<p>mom2inca: Sorry about that. I meant to thank you...but reposted the earlier messgae (after corecting spelling errors). THANKS AGAIN. </p>
<p>My son wants go in law and I would give him 5 on assertiveness. So, he needs to move the assertiveness scale to the right. I agree with your idea of UM or Berkley being Grand Central...and hopfully this will give the breadth my S needs. If he goes to Mich, he is hoping that the Honors Program will keep him excited about academics and get the intellectual environment he needs while moving the breadth scale. Even though we can afford Chicago $25K/year extra is significant for us. In the final analysis one has to look at is $25K/ys worth the Extra he will get at Chicago. But if he goes to UMich he will miss the WOW factor (and some depth ...may be). We will support in either choice. </p>
<p>Thanks again...I can relate to your feeling. It is going to be tough.</p>
<p>I think, if you have not done so yet, you should post in the UMich forum and see what experiences kids/parents have had with the honors program there. It sounds like it might be the best blend of academics and breadth of experience, and for $100,000 less. That's a good chunk of money you could put into his law school degree. Good luck with his decision! You must be really feeling the pressure of Monday.</p>
<p>I'm a senior in hs, and I've turned down UChicago for a free ride at a state school. I want to be free to take classes that interest me, even when my interests range from financially impractical (Creative Writing) to dead (Classics). I love to learn, which is why I was so attracted to Chicago, and I don't want financial burdens to hinder me.</p>
<p>"USC and Tulane are quite generous with aid for top scores. Indeed, a high psat score earns a $15k discount at USC regardless of need. That's how they have moved up in the rankings -- by buying high stat kids. CMU even advertises that they will likely match other schools offers."</p>
<p>my reply:
How do you think these universities can afford to give away money? Sure they give incentive "merit aid," read The Atlantic article (See Post #33 above for specifics) and you will see why. Is the USC example from first hand knowledge?</p>
<p>"Regardless of need"- that is the problem in a nutshell- you think it is a good idea to give money away to students who do not need it? They not only buy "high-stat kids" they create a frenzy- a ranking frenzy, an advertizing frenzy. "High stat kids" are more likely than not to come from affluent circumstances - the "REGARDLESS OF NEED" kids. "High stat kids are referred to as "Full Pays" in the Atlantic article.</p>
<p>Read the article, and tell me that these schools are "generous." Generous to whom?</p>
<p>ambidextrous has it right, if only more students(and parents) were as smart.</p>
<p>Well, to be fair, if ambidextrous is getting a free ride from a state school, then they are playing the same game as USC, purchasing high stat kids to boost their rankings.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"High stat kids" are more likely than not to come from affluent circumstances - the "REGARDLESS OF NEED" kids.<<</p>
</blockquote>
<br>
<p>We have first hand experience about USC going after high stat kids at our high school. These kids are rarely "regardless of need" kids. In fact, they are often from that dreaded middle class--too much income for good FA, too little income to choose a college without regard to $$. Ofttimes, they turn down a Berkeley or UCLA (where they will pay full freight) to go to USC on scholarship.</p>
<p>Our very low income high stat kids get into the Ivies/Stanford, etc.</p>
<p>Was the free ride at the state college based on merit or need? Does the free ride include tuition, room & board, fees, etc? What did U of C offer in the way of aid? </p>
<p>I have no idea what sort of incentive aid state colleges give to high stat kids. There are so many struggling states, I can't see them really playing the same game as the private colleges. There are many students, bright but not rich that apply only to state schools, so I can't believe state colleges really need to give incentives to lure high stat kids. If states are losing students, perhaps there would be incentive programs to keep them in-state. The reasonable tuition seems to be reason enough, considering the state school has a good reputation. Honors programs also play a role at state schools, but then privates have "endowed this-or-that name" programs too(Stern, Danforth, etc...). Read the Atlantic article and the book if you can, they really do explain the issues with financial aid/higher ed in this country.</p>
<p>I don't understand your point, since I don't have access to the mag. Can you paraphrase the author's pov?</p>
<p>As private schools with private money, what's wrong with attracting the student body they desire? Is there something insidious on how they raise funds to offer merit scholarships?</p>
<p>USC has been doling out merit money to NMF for years -- which is exactly how they have moved up in the rankings. Pres Doti at Chapman U started doing similar since he became pres of that college. Many other schools follow the same enrollment management philosophy. But, UofChicago is not one of those colleges.</p>
<p>Incidentally, USC also has the HIGHEST proportion of low income, pell grantees, of any private college, so they are just not going after upper-middle class kids, but local, poor kids as well.</p>
<h1>33. Comment only. Parents of graduating CMU student, with a more than fair institutional grant but smaller than receipients of posters on the CMU thread.</h1>
<p>CMU in their web site specifically states that they practice "enrollment management" and then they go and explain why. </p>
<p>Yesterday I looked at DUKE (reason: recent current affair) and there DUKE says that they have an endowment of $3 billion, an enrollment of the size both at undergrad and grad levels of CMU. CMU has an endowment of < $1 billion. Both schools founded early 20th century by wealthy benefactors.</p>
<h1>47. State schools play this game also. Our state schools offered fullrides to DS. Some OSS state schools also offered fullrides. He also never applied to these schools and the offers came unsolicited.</h1>
<p>the UC's (not UoC) play the high stat game with Regent's scholarships -- essentially waiving most, if not all, tuition, for four years, for a few hundred high stat kids per campus.</p>
<p>The Cal States are also into the act -- Long Beach has an honors college, essentially full-ride, priority registration, guaranteed housing for 4 years, dinner with the chancellor and deans, etc.</p>
<p>Other publics, for example, U-Ok, give full rides to EVERY NMF....</p>
<p>
[quote]
I have no idea what sort of incentive aid state colleges give to high stat kids. There are so many struggling states, I can't see them really playing the same game as the private colleges.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, S was a NMF and he received full ride offers (unsolicited) to Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma state schools, as well as to Long Beach State in Ca. Of the schools he applied to last year, he was offered zero from UChicago and Berkeley, a Regents discount of $7,000 per year at UCDavis and a 1/2 tuition discount at GW. </p>
<p>I think all the colleges play the merit game to a certain extent. And if they can get more kids to apply by making it look like merit money is forthcoming or financial aid is the norm, then they win through higher selectivity, a greater range of applicants to choose from and higher rankings in USNWR.</p>
<p>I know nothing about USC - never been there; don't know any alums; kids not interested; and only know one student.</p>
<p>So, purely statistically, USC makes for probably the nation's most interesting sociological student study among universities. 52% of students receive no financial aid whatsoever, meaning a minimum income of about $160k, and a median income of much higher than that. But 32% students are Pell Grant recipients, meaning the bottom two quintiles - $44k max and a median well below. Leaving only 16% of the population total from the middle and upper middle parts of the population - where I expect most of the merit money is going. Must make for a really different campus life, with a majority of students with money to burn, and a third of them really, really scraping to get by. I wonder how this translates into classroom experience, and housing experience - it could be wonderful if exploited well, or just a a set-up for a campus caste system.</p>
<p>I think that state schools do use merit money to attract strong students, but I don't think it has much to do with US News rankings. I think they are more focused on simply the academic quality of their schools & the long term benefit of having high-achieving students at their campuses. To the extent that they make the offers to in-state students, I also think there is an arguable benefit to the state to keep high-achieving students in their home state, rather than experiencing brain drain to states housing elite colleges. </p>
<p>This may be a distinction without a difference: they are still trying to provide an incentive for strong students to attend. I just don't think that the number of scholarships they provide compared with the number of enrollees is even enough to make a dent in the stats as far as average SATS.</p>
<p>The full ride that I got from the state university consisted of room, board, tuition, and fees, and it was merit-based. The top 1500 students who were accepted to the university's honors program were invited to compete for 10 full rides in an essay competition (and later a phone interview). I don't think the school is trying to increase its rankings since they only gave ten full rides; I do know, though, that they give full tuition to NMF, so maybe in some ways they are. </p>
<p>I applied to schools both in and out of state, both public and private. I have three younger siblings, and I know that I want to pursue a career that I love, not necessarily one that will be financially lucrative. I don't want debts, and I don't want my parents to have any debt. The scholarship didn't keep me in state (UChicago was the only out of state school in my top four), but it did make me realize that it would stupid to pay over 40,000 dollars per year to attend a private university when I could go to a good state school for free.</p>
<p>My son is a sophomore and a Trustee's Scholar at USC. We are in the position of having a fairly strong income but not a lot of savings, so we could not afford our EFC (probably called upper middle class, but I started a company and have incurred significant debt while I started it). My son definitely has a number of friends who come from very wealthy families, and many of his other friends live in SoCal, where their parents have a LOT of equity in their homes but are not particularly wealthy otherwise. There are also plenty of kids who do NOT come from wealthy families.</p>
<p>The atmosphere in SoCal is more entrepreneurial than the east coast, so the atmosphere is less "prestige" conscious, and possibly more materialistic, than the east coast (money is certainly important, but someone who earned his money owning a chain of muffler shops is not considered lower than someone who is a computer consultant with the same income / net worth - in my opinion, this would be less true in Boston). Many of his friends have more of a business bent and a willingness to take a risk than his friends seemed to have here in the suburbs of Philadelphia.</p>
<p>My son has substantially less spending money than many of his peers, but he has found that most of the kids understand this and adjust. For example, my son has gone surfing a number of times and has neither a car nor a surfboard. The friends in his fraternity who have more tend to recognize this and simply SHARE with those who do not have as much. This may be unique to my son's experience, but I don't think so.</p>
<p>The other thing that is (possibly) unique about 'SC is that they work heavily with local high schools for tutoring and mentoring. They even offer full tuition discounts to some local kids who: a) participate in a Saturday morning ed program; 2) maintain a B+ average; 3) take a rigorous curriculum for thier HS. They also are a major local employer, and hire as much staff from the community as they can. As a result, the surrounding community embraces the school. [It was no surprise to many that the campus was literally untouched during the Rodney King riots which occurred within a few hundred yards of it.] </p>
<p>btw: Test scores at bigger at 'SC in admissions than they'd like to admit publically. A neighborhood kid got in with a 3.0 gpa and 2280 SAT score. There are few alums that don't brag that USC has higher test scores than Cal, ignoring, of course, the UC requirement of one sitting (no mixing and matching), and the fact that USC excludes special admits from their calculations (i..e, athletes, and other local HS programs.)</p>
<p>Sounds fascinating! Of course, there is a smaller scale version of it at Occidental (which also has a much higher proportion of kids in the middle, and possibly fewer athletes, though, percentagewise, maybe more.)</p>
<p>you bet. Oxy is another private school that actively courts lower income kids, particularly from the surrounding 'hood.</p>
<p>calmom: excellent point -- the few hundred Frosh Regent's scholarships per UC campus (4,000 per class) would have little impact on their mean test scores; obviously, it they cared about rankings much they'd accept test scores from more than one sitting. Moreover, I would surmise that, in many cases, the kid would attend the flagship campuses anyway -- the tuition discount is just a big plus. But, as you note, merit money is merit money, for whatever reason given.</p>