Nobody of any authority told them that. Maybe their child told them that they had heard that, but no one should rely on that info as kids often are talking to other kids who don’t know any more than they do…
It was “unexpected” as they had convinced themselves that the first semester of good grades would be rewarded with merit.
We’ve had a few of such posts here on College Confidential. In fact, the saddest ones have been where the student has repeatedly said that his parents told him, “don’t worry about cost,” only to find out in the spring of senior year that the parents thought the child could borrow “all the costs”. Once they found out that THEY would have to cosign, suddenly the student was left high and dry. Ugh.
Yikes. There are hundreds and hundreds of students on my university’s dean’s list – entire majors, almost, when it comes to the easier ones.
Do the counselors mention the net price calculators?
I have heard of small rare scholarships given to current high achieving college students. But not anything big given automatically to large numbers of students based on a GPA like 3.5.
Where did people get the notion that the latter is expected?
Perhaps a more common type of misconception about lowering costs after starting college involves gaining state residency after enrolling at an out of state public university, while the parents of a traditional age student remain in the original state. Most states make it difficult to do that.
Frankly, judging by the naivete of some of the kids posting on CC, I am not surprised by parent’s ignorance. I love CC, but often find myself scratching my head at these poor kids trying to navigate this process without parental help or guidance (at best) or total parental idiocy at worst.
Or with parental “help” that is counterproductive like “don’t worry about the cost, we’ll figure that out later”.
Or the occasional stories of students who first choice is something affordable, but the parents are pushing a higher cost higher debt choice that the student is less interested in.
There is still an air of your daughter wasn’t good enough for the Ivy league from friends and family. People seem to think the tippy top schools award big scholarships for top students. With all the merit out there for the 25-100 ranked colleges it seems looking back why anyone who is full pay would go the route of actually full pay if it could be avoided with an equally academically solid school. I think among the general population this scholarship myth widely exists. It does not surprise me to hear that people think scholarships will be awarded for Deans list etc once in school. The whole educated consumer thing goes without saying here…
@mom2collegekids
“I don’t know if that happens in foreign colleges because often that question comes from int’l parents/students. “
Yes, In my country the Universities don’t give merit scholarships for your grades in High school, normally you pay full price for first semester and some universities if you have excellents grades is posible a full tuition and fees for the next semester and is renewable.
For e.g. My mom paid for her first semester and the the others had a full tuition and fees.
(We don’t have rooms).
I’d pay full price for first semester and I won a design competition and the prize was a full tuition and fees for second semester.
You receive a full tuition and fees for five years in the university than you choose if you are accepted, if you are a low income and have excellent grades in test, but normally is a Government program.
But as parent you need to do your homework and known about the College rules where your child is gonna study.
I absolutely hate seeing that response. That one and the one where the student or parent says, “we’re going to apply to a number of schools regardless of cost, then in the spring we’ll put all the FA pkgs on the table and decide which ones are best.”
What if none of them are affordable? What if the kid applied to a bunch of pricey schools that don’t give much or any aid? Why would they assume that if one applies to 8-10+ schools that at least one of them is going to have an affordable aid pkg?
Here is another example of what not to do:
Summer between 11th and 12th grade, “Money is not a factor in the decision”: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1789885-best-schools-for-math-comp-sci-with-undergrad-research.html
Winter/spring 12th grade, “The problem is the money”: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1866912-need-advice-on-college-choice-etc-p1.html
do students usually apply for scholarships in senior year?
@“International Dad” - Thanks for this insight! It will be very useful when people are trying to help international parents understand how the US system differs from what they know.
Being on the Dean’s List does not have nearly the impact it may have had at one time. Colleges have been known to reject students with a 1600 on the SAT and accept students with a 1250. There are times, even, when a valedictorian or salutatorian is unable to warrant college admissions because the test scores are not high enough.
There are a variety of factors but one of the more critical ones is at what point you submit the application. If there is a due date of October 1st, and the first day to apply is August 1st, you BETTER have your application materials ready by the end of the FIRST WEEK the college opens it’s admissions process. If you submit on September 30th, you are more likely to get “wait listed,” “rejected,” or “accepted” with no scholarship or grant offer. Colleges have a budget in the same way businesses do and once that budget has been reached, everyone else is locked out of the school or “financial considerations”
If you were late for an appointment, is the person or company more likely to hire you or a person who was on-time? It is about courtesy and respect at that point.
If you don’t have the credentials, that is a different story. SAT/ACT scores (in some cases) are being replaced with 3 AP exams of a score of 5 or higher as acceptable.
A 40K loan for a 4 year school is actually not that much because the average tuition is roughly between 9,900 per year for a public University or college versus 34,000 for a private institution (which may have some schools at a 10-15K level). This is based on information supplied by Google.
A school is only as good as the experience as he or she makes it. There have been many successful individuals from Harvard, Yale, etc but there have also been successful individuals who have attended schools that no one has heard of (except in a local area). Do not go to the best “party school,” but consider a school in the location where you want to be for professional purposes. If you want to be in the San Francisco area maybe consider Cal Berkeley
Strange I don’t know any school.
That explains why we’ve seen posts from int’l students/parents expecting that “if student does well the first year, will he get a large scholarship for the other three years”?
I wonder how many have come to this country as full pay, but were unable to continue when they weren’t given a “good student scholarship” for the following years?
I have said it many times before…the information and advice for funding college is one of the best aspects of this website. Not everyone has been saving for the option to attend any college regardless of costs since their child was a sperm. This collective was so helpful to me and was the primary reason I came here five years ago. The lack of knowledge among parents about this process and how to pay for it is shocking, but there are resources like this website to learn it fast and before it’s too late if one keeps their head out of the sand.
With so much grade inflation going on in colleges today, particularly in nonSTEM majors, a university would go broke giving merit awards to the students with high GPAs. It’s not unusual for a university to have 1/3 or more of its student body with 3.5+ GPAs in college.
I ‘ll probably get flamed for this (bring it on, I don’t care), but I have belonged to three very large Facebook college parents groups for several years and it’s not a myth that some majors are much easier and/or less time-demanding. The evidence is clear at one particular time each year…Thanksgiving…when those with less-demanding majors manage to take the whole week off when the school still has Monday and Tuesday sessions. Those in the more demanding majors are lucky to escape campus by 3pm on Tuesday afternoon. Many have to delay leaving campus until Wednesday. It’s a little frustrating to see those with less demanding majors be able to leave campus the Friday before Thanksgiving while the others arrive home just before the turkey is basted.
Anyway, the point being, that schools aren’t going to hand out widespread scholarships for grades. A department major may hand out a smallish award or two to outstanding performing upperclassmen. At best, there may be a small number of depts (Physics, Eng’g, Nursing and Business come to mind) that seem to have a number of one-time endowed awards to hand out to top upperclassmen. But most depts do not have that much money to hand out.
P.S. I know that a number of schools close for the entire Tday week. That’s super. Wish they all did! Sure would make it nicer for those who live a good distance away.
I do disagree. I have two very different kids, one in engineering and the other in theater (or art history, or history, or (name the major of the day)). the engineering one would have struggled in any of the arts and sciences majors (even the science majors) because of the huge amount of reading and writing required in the major and core classes. Many people find writing just one 3 page paper to be much harder than hours in the lab or calculating a 3-D printer project.
My other daughter put off taking a basic math class for 4 years because she finds math painful. Her major (once she found one!) was easier for HER than engineering or chemistry would have been, but History as a major would have been equally as hard for my engineer.
If I could just have combined them, I’d have had one perfect student.
I wouldn’t list Theater, History, or Art History) as easy or less time-demanding majors. History and Art History are academic majors, and usually are very time demanding.
Theater is incredibly time demanding. Virtually all performance majors are very time demanding.
That said, there are majors that aren’t that hard and aren’t time demanding. Like I said, we see the evidence mostly at Thanksgiving, but also at other times. Those in less-demanding majors can skip classes, miss days for travel, etc, while others can’t leave campus until the 11th hour.
It’s not simply a case of whether one likes or dislikes a certain major. My son LOVED Chemical Eng’g…loved it. He would have hated being an English major. But just because he loved ChemE didn’t mean that he didn’t have to devote a CRAZY number of hours to it in order to get A’s. If he had majored in, for instance, Elem Education or Hospitality management (if he liked it), he would have had a LOT more free time.
This thread isn’t to argue about easier vs more difficult/time-demanding majors. It’s silly to even think that easier majors don’t exist. All one has to do is look at some of the majors that football players often select. Several easy and less time demanding majors selected…”General Studies” is a popular pick for those who just need to major in something. It’s so common that when one of them actually chooses a demanding major, it’s frequently pointed out…because it is an exception! Bama recently had a Math/premed football player and a Mechanical Eng’g football player. It was frequently mentioned because it was exceptional.