EA numbers:

Colleges and Universities A-Z Fordham University
21

I recognize my views are in the minority and also never going to happen at Fordham for many reasons. Our endowment is healthy. Its better than a lot of catholic colleges, though not as high as some competitors.

I know scholarships are used to attract high SAT kids. But that is where we may really differ. I dont think the SAT defines IQ or “best students.” Its a blunt instrument. Its not a sharp knife with a clear delineation.

The difference between a 1350 and a 1400 or 1450 student is marginal…and a lot fewer questions on the SAT than you may realize.

Intelligence is really a kaleidoscope…and not two dimensional. Memorizing facts is not the same as depth of knowledge or curiosity or creativity. Not saying you kids posting here with high SAT’s aren’t creative or smart…just saying its not a measure of those things…

Yes, I am talking personal stuff…and my kid was one of those who fell a bit short on the SAT for scholarships…and was a public school kid, and yet had superior grades and 9 AP’s and when at Fordham outperformed many of her colleagues and friends, some of whom had much higher SAT’s. To her philosophy and history and literature and music theory and theology were like being in the Land of Oz. Math and Science she was plenty good at…and performed beautifully…but didnt get the same sense of joy or appreciation…while many of her friends were hard number and memorization people and HATED philosophy. Who is smarter? Depends on what you are measuring.

I acknowledge the SAT is the best available objective measure and if they are giving out money, what else could they use? Since gpa’s are also manipulated at many schools (particularly the private schools.)

I was just trying to be more fair and equitable. She got a healthy university grant in aid that was roughly equivalent to a strong scholarship, but not full tuition. If you got a 1500+ SAT and got a full ride, even if due to being URM, congrats…I am not detracting from your award and pride. I am only saying too many middle class kids who get into Fordham have to say no because they cant afford it…truly can’t afford it. Taking on 100k debt to attend Fordham is preposterous. LUDICROUS. DONT DO IT. Because you may need that debt for graduate, professional school.

and Fordham isnt just producing Wallstreet bankers. Or television producers.

I know the Ivy League schools like Columbia have endowments that are beyond shocking. And that afffords them the ability to be not only very selective and elitist in admissions, but also give everyone and anyone a debt free undergraduate experience. But my kid got into Columbia for grad school and she finished in the VERY TOP of her class at Fordham…and Columbia offered no money in scholarships for a terminal M.A. program. (She decided against a PhD program because they take so long, they are very political in how they select people…and you become a slave to one faculty sponsor…and at the end of the day you become just another college professor which isnt/wasnt her goal in life (not being STEM oriented/motivated.)

I also wish people select Fordham for Fordham…not for its merit scholarship offer. Though that is of course not happening…and people select Fordham for many reasons, and money may well be one of them.

In short, I just dont think the SAT separates “merit” as well as most recipients believe. My kid had fabulous scholarship offers from other Jesuit schools and other colleges…and chose Fordham (ouch!). At the end of the day, the real measure of who is the creme de la creme (in any particular course or major) is the growth and grades on papers and exams…

my kid had fun at Fordham. But was basically in “a club of nerds” …a group of hypercompetitive friends who also really enjoyed learning…and getting those internships that changed lives. She was exhausted every semester. Sometimes to the point of getting ill. Overworked, lack of sleep. Stress. But always striving. And was often her professors most valued student…which we saw on graduation day when she was hugged by four Dean’s and everyone was crying tears of joy and accomplishment…and sadness that the long journey was over. There is not enough money in the world to measure that. She worked for her grades…and Fordham was so transformational it is shocking to many of her hometown friends. Many of them (and some went to very elite schools) have commented that she may have had the best academic experience in undergrad school than ANY of them.

We are grateful we got through Fordham and paid for it, and her debt load was not debilitating…though certainly a healthy size. But its a point of pride for her today…If she was at Fordham now with the price tag north of 60k a year? We likely would have gone elsewhere. And that would have been a tragedy for everyone.

22

I agree that the SAT has nothing whatever to do with hard work. Plenty of privileged kids from private schools who have been prepped since sixth grade and have had expensive private tutors can’t manage to break 2100 even with extraordinary amounts of work. So don’t write off high SAT scores as simply being the product of privilege.

What a high SAT score CAN do, is help a kid who had virtually no educational advantages stand out and get merit. Because, believe it or not, there are kids out there who do not find the SAT difficult and do little to no prep for it. Many of them come from middle class families who make less in a year than Fordham charges in tuition. The kids who get 800s in reading, for instance, have generally been reading at a high level for a very long time. They haven’t memorized 1000s of “SAT words.” As a matter of fact, the very idea of a word being an “SAT word” is baffling to some kids because they have encountered them countless times in their reading. Prep does very little to improve reading scores anyway. I think the average improvement is 50 points.

So please, don’t assume that a kid with high scores got those scores by somehow gaming the system. Sometimes they get them because they’re just really freaking smart.

Oh, and the primary reason that private schools have higher SAT averages is because the kids are tested coming in. The ISEE and the SSAT serve the same purpose for private schools as the SAT does for colleges. High scoring 13 year olds (who are generally not prepped) tend to be high scoring 17 year olds. No big surprise there. The expensive private schools aren’t producing higher SAT scores, they just screen for it coming in. The kids who do really well on the SSAT especially, are going to do really well on the SAT no matter where they end up going to school.

23

I agree Neatoburrito, I have 2 nephews and one did high 700’s on verbal SAT and the other high 700’s on math. No prep courses or private schools for either one. One just was an avid reader and the other had a strong aptitude for math and is pursuing engineering.

Also, in terms of GPA’s the private schools I know of give much less bump up for AP’s than the publics do. I know of publics giving as high as a 7 for a grade of A in an AP, and privates that I know of give a 4.5 for an A.

I know of a number of recent private school grads who didn’t come from money, but as you stated did do well on the private school entrance exams and got scholarships and then later on did do well on the SAT.

24

The main idea of standardized tests is in the name — they are standardized. Every HS student applying to college will take the SAT or ACT. In the opinion of some schools (including Fordham to a large extent) it is more appropriate to compare apples to apples (standardized test score to standardized test score) when giving out merit aid. It would be exceedingly difficult and incredibly time consuming for admissions to attempt to compare HS transcript to HS transcript as high schools can vary widely in almost every aspect including grading systems,course difficulty, if and how they weigh GPAs, courses available, quality of peer students to name but a few. And I do agree with Neatoburitto that some students from less competitive schools do great on the standardized tests and it gives them a way to show colleges that they are ready and able to do the work. The standardized tests are not a full measure of intelligence (and I don’t think anyone would argue that they are) but it is a way to pretty quickly compare students on a quantifiable measure. In the end, some people will benefit from this imperfect system while others will fall short, not get the hoped for aid and maybe go elsewhere… Unfortunately Fordham (like most colleges) doesn’t have the endowment to meet full need for all accepted students so there is absolutely no system that can be created which will satisfy everyone.

Alas, here is one more thread that has gone wildly off course having started with EA statistics.

25

Having started this thread, I think discussions about SAT scores and how they impact admissions decisions from both Fordham and from the student perspective is just fine. They are related.

I acknowledge some kids just do better on SAT scores. Some kids belabor questions and think creatively…taking too long…its not that they are clueless and guessing wrong or clueless and having no idea what to do, its that they process information differently. Some schools have dropped SAT as a requirement (though they consider them if submitted) and found they still get top students who perform well in college. Admissions wants to admit students who will succeed. They also want to admit students with top stats so they can share that with the rankings folks at USNWR. So it goes.

I already acknowledged there is no better objective measure…but also state its imperfect and often unjust.

To me scholarships arent a reward. They are an inducement and therein lies the moral question vexing us. If a student NEEDS the money its fine. If they dont need a dime of it, and someone who DOES need the money has to go elsewhere even if admitted and even if they have really good scores and grades, then its a serious problem.

This is not just my view, its the view of many professionals and many College Presidents. Google it.

Someone with high IQ and EQ may well have a high SAT. Good for them (or you). IQ and EQ are as much a measure of genetics as they are “hard work” and “reading levels” or “math courses taken”.

I dont have an answer to the problem, except as I offered above following the Ivy model, which tells families of middle income they will graduate without debt. I wish Fordham could afford to do that and still attract strong candidates.

EA stats are about admissions pools, SAT scores and GPA’s. And ultimately about who gets a scholarship. And who doesnt.

As stated, in the end, my kid outperformed a very high percentage (dont want to say specifically…because some here object to it) of her classmates. Proof was in the pudding. And that WAS hard work. Not some standardized score on a single saturday in October her senior year in high school. :wink:

Regardless of one’s personal family income/wealth status…I admire, applaud and support anyone at Fordham who does the work, and gets the most out of the stellar educational opportunities…and enjoys the years at Fordham, and then gives back to Fordham in future years.

Whether you end up on wallstreet or in television production or working for an NGO or non profit or becoming a teacher or going into social work, or working in a manufacturing facility…whatever…the measure of your worth is your labor at Fordham and your character.

Congrats to all.

26

I agree that the idea of giving scholarships to people who don’t need them is a problem. The way that some colleges address this is by practising what they call preferential packaging. They give the most need based aid to the kids they want the most, essentially throwing a merit criteria into the need mix and a need into merit mix.

The practise of gapping students is really quite cruel. Colleges are saying to families, “congratulations! We think you would make a great addition to our class.” And then, they offer an aid package that they know is completely unrealistic. But with a finite amount of money available, what should they do? Deny or wait list the kids for whom they cannot meet need? That’s one possibility.

@sovereigndebt‌
Do you know where I can find Fordham’s common data set? I was going to look up their FA statistics put the only link I could find took me to a secured site.

27

This thread is depressing. My daughter applied EA and was accepted, and at the time Fordham was her number 1 choice. We are middle class. My husband and I sacrifice to send our kids to private Catholic school, and yes, many of their classmates are rich. However, the schools my kids are in have not prepped them AT ALL for the SATs, and my daughter, while smart and extremely hard working, didn’t do as well on the SATs as others whose parents paid for tutors etc. (1820 overall). We got the tentative financial aid package, and it is now clear to her that there is no way Fordham is an option unless she takes on $160,000+ of debt over 4 years - something I cannot and will not condone. I am sad and disappointed, as is she. She was accepted to other universities - Loyola, Penn State, etc - and has been offered better money elsewhere. What makes it worse is that she has worked her butt off taking college courses in high school in addition to AP - and Fordham refuses to accept any of the credits because she wasn’t on a college campus. So the result? My hardworking, smart girl is seriously thinking of chucking it all, going to community college with her credits, getting her associates and then transferring after the year it will take her to get the 2 year degree - and it likely won’t be to Fordham because of the bitter taste in her mouth. I can’t tell her she is wrong.

28

I’m sorry to hear that, @‌mommysusan

My D would love to attend Fordham but she knows that it will take a FA miracle for it to happen. I guess we’ll find out whether that will happen or not in a month or so.

I’m sure your daughter will kick butt no matter where she lands. It’s hard to keep success from people who are both smart and hardworking.

29

The most recent one is 2012-2013, from the Fordham link I found.

The US Dept of Education sorta controls this as its data each member school submits to them. Though its sometimes called an initiative of member schools, that are then compiled and used by counselors, media etc.

http://legacy.fordham.edu/academics/office_of_the_provos/office_of_institutio/common_data_set_90662.asp

30

Thanks, but that’s the link that requires a user name and password. Oh well.

31

I was trying to figure out why the idea of giving merit aid only to those who demonstrate need bothered me and here it is as best as I can verbalize it…when a college looks at any given student’s financial profile, they are looking at a given moment in time. Unless they look at a family’s history of earnings/spending from day 1, it is impossible for any college to distinguish between parents who chose to forgo vacations, fancy clothing, expensive dinners out, new cars etc. to scrimp and save as much as possible in an account for their child’s’ education and the financials of parents who may have spent lavishly on similar items and show up as having no cash available to spend on their child’s college. If the student’s from these two families have the same statistics (GPA, standardized tests) should merit aid be denied to the first family in favor of the second family because the first family has money saved because the second family shows more need at that point in time? My family falls into the “family number one” category and while there was money saved for college, I am grateful for the merit aid and may well have attended another school without out it. I did not go to other schools I was accepted to that did not offer similar merit aid. The fact is that most people cannot pay full freight for a college education and of the ones who can, many would face financial hardship if they choose to do so. In the end, as I’ve said before, any school that cannot meet everyone’s needs will have a flawed system that helps some deserving candidates while not meeting the needs of other deserving candidates. That is just a part of the imperfect and frustrating process of college admissions and aid… In the end almost every family has to weigh the costs of each school as a factor and choose one that is a good match in terms of both academics and finances. I suggest that students embrace the schools where things worked out academically and financially, be it Fordham or another school, and go on to have a great college experience.

32

That is our plan. I think we have built a list that includes colleges where it should work out. Indeed, DD has an affordable safety in her back pocket. Fordham is the only one where the financial pieces is iffy according to the net price calculators. If, as I expect it will, Fordham turns out to be unaffordable, she will move on without looking back.

33

That sucks, @mommysusan‌, but it’s the harsh truth: At Fordham. merit scholarships depend on SAT and PSAT. GPA too but if you aren’t a something merit scholar and/or have >2000 SAT, you’re not getting good money.

I am glad you decided not to go with Fordham. A lot of times kids get decent money/small scholarships and think that’s a lot, but they still end up with >$60k debt because of Fordham’s total tuition. Even a half tuition scholarship is still too much for the average family, and that’s without housing.

Like I said it’s hard for me to argue since I have benefitted from this, but yeah, Fordham doesn’t want to take the time to examine each top student and would rather base merit money on a single score. Practical, but can be unfair.

Oh and yeah none/a tiny amount of my AP classes transferred. They REALLY want you to take their core.

34

The AP credit issue is truly complicated and not really part of this discussion. But in a nutshell, AP classes are not truly college level no matter what they say. And you need X amount of credits at your college to earn a degree from them. They are under no obligation to accept AP credits nor community college credits (state public universities are the ones who take more of these and in some cases are obligated to accept them.)

Fordham’s core is often abused by Fordham students. But its really a large part of what makes Fordham, Fordham. And gives you a window to enlightenment/epiphanies…some kids change majors after a core class. And a broad based well rounded education both with writing skills, research skills and analytical skills. It also preps you sufficiently so that by the time you are “in major” you are ready to do the level of scholarship the department expects of you.

Fordham’s tuition expected to rise 3% per year for several more years in the future…and then it really becomes a problem for families and also for Fordham. What are they going to do? Its outrageous. And sad.

But with 42,000 applicants this year, Fordham can simply shrug and proceed as they do.