I’ve been reading these forums for awhile, with an eye on this topic. As far as I can tell, the only poster with a counterexample was Erin’s Dad - one of his kids was required to file FAFSA to qualify for a true merit award. As I recall, the amount was already stated; he needed to file in order to claim it.</p>
<p>However, there have been any number of other posters who claimed to know of (or to have received) “true merit aid” after disclosing personal financial information, but they seem to have fallen into the same trap as many others - confusing need, or need-based merit with true merit. I’ve followed up on these claims, but they haven’t panned out. It seems that parents really want to believe that their kid has “earned a scholarship,” and who can blame the schools for fulfilling the dream? I think that explains some of the fuzziness and general lack of transparency.</p>
<p>It’s tough for an applicant to identify true merit. Not requiring the FAFSA seems to be the only reliable indication.</p>
<p>The dean of admissions at Rochester says it’s true merit. That’s good enough for me. If you’re not willing to take him at his word, why would you want to send your kid to such a place? </p>
<p>As far as the general case is concerned, at at least some schools we’ve visited it’s true merit. At two schools we visited, we were told to get our Apps in by December 1 for merit consideration. The FAFSA is not even available until January 1.</p>
<p>The dean of admissions at Rochester says it’s true merit. That’s good enough for me. If you’re not willing to take him at his word, why would you want to send your kid to such a place?</p>
<p>Please, there’s no reason to be argumentative. I couldn’t locate the blog at Rochester’s site, or any detailed merit info, and to be honest, I couldn’t tell for sure from the dean’s response here. That’s why I asked for the thread’s consensus result. My other post was about the general concept, not Rochester specifically. How about we aim before firing next time? :)</p>
<p>The dean’s posting here was about as unambiguous as it could be. To suggest that a consensus of uninformed thread posters had any value at all was completely uncalled for. </p>
<p>Not a reliable indication. The Regents’ Scholarship at UC Berkeley does not require applying for need-based financial aid. If the recipient did not apply for need-based financial aid, an honorary amount is given; if the recipient did apply for need-based financial aid, a larger amount based on need (replacing loans or work-study that would otherwise by part of the financial aid package) may be given.</p>
<p>One can argue that a student who made the same achievement from a poor background is more meritous than one who made that achievement from a wealthy background (e.g. SAT 2400 on first try with no preparation because s/he could not even afford a test prep book and there were none to be found in the school and public libraries, versus SAT 2400 after four tries with extensive SAT specific preparation courses between each try). And those reading university and scholarship applications may be likely to see it that way.</p>
<p>ucb - It’s a topic for a different thread. But even though nothing seems to be 100% reliable, not having a FAFSA requirement is still a reliable signal in the sense that you know that true merit is available. That can save time. Of course, you’ll still need to do more digging to identify other opportunities, but it’s so, so easy to be fooled. As a parent, you’d really like to know upfront whether you have any chance at all.</p>
<p>It’s also pretty reliable where it’s posted on the website that EVERYONE with certain credentials (e.g. NMF status) will get a minimal merit award. Perhaps need comes into play as to whether the student gets any award above that but tough to argue that NEED plays a role in those awards. Several schools give awards to all accepted students whose credentials reach a certain level (e.g. NMF, GPA + national test scores, etc.)</p>
<p>Whenever they ask for FAid info, it can be somewhat murkier as to what factors come into play in the actual award amount.</p>
<p>I agree, and he’s telling us that family income matters.</p>
<p>[ul]
[<em>]In his comment here, the dean wrote that they don’t have an “intentional institutional practice of favoring needy students for merit aid”. Note that he uses the word “intentional”.
[</em>]In his blog post, he wrote that that family income was one of the “12 steps that mattered for earning merit scholarships”, explaining the correlation between higher income and lower merit aid.
[<em>]He thinks this correlation “reflects the sympathy most reviewers might have for students whose essays and letters of recommendation describe tougher life circumstances”.
[</em>]He also wrote that you don’t need to “see a tax return to admire someone who has both achieved in school and comes from a single-parent home, or will be the first in the family to attend college, etc.” All those factors generally correlate with lower family income.
[/ul]
It’s clear to me that the dean is telling us that income factors into the distribution of merit aid, although it may not be intentional. I take this unusual peek behind the curtain as a clue to what happens at some other colleges.</p>
<p>2.We had a “progressive tax” in our merit. On average, each four dollars less in family income increased merit awards one cent. Not much impact per student, but noticeable overall.</p>
<p>Its hard to say that this isnt intentiional.</p>
<p>Annas dad – when a finaid officer refers to the difference as a tax, I think that meaning is clear.</p>
<p>As to older students getting more aid, I think many people do hold their kids back a year (starting with pre-school) to help them be better prepared.</p>
<p>If you can’t understand the difference between a tax that is assessed intentionally and the “tax” the dean was referring to, I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to help you.</p>
<p>Haven’t read the whole thread, but just wanted to add my experience. My son applied to one state school - a mid tier. His scores and stats were WAY (way!) above the 75th percentile. When he was rejected for merit aid, the letter said that there was enough aid for only 1/3 of the applicants and that he was not among the top. Really? My guess is that he was in the top 3-5% of applicants. And yes, that was the only merit aid application that asked for family income.</p>
<p>This was a post-mortem analysis of merit awards this year. . . not some description of how merit awards were distributed/awarded. (Thank you annasdad for trying to explain this to fellow parents).</p>
<p>These types of discussions are why so few admissions deans share this type of information with the general public. It seems there is this mass of parents who are fired up and ready to pounce on any iota of information/rumor/innuendo that someone in higher ed could be deceiving them (in this case they are not!) or to think they’ve “figured out the secret” (there are no secrets folks!). Do I believe that there is probably SOME misinformation - and intentionally so -by some hypothetical university/college someplace in the US? Sure, why not, it’s only statistically likely, given that there are 6,000 colleges and universities out there in our country. But are admissions folks routinely and regularly trying to pull the wool over your eyes? NO WAY. </p>
<p>No doubt, when admissions folks share this kind of information it only gets misconstrued and then false information (as in “U of R takes family income into consideration for merit awards” - which is a FALSE statement) gets spread around the internet/high school/etc. . . . .</p>
<p>[Imagine the College Board analyzes 100,000 students’ SAT scores from 2007-2010 and determines that students with first names that start with the letter C score, on average, 1.2 points higher than students whose first names start with the letter P. No one would walk away from this (pretend) data point with the idea that the College Board was somehow intentionally writing the SAT in such a way as to bias people-with-P-first-names.]</p>
<p>Keep in mind that admissions/financial aid offices can use certain information in the application as a proxy for income. Try zip code, for example, or attendance at certain schools. This may strike you as unfair to an individual who is lower income in a higher income zip code, but that’s how life is. </p>
<p>As others have pointed out here, the problem with a “merit aid” discussion is that different colleges use different meanings for merit aid. For some, it’s automatic for highly credentialed kids like NM finalists or kids with SAT totals above a certain threshold. For others, it’s truly about merit - look at the Alumni Distinguished Scholarship program at MSU for example. For others, it’s veiled (or not so veiled?) tuition discounting focused on financial yield management.</p>