financial aid awards based upon the possibility of them ending up matriculating into Denison than supposed “merit”. It’s a pretty clever move since there do have a demand for low paying international kids who desire in getting into top American colleges, but these things are extremely limited at most tops and Denison found the opportunity to admit these low-paying international students who are unable to attain admission at better school in exchange for better overall yield rate.
One of the “higher-paying”(paying 30k a year) international students with the most impressive profile seen on campus so far, is a really awkward(lol) Taiwanese guy who got 1570 & around 98 out of 100 on his GPA, he was a finalist for his country’s national chemistry olympiad(T3 teams in the world) and a member of Tsinghua University’s research program for talented youth. Apparently, for them, the merit doesn’t matter, it’s the number that they filled in the CSS profile. Denison seems to award their international students merit aid for most of the full-pay students instead.
Hearing president Weinberg comparing Denison with top NESCACs on the freshman programs/events is somewhat weird when a lot of stuff they offer doesn’t match up with those elite institutions & the prestige stickers they put on themselves. But anyway, they’re always room for improvements and I hope Denison would become less of a “business”.
I’d be hesitant to rely on individual student’s self-reporting about their awards because many people, including experienced parents here on CC, often collapse need-based and merit-based awards so it is difficult to know what people are referring to when they describe their own situation. Denison does give merit-based, non-need based aid, unlike most of the NESCACs (only Trinity and Conn Coll give merit aid) which makes Denison an attractive option for full pay families who may – like we did -conclude that merit at Denison vs. full pay at a school like Bates, for ex., is an easy choice.
I was referring specifically to students admitted about 5 years ago who received the very few, full tuition, merit based, not need-based aid awards. The students we met were Ivy caliber in the sense that they did not just have high stats, which is not enough to be admitted to the super-elite universities, but also had very strong, deep commitments in terms of research, arts, service etc. Merit awards at Denison seem to be tied more to what contributions a student can make when they are actually on campus than what their stats do in terms of US News calculations. I’ve been impressed that Denison knows the kind of student it is looking for, and it has not chased higher stats at the expense of campus culture.
May I ask where else she was accepted with better offers than Denison? Our daughter has a similar profile (arts supplement, likely merit award candidate) and I’m looking for other schools that might provide merit awards. Thanks!
My daughter attends Wooster, actually, and likes it very much there. She received a considerably higher merit offer and additionally it was a better fit for her overall.
The next highest merit offer was St. Mary’s Notre Dame. Additionally, Butler, Kenyon (on appeal), St. Olaf, and Oberlin all offered slightly more than Denison, and those schools also offered small need based grants, although we don’t quality and wouldn’t count on them going forward.
Really, her second choice school was Michigan State (James Madison College). She got an auto-merit OOS award and merit through the honors college.