<p>In short: My daughter is a college freshman. She has accepted a scholarship from her university that will cover most of the cost of a study-abroad program this coming summer. We just have to pay her airfare, which we've already done in order to get a good price.</p>
<p>After she accepted the scholarship and we paid for the tickets, we found out that she has applied to two other schools as a transfer student for next fall! We asked her about this, and she doesn't seem to have a very good reason for wanting to transfer. She just "isn't thrilled" with her current school and wants to "try something different" where the people will be "more like me". I'm not even sure she knows what that means; it just seems like late-teen angst to me.</p>
<p>I support her desire to transfer, but I feel that, having already accepted the summer scholarship from her current school, she has an implied obligation to remain enrolled there. Otherwise they could give the scholarship to another student who actually enjoys the school and intends to stay.</p>
<p>My husband, on the other hand, thinks it's not that big of a deal, and furthermore doesn't want to lose the money we've already spent on plane tickets. (Neither do I, but for me the ethical issue is the bigger one.)</p>
<p>Can you other parents please share your thoughts? If I need to provide more detail, just let me know. Thank you.</p>
<p>I don’t see an ethical problem here. Try looking at it from the other side of “maybe”: Your D insists that the college rescind its scholarship offer, your D loses her study abroad, you loose the cost of the airfare … and then D decides to stay at her current school. (What, teenagers can’t change their minds???)</p>
<p>What do the scholarship rules say? She might not be eligible if she doesn’t remain enrolled at the school. I am wildly speculating, but I’d want to make sure that there are no cancellation penalties. </p>
<p>Right now I see no ethical problem. She’s applied to transfer, but she hasn’t been accepted, let alone decided to accept a transfer admission. She might end up staying at her current school, in which case no harm no foul.</p>
<p>If she does transfer, and the scholarship rules don’t mandate that she continue to enroll at the school…well, I’d personally feel uncomfortable accepting the scholarship if it could be re-awarded to another student.</p>
<p>I think we start paying for tuition in the summer, or at least a deposit. </p>
<p>If your daughter should decide to transfer before she goes, then I personally would have a problem in accepting the scholarship. The scholarship is for the school´s student, not for someone who is enrolled (made a commitment) at another school. You could get credit for the airfare money, minus the change fee.</p>
<p>I see no ethical dilemma, unless the scholarship rules require her to be enrolled in her current school next fall.</p>
<p>For me, the cost of the airfare doesn’t factor into it. That is, if she were doing something unethical, your having paid lots of money for a plane ticket wouldn’t make the unethical ethical. “My daughter stole someone else’s essay and forged her transcripts… but we’ve already bought her plane ticket and a new wardrobe, so we should overlook her mistakes, right?” No, wrong. However, since your daughter is doing nothing wrong, she and you face no ethical issue. Good luck to her in her transfer applications and her eventual choice of which college to attend next year.</p>
<p>I agree with you, PSB. It is obvious that the scholarship is for a student of that school to enrich their student body. Nobody gives free money because they like you personally. To take the money, knowing you will take that experience elsewhere, is disingenuous.</p>
<p>She should make up her mind and only take the scholarship if she plans to stay for at least one more year. Otherwise, she should just transfer. If you have your cake and eat it too, you have probably eaten somebody else’s cake.</p>
<p>“I see no ethical dilemma, unless the scholarship rules require her to be enrolled in her current school next fall.”</p>
<p>I don’t think ethics consist of, “Follow the rules.” There are also expectations that are sometimes not detailed perfectly in the letter of the law, but which can be inferred.</p>
<p>Surely if you gave an employee or intern a scholarship to study abroad and they came back to tell you they were switching employers, you’d be miffed. Put yourself in the school’s position and I think it’s clear.</p>
<p>Of course, if your ethical code is, “Everybody else is getting theirs, and I have the right to get mine as long as I don’t break a contract,” then sure, it’s ethical. But… egads. What kind of ethical code is that?</p>
<p>Oldfort and Madame, do you also think that if a student decides in the fall of freshman year that she wants to transfer sophomore year, she should decline her scholarship for spring semester of her freshman year?</p>
<p>I say, while a student is enrolled in a college, she is entitled to take advantage of opportunities offered to students in that college. Even if she intends to leave later.</p>
<p>Can I just say something here about transfer deadlines? I don’t know where Penn State Belle’s daughter is applying, but my son is also doing transfer applications this year. For many, the application deadline, the APPLICATION deadline, is May 15 or later. For many, the student doesn’t hear until June. Very likely Penn State Belle’s daughter has no idea right now whether she will in fact be accepted at the schools she is applying to, and won’t have any idea until spring semester is over.</p>
<p>I don’t think ethics consist of, “Follow the rules.” There are also expectations that are sometimes not detailed perfectly in the letter of the law, but which can be inferred.</p>
<p>Surely if you gave an employee or intern a scholarship to study abroad and they came back to tell you they were switching employers, you’d be miffed. Put yourself in the school’s position and I think it’s clear.</p>
<p>Of course, if your ethical code is, “Everybody else is getting theirs, and I have the right to get mine as long as I don’t break a contract,” then sure, it’s ethical. But… egads. What kind of ethical code is that?</p>
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<p>No, because she accepted the admission and the scholarship at the beginning of the year with the intent of attending the university for two or four years at least. The intention, to me, matters. In this case, it sounds like the student applied for the summer program knowing full well she did not intend to use the scholarship for its purpose (as a part of enriching her own degree and the student body at that school). She is young so I don’t blame her for indulging in the hope that maybe somebody just really liked her personally and that’s why they gave her some money. LOL However, her dad should know better.</p>
<p>I’d be annoyed, but I wouldn’t feel that the employee had acted unethically. People should not say they are doing one thing, knowing all along they will do the opposite, but PennStateBelle’s D did not, as far as we have heard, say she was staying at her school all the while intending to go. I don’t like it when people lie, but deciding to transfer to a different school is not lying, nor is it acting in bad faith.</p>
<p>Let’s consider a different situation. You are applying to several schools, including Wonderful University and Safety College. You’re writing your essay on why you want to go to Safety College. Are you obligated to say, “I don’t want to go to Safety at all. My dream is, and always has been, Wonderful U. If I have to, I’ll settle for Safety”? Are you being unethical? Of course not. In your essay, you emphasize the qualities that made you choose Safety instead of Local State as a safety, and gloss over the fact that you don’t want to go there. You write the essay you would write if it were your best available choice, because maybe it is.</p>
<p>**In cases of imperfect information, when you don’t know what you’ll be doing in the future, you are not obligated to disclose choices you have not made yet and may not have a chance to make. **</p>
<p>She would still be enrolled spring semester, and she hasn´t decided or put a deposit down at a new school.</p>
<p>I am not familiar with transfer student´s schedule - acceptance, deposit, tuition payment…If my kid has been accepted and a deposit was made at another school, I wouldn´t feel right for my kid to accept the scholarship.</p>
<p>@ Cardinal Fang: Let’s say that D is accepted elsewhere, and commits to go there, before summer. Is she now obligated to decline the summer scholarship?</p>
<p>The scholarship was not awarded to her based on a job already well done (after all, she is only a first-year), but at least substantially on the basis that having her (and others) going to programs like this adds to the education of OTHER students on campus with whom she WILL be in contact.</p>
<p>It is clear to me that the school would not have awarded her the scholarship had they known, not only was she transferring, but if she was seeking to transfer. </p>
<p>Surely it is not as cut-and-dry ethically as if she knew she was leaving, but I think it is pretty darn close.</p>
<p>She still a student at her current college until next fall. She could take summer term classes at her current college; she could accept scholarships for summer term classes there; and she can accept scholarships for their summer classes elsewhere (ie, their study abroad program). She can accept any opportunity afforded to current students, because she is one.</p>
<p>“In cases of imperfect information, when you don’t know what you’ll be doing in the future, you are not obligated to disclose choices you have not made yet and may not have a chance to make.”</p>
<p>If she applied to two different schools to transfer, to me that shows a clear plan to leave the school. There is nothing wrong with that, of course, but asking the school for free money when she knows she’s leaving is not, in my opinion, fair.</p>
<p>She doesn’t know whether she will be accepted for sure, but she knows she doesn’t plan to stay at the school if she can leave. This is a limited-supply item. She should leave it for another student who is staying, and then if she decides to stay, take it when she is sure.</p>
<p>I do believe people have the right to keep their information to themselves, but they should act upon that information. She doesn’t have to say she’s leaving. She can simply say, “I’m not sure if I will be using this scholarship for its intended purpose. I’d like to wait another year.”</p>
<p>She could also ASK the school. “Would you give this to me even if I might leave next year? I might stay, but I might leave.”</p>
<p>I believe the school’s opinion would be that this is a big investment to make for a “might”. Most students don’t leave after one year. They probably invested that money so she could be there for four years.</p>
<p>No ethical problems from my perspective either. You can always keep options open. She has not been accepted or accepted transfer at this time. You have to go as though you are staying in a current situation many times until you know that a prospect is going to come through. You also reserve the right to change your mind.</p>