<p>
</p>
<p>And we can invert this: having NMF isn’t going to keep kids from being able to afford college. No need to have a one-size-fits-all model.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m sure the powers that be at Alabama would one day like their school mentioned in the same breath as state flagships such as Virginia, Michigan, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Illinois, etc. - where B and C students <em>aren’t</em> the majority … not that they are bad people or incapable of being educated or anything. Part of upping its game is attracting a cohort of students that is <em>better</em> than the current / past crop of students, and having admissions standards that are <em>more</em> than “graduated high school in the state of Alabama, and have a pulse.” </p>
<p>Bama may not currently BE MIT, but I think they’d like to be taken more seriously than they have been in the past. </p>
<p>Other states are able to maintain high-admission-standard state flagships for their state’s A students, and utilize directionals, non-flagship campuses and community colleges for the B and C students. Turn the flagship into a nationally recognized flagship. Why shouldn’t the good people of Alabama do the same, if such is their preference?</p>
<p>If you have financial need…AND you get accepted to a school that meets full need for all students (like Bates), you are getting a defacto merit award. These schools accept high performing students. </p>
<p>I will say…if you don’t have financial need but are still looking for ways to pay for college, then getting a merit award from a school like Alabama or any others that award merit aid (not need based) based on your stats is not a bad thing.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>|I certainly have no insider info about Bama compared to other posters here, but wouldn’t you think that’s the long-term goal of attracting high-potential OOS students by giving them substantial scholarship money? To turn Bama into a school that is known / recognized more nationally than it is today for having a strong base of students, so that ultimately, one day, they can make money off the OOS students as do schools like Michigan and Virginia, who already have that reputation sewn up? Buy the talent now, take the short-term hit for the long-term investment.</p>
<p>“And we can invert this: having NMF isn’t going to keep kids from being able to afford college. No need to have a one-size-fits-all model.”</p>
<p>But not having it is the basis of this particular thread. And therefore not having NMF $ isn’t going to stop any high achiever from affording college. </p>
<p>“I will say…if you don’t have financial need but are still looking for ways to pay for college, then getting a merit award from a school like Alabama or any others that award merit aid (not need based) based on your stats is not a bad thing.”</p>
<p>I don’t believe I ever said it was, but the premise of the thread was that bright middle income kids are being shut out because of affordability without NMF $ and that is just not true in the slightest.</p>
<p>Not all that long ago (well, maybe longer than I remember), UGA was considered a joke of a school. With now the in-state HOPE scholarship, a strong Honors program and some very prestigious huge scholarships for top students (not simply in-state as the HOPE is), UGA has risen significantly in prestige, academics, selectivity, etc. Bama is probably on the same track, with a slightly different strategy.</p>
<p>This thread has veeered significantly off the topic of schools that no longer offer the NM scholarship. I will also bet that in this economic climate, many of the corporate sponsorships have been scaled back, leaving the schools to fill in the gap, which they are hard-pressed to do unless they lower the amount of the NM award or cut it out, as NYU did.</p>
<p>“If you have financial need…AND you get accepted to a school that meets full need for all students (like Bates), you are getting a defacto merit award. These schools accept high performing students.”</p>
<p>No you are not. You are getting aid because the financial formula they use says you are eligible. There are many kids at Bates with better stats etc then my son, who are paying full COA. </p>
<p>A school that gives merit aid gives it regardless of the parents income.</p>
<p>
um… no. The premise of this thread was that NYU is no longer offering the NMS. Much of the rest is distortion and inaccurate interpretation, and useless efforts to explain that.</p>
<p>
then that probably means you are getting need aid as at least part of the picture. Why are you so against students getting merit aid, even if you happen to dislike the test it is based on? Why, other than the fact that your s doesn’t seem to test well, should you care in the slightest? Your kid got a lot of aid, whether it be a mix of need, work study, merit or perhaps the fact that his middle name has a Q in it. Who the heck cares?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Exactly. The Bates model (I so want to type Bates Motel 
) doesn’t work for families who are explicitly looking for merit aid. Even Harvard doesn’t always work for merit-aid-seeking families. National Merit is but one alternative. </p>
<p>The California higher education master plan, as it was originally envisioned (and, until recently, implemented :() is a great way to cover a range of students. UC for the top 12.5% of high school students in the state. Cal State Universities for the top 30% (if I’m remembering right). Community college for anyone who wants it. Rather than having every A/B/C/D/F student in the state cram into the flagship.</p>
<p>“um… no. The premise of this thread was that NYU is no longer offering the NMS. Much of the rest is distortion and inaccurate interpretation, and useless efforts to explain that.”</p>
<p>I disagree. There are posters who said exactly that (that bright middle class kids are getting shut out without NM$) at the beginning of the thread. </p>
<p>I’m not against kids getting merit aid and I never said I was. </p>
<p>I said my son was getting aid because of need, however, I also said he’s is getting it even though my DH has a 6 figure salary - which tells me that middle income families can get FA that isn’t merit based. It’s my belief that a lot of “middle income” people think they make too much money to get FA. It’s simply not true if you have a child who is among the best and brightest and that certainly includes NMSF’s whose families are “middle class.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Exactly. Georgia’s got about 10,000,000 people - Alabama’s got about 4,000,000. They can get their critical mass in-state more easily than Alabama ever could, simply because they have 2.5 x the number of smart students (assuming that intelligence is equally distributed, and I have no reason to think it wouldn’t be). Georgia’s also got a major metropolitan area that attracts people from all over - so raise UGA’s profile in Atlanta, and you’ve got more national prominence. Alabama doesn’t have such a major city. Alabama’s strategy of aggressively going after OOS students makes total sense – good for them for doing so.</p>
<p>And after they get their free ride at the expense of Alabama citizens they are going to take their degrees and get the heck out of there because Birmingham isn’t Atlanta.</p>
<p>The worst thing about National Merit is the state by state policy. My high school doesn’t care about the PSAT, and I didn’t even know what it was until I took the test, yet the kids down in Houston have the material explicitly in their curriculum. They slant the NMSF cutoff so much higher than most other states. Our cutoff this year was 219… 219!!!
If I lived 90 miles to the east, I’d be a NMSF going to school for free…</p>
<p>
Unless things have changed from 4 years ago when my daughter took the PSAT, you CAN take the PSAT on a Saturday. It can be administered on one of only two dates - on either a Wednesday or a Saturday of the same week. Our public hs did not want to take time out of an academic day to administer the test, so we gave it on Saturday. It became a big issue because the local Catholic church had scheduled Confirmation for that same Saturday (they do them on a Saturday in the fall of Junior year) and half the town is Catholic, so half the kids had a conflict. The school said they couldn’t change their date, so the church had to change theirs.</p>
<p>Here’s another funny thing - all of you claiming the PSAT measures achievement - wasn’t that A in SAT originally intended to stand for Aptitude, not Achievement? And didn’t the College Board used to make a big deal about how Aptitude and Achievement are 2 different things? At least they did until they got pushed on what “aptitude” really meant and if they were truly measuring it, and they changed the official name to simply the initials PSAT and SAT. Because the truth is that no one knows what the SAT really measures, except the ability to do well on the SAT.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Uh, not necessarily. The psat may be administered by a school during the school day with approval from CB, or it is administered on Saturday. But not both.</p>
<p>btw: count me as one of those who has no problem with merit aid – they can spend their money anyway they see fit – but thinks that use of the psat for a "national’ competition is an abomination. And full disclosure: my former company was a Corporate sponsor, so ‘winning’ for my kid was easy. But I still think the program is atrocious.</p>
<p>
Don’t think that is what posters were saying. they said there were many schools that were very financially attractive to them with the merit money offered as a NMF. Why do you have such a burr up your behind about this? This is one form of aid, available to families who might not otherwise be able to financially swing the cost of many schools and who, unlike you, will not qualify for FA. Just as your s looked at schools that were likely to offer him aid (whatever combination of need/work study/ merit or whatever) so too NMF’s want to look at schools that will offer them merit $ so they don’t have to take out loans or saddle themselves with expenses that will be a huge burden on the family. Don’t know and don’t need to know what helped your family with a 6 figure income qualify for need based aid. Its not our business. You are lucky our s got what he did. Maybe you are related to Dad II. But if someone tests well (which as I said is a strong predictor of success in college) so what? They have as much right to have merit monies available to them as the need based student has $ available to them.</p>
<h1>*“Schools like Bama benefit from OOS’ers with high stats. It helps their numbers in USNews (for those who care) and probably helps a bit with retention rates, which in turn both help with USNews rankings. Not saying that a handful of students in isolation will significantly increase these numbers, but over time, these numbers will slowly increase.”</h1>
<p>Emilybee’s response: And this helps students who are citizens of Alabama how? *</p>
<p>1) Many of the free rides and free tuition scholarships are given to Alabama residents. You’re naively assuming that none/few of the recipients are instate. </p>
<p>2) The University of Alabama is not using tax dollars to fund these scholarships.</p>
<p>3) If Alabama students were the idiots that you have suggested, then its PSAT cutoff would be very low…when in fact, it’s rather average for the nation. It’s PSAT cutoff is higher than states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nebraska. </p>
<p>4) Bama does accept B & C students (so-called average students)…UNLIKE many, many state flagships in this country.</p>
<p>4) *The University of Alabama has a dramatic impact on the economy of Alabama, returning three dollars for every one dollar invested in the University by the State. UA each year contributes $1.8 billion to the state’s economy. *</p>
<p>5) The University of Alabama is probably the highest ranked national U (non HBCU) that graduates the most African American students proportionately to its size.</p>
<p>6) The students at UA are very involved in community service projects to help the under-served areas of Alabama.</p>
<p>Bama enrolled 182 NMF and 30 NA frosh this last fall. Bama has about 600 national scholars on campus.</p>
<p>Bama doesn’t only award large scholarships for NMF status. It also awards full tuition and 2/3 tuition scholarships for high ACT and SAT scores. Those who are engineering students get additional scholarships. </p>
<p>The state of Alabama actually has a good number of public 4-year colleges and universities (15) for its population size (4.8 million) so it’s not like its citizens are not being provided numerous opportunities for higher education. This is not counting the CCs.</p>
<p>Having more high stats students on campus causes a positive circular domino effect. The middle quartiles rise, the school’s ranking rises, its easier to attract better profs, its easier to get more grants, its easier to get more donations, etc, etc.</p>
<p>*Then maybe schools like 'Bama should give the free rides to the B and C students from Alabama *</p>
<p>Are you serious? Why would you make such a request from one school when you don’t expect/demand it of others? </p>
<p>*No, I don’t live in Alabama or any other state which gives free rides to OOS NMF’s. *</p>
<p>The “state” of Alabama is NOT giving free rides to OOS NMFs. Your premise is false. The fact that the university is using non-tax-dollars to attract high-stats OOS students should not bother anyone. If affluent alumni, benefactors and other private sources want to underwrite these scholarships why should anyone care? </p>
<p>You have to look at the long term positive effects of this strategy on the school and the state. Many OOS kids will stay in the state and become employed at many of the Fortune 500 companies here. Others may leave and find success elsewhere, but since the univ has a history of alums giving generously, that’s ok, too. </p>
<p>Look, let’s face it - did any OOS student ever consider Alabama a few years ago? No.</p>
<p>Actually, Bama has enrolled a respectable number of OOS students for a very long time.
In 1993 (18 years ago) Bama enrolled 38% OOS freshman. The OOS numbers did dip to about 25% around 12 years ago (which is still good for a public). </p>
<p>Since Bama “upped its game” the OOS numbers have risen to the mid 40’s…and this year’s frosh class is 50% OOS. This was done while simultaneously increasing overall enrollment so that instate students would not get rejected. The goal has not been to shut out instate students in favor of higher stats OOS students. </p>
<p>I think that some wrongly think that all of the OOS kids are receiving free rides or full tuition scholarships. That’s not true. Bama enrolled about 3000 non-resident frosh this year…probably less than 500 received substantial scholarships of 2/3 tuition or more. </p>
<p>This may surprise some people, but there are families that are willing to pay OOS full freight for their children to attend a National U that offers the full college experience of academics and sports. At Family Weekend last year, I met 10 families all from the same Calif high school that had frosh at Bama. Only one student received a scholarship. They said that they didn’t get accepted to UCLA or Cal, and they wanted the full college/big Div I football experience which they couldn’t get at the other UCs…and the price was about the same. Calif is ranked #9 in sending students to UAlabama.</p>
<p>*If you have financial need…AND you get accepted to a school that meets full need for all students (like Bates), you are getting a defacto merit award. These schools accept high performing students. *</p>
<p>Exactly. Even publics like UVA and UNC that “meet need” for OOS students are essentially giving merit because only top OOS students are accepted (athletes the exception).</p>
<p>I don’t think that is what posters were saying. they said there were many schools that were very financially attractive to them with the merit money offered as a NMF.</p>
<p>It sounds to me like you haven’t read the thread/ </p>
<p>No, they were saying things like this: </p>
<p>"And there are not enough places at the most “prestigious” schools for all that might do well there, as judged holistically, which is a process that, among other things, looks at the individuals in the context of their environments.</p>
<p>The ability to pay for such an education is a limiting factor in this equation."</p>
<p>And this:</p>
<p>“Also, there are many people (the less wealthy?) who get edged out of real financial aid (I mean actual granted money, not offers of work or loans), but whose income still makes paying astronomical tuitions a hardship. How do you incentivize the top students from those families?”</p>
<p>Alabama is a very attractive choice for students from Texas and Tennessee (many other states, too, but I’m particularly familiar with these states). In Texas, it is extremely hard to get into the state flagship for many students due to the 10% rule. It can be very disappointing, and besides that, many students WANT to experience a different state. I knew a lot of very capable students who chose Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas and the like over other Texas schools and even over UTexas in some cases.</p>
<p>For Tennessee students, 'Bama has a strong honors program and engineering school, and is a decent distance away from home. I am seeing top TN students choose it- also Georgia and Mississippi.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Didn’t realize that it wasn’t the state tax dollars, but actually non-tax dollars to attract high-stats OOS. I didn’t care if it was state tax dollars and care even less that it’s affluent alumni / benefactors – they can underwrite scholarships for blue-eyed cellists of German descent from Nebraska and it’s no one’s business!</p>