Hello-
Will be attending next week vying for a scholarship.
To anyone who has experienced this weekend at Oxford College-
I have heard that some parents can get rather pushy with admission counselors and that there is a very cut-throat vibe to the event. Your thoughts?
Also, how different from a regular admission interview to a college is the Oxford
one- on -one interview ?
Any tips for preparing ?
Thank you
Betty
Cut throat is going to be what you want to avoid. Oxford really likes leaders and collaborators not competitors. Honestly, the biggest thing you can do is be yourself and show a real interest in the school. The admissions counselors are looking to get to know you as a person, not as a prepared script, and to find people who would fit into Oxford as a community. Ask your hosting student a lot of questions and try to figure out how you fit into the community, maybe look up some clubs and organizations you might want to join. Enjoy yourself and try to have fun not stress over the interview portions. A lot of what you do will be group work not one-on-one, but just be honest when your talking solo to an admission counselor, I promise they are all nice people and aren’t trying to screw you over.
Can someone tell me what " cocktail casual " dress is for the parent’s reception? Thanks.
How many people get the full ride?
@Harryp17 : How would anyone know that. The admissions folks probably don’t even know.
I think I read somewhere that it is usually three people every year.
@Harryp17 You probably read that from me on the other thread, but that was just a guess based on a document from several years ago. I’m honestly not even sure where I found it, so I wouldn’t take it as a firm number. I would guess that they have a target for how many they want to give out but then they decide based on the weekend. Obviously, only the admissions folks know, and that’s just my conjecture.
@Harryp17 : That sounds sketchy (low because yield will be nowhere near perfect, they will certainly offer full rides to more than that to ensure yield among at least a couple of folks they really want). Just go to the interview, don’t speculate.
Good luck for interviews, can’t wait to meet you guys
@Harryp17 @bernie12 Awards are made from $18k to full tuition to “full ride”. In perusing threads from former years as well as Oxford -issued materials, 2-3 full rides are awarded each year .The rest are either full-tuition , half tuition, anywhere inbetween . $18k appears to be the minimum award as posted by Oxford and from what past recipients have shared. Some people in previous years were very angry that they took the time to go to the weekend to be awarded “only” the $18k.
One has to take with a grain of salt anything posted on a public, anonymous forum as this because who knows what is real? One mom was furious that her child was “promised” big $$ and received $18k. I don’t know if there were actually any promises bandied about as that would be irresponsible, but do understand why $18k just won’t cut it for most of us when looking at 64k for the Oxford years and then 67 K for the remaining two at Emory.
Another note of contention was how the finalists were chosen in the first place, but I won’t touch that one!
There were some very unrealistic expectations out there by those who assumed they would get a full ride as they were one of the 65-70-80 finalists, depending on the year.
Good luck to all and I hope the coming blizzard does not affect travel plans on Thursday. It looks like a real mess near many major airports- Boston, NY, D.C. , etc. for Tuesday and perhaps Wednesday and the inevitable domino effect. I am sure that the admissions office will be inundated with calls tomorrow. Stay safe!
The letter from this year said the awards range from $20k to a full ride, so hopefully that is actually the lowest they will go.
@muzzahlady : Well you have to remember that, especially with Emory (which has much lower CC traffic than peer schools even in the past two years where there was a jump in applications from the 17.5k area to 20k area and even this year where it is apparently at another plateau), CC traffic and threads only offer a sample and will be an under-representation simply because everyone interviewing or being offered a scholarship will not be that active or active at all on CC. I would expect between 3-10 full rides to be offered. Remember that Oxford’s financial aid and merit aid resources is nowhere near main campus and even main campus isn’t where it should be (the need-based aid demands strains merit aid resources and general ability to yield high stat. middle and upper middle class students that need help to attend these expensive places) which is why there is now a scholarship endowment. I can only wonder if it will help them pull more of the high stats students (notice how I do not say better. Emory students despite lower stats seem as solid as all near peers based on post-grad performance and accomplishments) which can help the USNWR rank a little (let us be honest, it is a game. Whether or not the student who simply scores high on the SAT is a better fit and will do more interesting things will not influence the rank. However, buying students that can shift the bottom and upper-quartile upwards totally can) and maybe allow Emory to gain some ground on the stats of some of its closest peers (namely Berkeley, Georgetown, Rice, CMU, and Tufts may be reasonable targets for stats. The score ranges at VU, WUSTL are unreasonably high and are obviously not worth chasing). Basically, it needs to position itself to have a more similar admissions profile to some of its peers to be taken more seriously as an elite private by more prospective students. Sad but true.
@bernie12 Can you tell me where to find Oxford vs Emory FA info? Why do the two schools have separate FA departments when FA follows the Oxford students to Emory 2 years later? Seems more logical to pool FA resources but make individual college choices re how to award them.
@bernie12 Velmah was correct. The admissions staff have confirmed that “Two, possibly 3” full rides will be given awarded. It was a lovely weekend. Anyone who has qualms about sending their child to Oxford should worry not.
@muzzahlady : Meh, they really need to raise money to give more scholarships because that is too low IMHO. At least this year they got more apps so can theoretically be more choosy. But 2-3 will not cut it with such stiff competition from elsewhere. I wonder what need-based aid looks like there.
But other than that, glad you liked it. Perhaps they know that it is unnecessary to make tons of offers for full merit scholarships (as in it will not help the yield much. Students who get t hat sort of scholarship may be those that have solid shots or offers of admission at other LACs, honors programs, and even some research universities. I would hope they offer a decent amount of partial scholarships that put a dent in those fees and tuition.
@bernie12 Honestly I disagree. For a top twenty to give even three full rides is fantastic, especially since the other scholars are all getting approximately half to full tuition. Most schools of that caliber don’t give near that much merit, and obviously they are under no obligation to do so. Putting the money towards meeting full need is far more important in my opinion, and I’m speaking as someone who will be relying on merit. At a school like Emory, the non-scholars are all immensely talented and driven too.
Plus, that’s three for Oxford but I would imagine that the Atlanta campus gives out 3-6 more, depending on if they separate the business scholars (blanking on the actual name) when awarding.
@velmah : This stuff is super compIex especially for Emory. Oxford:think I am taking into account the fact that Oxford is not necessarily competing for the same students as Emory or that it cannot as easily without offering more merit aid. I believe main campus may offer more full scholarships. Main campus’s “weakness” is the need based aid, however even that is debatable.
Emory for example, uses Emory Advantage and Questbridge recruitment to actually bring in talented students from a lower socioeconomic status. However, what this also means is that many may have lower stats (mainly SAT/ACT scores) than those who are middle and upper income (in terms of American income brackets). Given that, it makes it appear as if Emory has lost selectivity in comparison to peer institutions (but in reality it just selects differently now. The students are very comparable to near peers even those with substantially higher scores…basically all of them except UCLA, USC, and Berkeley if you include public undergraduate programs. This shows in post-grad awards and achievement). Also, catering to so many lower income students (I was one), means that resources are stretched for those folks in the middle areas (again, an area that Emory is aware that it struggles with and is trying to ) of income (this time in comparison to Emory affordability and not America so much higher income brackets) and Emory simply is unable to yield much higher scoring students in those higher income brackets.
I personally think that Emory is making the right decision for its current situation (it has been successful in enrolling more low income students especially in comparison to most peer institutions), but unfortunately perhaps too many alumni at elite privates are very sensitive to selectivity indexes, app. numbers, etc and interpret it as the “health of the institution” (to some degree it is, but beyond a certain level of selectivity, including the levels of like all top 25 schools, it gets petty IMHO, and some schools should be working more to improve and innovate within their undergraduate programmatic offerings and focusing less on adding another 1k to the app. number or 20 points to the SAT range). The harder it appears to get in than previous years, the more proud the alumni base is (especially if it subtly affects the rank). The mentality of “I wouldn’t want to be part of any club that would accept me” truly applies at these places (which is why many schools have huge overhauls of admissions to mainly focus on quickly raising application numbers and stats to insane levels that are even beyond the caliber of the academics at the place. Like there are schools that post HYPSM admissions stats but the academic infrastructure is not even close yet and nor are the funds to push them there. It is all pandering).
A happy and proud alumni base (Emory’s is certainly powerful) does have a direct impact on the health of the institution (because they ultimately can end up donating a lot of money if they find it meeting their expectations of “improvement”). So I am stumped at what either campus should do and I believe they should get very serious about offering much more merit aid for the higher income students who have often the high scores (many other schools have enough need based aid allocated toward this buying scheme and also do not admit nearly as many low income students) and excellent promise. This way they can be ethical and give more access while also playing the rankings game and ultimately pandering to portions of the alumni base and current students that are more impressed by superficial forms of progress.
I wish current students and alumni were less sensitive to the selectivity issue but much anecdotal evidence and other evidence suggests otherwise. Anecdotal, go to any other elite university newspaper article on admissions selectivity for a current cycle and look at a) how many comments there are and b) the nature of the comments either praising the school becoming even harder to get into or the scores being even slightly higher or the intensely comparing stats to peer institutions (Ivies definitely have this). These types of alum want their institution to appear as desired by a certain type of student more than others. For better or worse, Emory will not be able to play this game if it does not enhance either merit or need based aid in comparison to peers.
rant over: But this is the big picture scheme explaining why I am for heavier usage of merit funds.
*note that the need-based funds and merit aid are from different funding sources/endowments.
@velmah : This:http://www.seedthefuture.emory.edu/college.html
Is a problem!