DUMBFOUNDED!!!!!!!! OVER USC MERIT SCHOLARSHIP CANDIDATES

Paying for College
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<p>The scholarship admits have an earlier deadline while there is a separate deadline which seems to eliminate consideratin for scholarships (I would assume an NMSF admitted regular would still get the half tuition).</p>

<p>So the process works as EA but called scholarship app? At one time Stanford REA rules were interpreted as prohibiting people from applying to USC to meet the scholarship deadline and so they had to come out and label an exclusion for any programs with early deadlines for scholarships.</p>

<p>USC also admits such a small percentage of applicants early that it does not feel like anything meeting any label. Three (?) percent admission rate does not make it conform to the conventional ED or EA definition. </p>

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<p>I was wondering why USC does not have EA, Texaspg, and I guess that explains it. I don’t know what exceptions Stanford has for its REA these days; I know some REAs do except schools that have a required EA app for scholarship purposes, but it did not occur to me that a school would have to be that concerned of losing their best prospects by officially calling their scholarship deadline EA. But it makes sense. By giving their most wanted admissions news early as well as chance at a big fat award, it does put pressure on the kids and schools that have ED, particularly ED2. Throws another issue into the mix. </p>

<p>My nephew applied and was accepted to USC last year, applying in time for the big award, and got his admission deferred with everyone elses—they did use the term “deferred” when talking about it though it was not “Deferred” with a capital “D”. He did not get any award money from them, but did from a number of other schools, and did not end up going to USC, though it was right down to the wired. The cost was what threw it into second or third choice. Liked it but not $40-50K worth, which was the cost differential between it and the other top contenders. He would have gone there if the price was a bit closer to the other choices. My best friend’s DD is there right now, and she reports that it’s been a terribly expensive experience–she’s a transfer and the other school had COA, but actual expenditure has been much higher at USC… The same often holds to NYU. Hard to rein in the spending when it’s all right there. Not as easy to spend that money, out at some locations, I guess.</p>

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<p>From the outset my son and his friends has almost similar stats, but when UC admission results come in March I will not be surprised that if they don’t get admitted to the same schools. Both kids parents are heavily involved in application process. My son’s application was first read by me and then read by his sister. We had completely different approaches on how to select most important EC’s and details out of a long list. So applications are unique to the applicant though they could have the same GPA and standardized test results.
Also, I’ve heard that some of the essays can be very moving and can be used as tie breakers.</p>

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<p>I haven’t followed this for days & just read the last few posts but to reiterate … I’m 99.99% sure of daughters friends test score … SAT ONLY (she did not take ACT, nor Subject tests) -also sure about essay topics…she spoke about being first gen to college and other was general about business. She took 2, or 3 AP’s max & wrote essays on her own.
I’ve concluded it will remain one of life’s mysteries & it’s unsolvable - and all things happen for the best
My D & others in same situation will hopefully have better options on the horizon -!</p>

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<p>It looks like this thread was hashed around quite a bit, but I do want to note that the composite scores don’t tell the whole story. Most schools consider the writing the least important and I have seen many threads where students who have high composite scores and get deferred or do not get merit often have an 800 in the writing portion and lower scores in Math and CR. Don’t get me wrong - your daughter’s scores are exceptional, but many schools would much rather see an 800 in Math or CR and a 650 in writing, even if the total composite yield is lower. Does USC “superscore” the SAT? That could also be a factor… most schools will take just the highest scores of two sittings, so that may have made the scores closer than you realize. Sometimes students will focus on one subject for one sitting, and the other subject for the second, yielding better individual scores. </p>

<p>You may never know the answer - there are many intangible factors including the quality and content of their essays and exactly how a teacher represented your child in the recommendations - that you will never know about. Also, sometimes people don’t disclose that they applied as a URM… people tend to disparage students by saying “they just got in because they are black/hispanic/native american, etc” and no one wants that for their kid, so some would keep that close to the vest. To qualify for minority status, a child has to be at least 1/4 minority, meaning that one of their grandparents would have to have the full minority background. To be fair, everyone relies on “hooks” in the application process and it is no different than a school wanting students from a certain state or an underrepresented gender applying to a certain program, a child who plays a unique sport, etc. Many schools seek to create a really diverse population and it’s an advantage to have a unique sport, hobby, instrument, geographic location, gender or ethnicity, but it’s the ethnicity aspect that people tend to focus on negatively.</p>

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<p>Our S was really, really hoping to get invited to interview for USC Presidential or Trustee. He applied to the BME program, had an interview, great stats and EC’s: 3.94/4 GPA, ACT: 35, SAT Math 2: 800, SAT Physics: 790, Sr Class president, 3 varsity sports, 3 years engineering research assistant work, and stellar recs. The only kid from his high school who got invited was a NMS finalist who is not really interested in USC (back-up school). S was not feeling well on PSAT and missed finalist cut-off by a few points, but is commended and an AP Scholar with Honor, </p>

<p>Thanks for letting me vent, too! He is accepted at Cal Poly, Georgia Tech, Purdue, Case Western, and waiting for MIT, Cornell and a few other selective schools. Even if he gets in to USC, it is likely off the list because of the price.</p>

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<p>Hey OP, sorry for bringing this back up but I think it’s actually quite important for parents to understand what a high school student takes away from your post.</p>

<p>While it’s understandable that you would be so confused about your daughter not receiving any sort of merit scholarship from USC, you really weren’t doing yourself any favors by getting riled up about it. If I knew my best friend’s mom was posting my stats online and—I know this wasn’t your intention, but it certainly came across that way—seemingly disparaging my achievements, I’d be absolutely livid. The last thing I want, as a current high school senior, is to have my stats compared to those of my peers. For you to have gotten so defensive when someone else suggested that you move on was in poor taste.</p>

<p>If there’s one thing I’ve learned throughout this college process, it’s that after a certain point everything becomes a crapshoot. We have no way of knowing exactly what schools are looking for; we can certainly get a good idea, but everything becomes something of a blur when we’re talking about very high stats.</p>

<p>I’m a recipient of the presidential scholarship at USC, and I really hate to think that it’s just because USC is trying to increase their yield. I worked hard to get to where I am and my test scores/GPA are very similar to your daughter’s. I am not a URM and I would otherwise be a full-pay student. </p>

<p>I think the main goal of every institution during the admission/selection process is to bring in a class that is diverse in every sense of the term. It would offend me if a college judged me solely based on my stats; everyone is a unique individual, and we need to keep this in mind during the college application process. Comparing stats can only get you so far.</p>

<p>Your daughter and her friend both sound like accomplished young women. I hope they have both decided on schools that they will be happy attending.</p>

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<p>I don’t understand these threads. People claim to be happy for their kids’ friends when they get acceptances and scholarships their kids didn’t, even call them deserving, but to follow that with an examination of why the friend was chosen and not theirs seems to belie the earlier statements. If you believe the friend is truly deserving based on her work alone, you wouldn’t be debating URM, health conditions, or first generation status. </p>

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<p>These boards are to vent and to bring up issues, so don’t see a problem. It is eye opening to many who don’t understand that holistic appraisals do bring a lot of factors outside of grades and test scores heavily into consideration We had a firestorm in our community, when a young woman who was not even top 10 in her class with test scores not touching those ahead of her in rank and quite a few below her got into Harvard. Val and sal were WLed. In every single way, those two girls, val and sal would have been picks on a their apps (and yes, the GC told me this outright). But the Harvard pick was URM. That school community is small, and yes, the girls are happy for each other, but that seemed so unfair, that there were some harsh comments made and hard feelings. The young woman was full pay at Harvard too, clearly came from supportive family. </p>

<p>Justice Sotomyer brings this up in her autobiography. It’s rare to get a Princeton accept from Cardinal Hayes (?), and there were many, many kids who had the academic numbers better than hers. Yes, she got remarks that were not kind upon her acceptance. </p>

<p>My own son got an awakening upon looking at his school’s Naviance cluster points which contain data over a number of years as to who gets accepted where with what stats. He had always supported Affirmative Action when presented to him, but when he actually saw the differentials on those graphs, how off from the cluster points of acceptances were, he was shocked. Some info had to be removed because it was so inflammatory, and not just the URM admits either–an athlete with 1100 two point SATs was accepted to an ivy with B- grades. Yeah. it’s a tougher pill to swallow when it’s in your face, on your own personal turf, regarding your goals and chances. </p>

<p>To pretend these feelings do not arise is a mistake. it needs to be kept out in the open, IMO. </p>

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<p>JUst read the OP and first few responses. My question? Why ask why? Tell her to go where she’s wanted…not where she has to beg to be wanted. This underlines that the entire process is a crapshoot. Essays, geography, minority status? Trust my if they check the minority box at USC they’re playing at a whole new level. Tell your D to get used to it…it’s real life…not supposed to be fair. Tell her to go out and make her future happen, because it will. Clearly she’s talented, and accomplished. Forget it…move on.</p>

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<p>Are you saying that young woman got accepted to Harvard because she’s black (or Hispanic, etc.)? How would you know that? I have a good friend whose child is a leukemia survivor. Another whose child lost 2 siblings at an early age. There are things in apps that the general public can’t possibly know.</p>

<p>I don’t think it matters if parents want to pick apart how colleges make decisions. List all the holistic measures you want and debate the fairness of them. But there’s no reason to bring their kids’ classmates in as a direct comparison. All I’m hearing is that, no matter how much the OPs say they believe the kids in question are deserving, they don’t really. It wasn’t the kid’s work or talent that got them in, it was the URM status, gender, high level of income, poverty, etc., etc., etc. If Naviance is where parents are gathering all this info. about other people’s kids and it’s causing as much trouble between families as some threads indicate, maybe the Naviance data should be pulled all together. Or maybe these families should quit applying to schools whose admission policies they deem are so unfair. And I’m not saying jealousy and envy don’t exist. The fact that they do doesn’t justify tearing kids apart on a public forum. </p>

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<p>I don’t know that for sure, and neither does anyone else, but when one looks at the bulk of data over times and the cluster points for URMs are so disparate, the conclusions is obivious. It’s not just URMs, but athletes as well. I also know the GC in this case who had to undergo this storm, and she told me later that the disparity was a bad one that time. There was no mitigating factor. I also know the parents of the girl for years. She did well in Harvard, and it shows you well that many kids with her numbers can do well there. As did Sotomyer in Princeton, But, yes, that disparity in numbers exists, and there is no getting around it as it is a fact. </p>

<p>My son is a leukemia survivor, and I know kids who have lost their parents at a young age. Those can be tip factors and taken into consideration, but I guarantee you that at the most selective schools, those are things that would have maybe tipped a kid in who was already way up there. A kid not in “the zone” for that school, unlikely. And that girl was NOT in the zone. I’ve seen other things that way too, with athletes and development. I’ve looked at this data for over 20 years because it has interested me, and did some statistical studies with it. </p>

<p>Naviance is a great tool because it give you a very good idea where an unhooked kid would be in terms of getting accepted. But yes, it causes issues too, when you see points way out of the cluster, and you know who they are and your realize that they were not even in the zone. We know some of those kids well over time. </p>

<p>I also support the boost that highly selective colleges are giving underrepresented sections, as do many of those I know. It’s actually and eye opener, however, that many have no idea, what that disparity is, to get the numbers,s till inadequate up to where they should be to have some reasonable representation of groups and people important in a college community. Just as how much Duke has to bend their academic numbers to get that basket ball team they have. </p>

<p>So yes, people get a surprised reaction, and they don’t like it because there is a sense of fairness in all of us and though we can see some exceptions, the degree of some of these is shocking. So they should stifle themselves? I don’t think so. I don’t agree with you, but you are certainly free to say what you think too. And the mods of this board don’t agree with you either since this thread is still here. So what YOU think and what I think don’t really matter. We can voice it here, and let others read it.</p>

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<p>Just a word of warning about naviance data. My daughter’s standardized test scores were entered incorrectly by a really large amount (14-15 points on ACT from what I remember). I pointed out the error, but I’m not sure if or when it was fixed. Other families looking at the data might think they knew who the kid was with the low score or assume that it was the URM. The score was WAY below what one would expect for the school she attended. Occasionally if a naviance number is way off it might be incorrect. </p>

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<p>Another issue with Naviance - at my kids’ high school in Illinois, if a student doesn’t have their scores sent to the high school (and lots of students, including mine, don’t), then the only score the high school has is the state-mandated ACT given at school during April of junior year. That’s the first ACT taken by most kids, and may well be the lowest score for many students. </p>

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<p>Another issue with Naviance…at our kid’s school, if there were a very small number of students accepted to a school, the data was NOT entered…for privacy reasons. Simply put…my kid was the only one EVER to attend her college from her high school. If her data was entered, everyone would have known the exact student. </p>

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<p>I don’t assume when I look at the specific data. At some schools, my kids’, the info is also coded for URM, Gender, legacy, athlete, special talent, first generation, special consideration. So one can identify the dots pretty well, not to mention I know who is who in those schools. Yes, there are mistakes and some things are incomplete, but the pattern after all of these years, and tracking was done long before Naviance at prep schools, it’s pretty clear. The categories that have the biggest variances from the critical cores are athletes and URMs. The special considerations category which includes development and other factors like big time challenges really overall does not have a huge variance. And anecdotally that seems to hold. Brooke Ellison is a quadraplegic wh was accepted to Harvard. Her numbers put her right smack in the middle of the accepts. If the dot were not coded as special circumstance, no one would ask why that person in the middle of all of the accepted students was accepted. No one questions that huge cluster that is peppered with accepts. It’s when points are showing an accept way away from that cluster, that one asks what was with that person. Inevitably it was either an athletic accept or URM. Not to say that there are never athletes and URMs in the accept cluster either. There are. And that is what most reasonable people feel is just fine. What is hard to swallow is the disparity outside there. </p>

<p>I was on a scholarship committee for years, and we had to weigh URM status heavily even outside of hardhship factors or we would have had very little color in our awards. We never had quotas, but we made diversity an important goal without an tokenism as well. Not easy to do. We had to put a diversity weight in there as well. We were asked to do a graph or breakdown with numbers and we refused to do it because the info would have been inflammatory. </p>

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<p>I don’t doubt your data, Cpt. But occasionally, if a data point seems really off (let’s say 900 SAT for Ivy admit), it might be a mistake. </p>

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<p>Let’s not be silly and pretend that URM status doesn’t tip the scales at many better privates. And there are particular URMs that are highly in demand…usually black males.</p>

<p>I remember a couple of years ago, in the premed forum, a young man posted med-school worthy stats, but they were not top twenty med school worthy (31 MCAT and a 3.7 GPA). Very respectable stats that would likely get the student accepted at one or more of his state SOMs. However, his app list had only tippy top med schools on it. When I suggested that he broaden is list to better his chances, I got a slap down on the thread that I still remember. I was told that this AA male would likely get interviewed, and likely accepted, to all the SOMs he applied to. I don’t believe he later posted his results, but from what I’ve learned on that other premed forum with similar situations, it would be fair to believe that he likely had amazing results. </p>

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<p>My daughter went to USC and was at a dorm and floor where there was tons of Trustee recipients. Two non-URM or just plain white guys that were admitted with very high GPA, not sure about their SATs. I too was dumbfounded that they were awarded Trustee(at least not according to the USC website). One failed repeatedly some intro to physics class and he wanted to major in engineering, but eventually graduated with a degree in music, it took him 5 years. I think he lost the scholarship because he didn’t meet the minimum GPA requirement. The other one was admitted to BS/MD program which means he must be the top of the pool but he did not meet the minimum GPA requirement for the MD program. He failed bio class( or got C). He is now no longer eligible for the medical school, just doing random tutoring to earn a living. My daughter said they both got into other schools with high merit aid like UCLA with the Alumni scholarship, and one got into Princeton on top of all the UCs. So USC was not the only school who thought highly of these candidates. I think adcoms made mistakes, they are human beings after all. Or maybe what they saw as potential didn’t pan out. Neither of them were drinkers at USC.</p>

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<p>I’ve designed info charts of the sort to avoid some of the flame that can occur when people see the drastic difference. The top prep schools can get away with this as many of them have unweighted grades and they are regarded differently by selective colleges. They go by quintiles so one cannot see the differences in gpa and many do not have very many with the very high gpas. The test scores, one can’t clump like that , because the fact of the matter is that it makes a huge difference in selective school admissions if you don’t have a hook, what those scores are. </p>

<p>On one hand, I think it is important that people are aware of what the situation is, and how drastic it is But…it really causes ill feelings. My son goes to a school with a sizeable URM population. He’s in the upper 5% of his class, and he can see clearly from the charts that he doesn’t have a chance to get into HPY, or any single digit accept school Chances are very slim for him even at the next two levels of selectivity. But some of his friends, his teammates, his classmates who are URMs are good candidates with far lower numbers overall> I 've known some of these kids since they were little, and I’ve known all of this for a long time, but it’s news to a lot of people and it can hit hard. The nasty remarks have started as the reality has sunk in. The reason all of this affirmative action exists is because the situation is that marked. All of my URM friends regard this as a very serious problem, not as a wonderful perk, and several have devoted a lot of their time and resources to try to bridge this gap, as they well know it exists. </p>