<p>
This was the financial data available to us. Please take note that it came from his friend or acquaintance, not simply us jumping to conclusions. Bad data. </p>
<p>As was said before, "great job" . Awesome opportunity. </p>
<p>We do need to emphasize that this "scholarship" is not available to all, only those who meet it's definition of low income or needy . Sure wish questbridge had one of these for middle income families, too.;)</p>
<p>Congratulations on the merit aid scholarship to the need-based only school, and to the need-blind school for being need-aware in awarding it. ;)</p>
<p>In Amherst's</p>
<p>Report of the Faculty Committee on Admission and
Financial Aid to the Committee on Academic Priorities</p>
<p>they state:</p>
<p>
[quote]
President Marx has asked FCAFA to discuss how we might better attract socioeconomically disadvantaged students to the College, and to consider the implications if the numbers of such students were increased. Generally speaking, our sense is that the Faculty view these initiatives favorably, since these initiatives support some of the common values we hold in academia.</p>
<p>We wish here to sound a few cautionary notes, which may in some cases be nothing more than our best guesses or assumptions as to some of the situations that might arise if significant changes are made in this direction.</p>
<p>Some new initiatives have already been launched to increase the socioeco- nomic diversity at the College. In particular, we have joined the Questbridge program, which matches outstanding prospective students from low-income families to private institutions of higher learning. Questbridge students receive financial aid in the form of grants so that when they graduate they are not burdened by debt. We currently enroll or have accepted a total of seven Questbridge students in the classes of 2008 and 2009; for the class of 2009 we had 174 Questbridge applications.</p>
<p>Several questions emerge as one contemplates increasing the number of students from the lower economic tiers at Amherst, the most obvious of which is how such a program will affect the overall finances of the College.</p>
<p>This matter is beyond our purview. It is clear that the resources available to the Office of Financial Aid will likely need to be increased. Of related concern is the question of competition for these students among our peer institutions.</p>
<p>The College has no merit-based aid program (merit scholarships), and it is possible that this lack places us at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to recruiting. For example, Harvard has begun a program in which it provides a free education for accepted students with family incomes below $40,000 per year. Since these students do not qualify for complete support on the basis of income alone, the support must be considered a form of merit aid.</p>
<p>Of somewhat greater concern to us are three aspects of such a change in admission policy that we have not heard discussed in the broader community, viz., who these students will displace, what their curricular choices are likely to be, and what additional institutional support they will need.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>they further state:</p>
<p>
[Quote]
</p>
<p>We speculate that students from more modest socioeconomic backgrounds may desire different outcomes from their educational experiences than do students from families with greater means. In particular, we anticipate that their curricular choices may be driven by economic concerns and therefore lie along an axis of pre-professional studies: pre-law, pre-medicine, and pre-business.</p>
<p>Insofar as clumping of students in particular majors is considered undesirable, admitting large numbers of socioeconomically disadvantaged students may add to pressures in certain departments, including Chemistry, Economics, LJST, Political Science, and Psychology.</p>
<p>We further anticipate that our obligation to these students will require increased levels of support, both inside and outside the classroom. Matriculating students will arrive with widely varying levels of academic preparation resulting from the fewer educational opportunities that have been available to them. There is no reason to believe that these inequalities will disappear any time soon. We also want to emphasize that lower-income students may face daily concerns that differ from those of the remainder of the student body. These may range from obtaining clothing (especially proper clothing for harsh Massachusetts winters) to attending social events (e.g., dinner with friends in town) to purchasing textbooks and other curricular supplies.</p>
<p>Whatever the financial situations of these students might be, by accepting them the College also accepts an obligation to do what it can to ensure that
they thrive in the physical, social, and academic environments.
[/quote]
</p>