<p>I don't know why, but it really, really bugs me when people say that got a "scholarship" from a need-only school. I'm not against need-based aid AT ALL, but it just seems like flagrant misrepresentation to frame a need-based award as a scholarship, especially when someone says "yeah, [school] gave me a $30,000 scholarship AND need-based aid [federal loans, etc]" When the school in question only gives merit aid to NMF and only in the amount of 2k a year, no they didn't. I'm glad the school is affordable for your family, but the school didn't give you a "scholarship"--they gave you need-based aid. To frame it as a "scholarship" misleads future applicants into thinking the school offers merit aid. </p>
<p>No one has to out and out say that they got $X of aid, either--they can just say that they got "really good aid" if they think the amount might reveal their family's financial situation. Just don't frame it as merit aid when the school doesn't give merit aid.</p>
<p>totally agree with you…someone just said to me today, “my son/daughter just lost his/her scholarship for next year”…when I inquired, it was obvious they meant FA…</p>
<p>^^^ Then they don’t have to say anything about what they got.</p>
<p>I can understand that making such a claim can be misleading - especially to a student who had much higher stats and didn’t get much or got nothing.</p>
<p>There was a mom who posted recently that a student with lower stats from her child’s high school got a $25k scholarship while her child got nothing. I asked if the $25k was financial aid, and she didn’t know. All she knew was that the student (or maybe the parents) said that the student got a $25k scholarship. </p>
<p>I can understand that it would be frustrating in such a circumstance.</p>
<p>My daughter got a letter from Vassar regarding a scholarship they offered her; they only offer need based aid, so some one not in the know could be merely repeating the marketing hype they have been fed?</p>
<p>I think for most folks, a scholarship is a scholarship is a scholarship. I don’t think they differentiate between financial aid and a scholarship. Its all money to help pay tuition. </p>
<p>Its all good; they are happy; and I am not sure why it would bug anyone.</p>
<p>A woman I do some volunteer work with told me more than she intended to a couple of weeks ago when she mentioned that her grandson just got a “full scholarship to Brown”.</p>
<p>I don’t think it is worth getting too excited about this sort of thing. The web sites of all schools discuss the kind of aid/scholarships/grants that are available. If someone applies to a need-only financial award school thinking they are in the running for a merit scholarship, they can’t blame anyone else for their mistake.</p>
<p>It is amazing, though, how little most journalists seem to know about these matters.</p>
<p>Some schools call their need based grant aid “scholarships”. Maybe people are simply communicating what is written on their financial aid award letters.</p>
<p>I can see why it would bug someone. I was having lunch with a friend whose ds was at the school my ds was considering. I mentioned the nice merit and financial aid package. She just had to ask about the merit aid because her high-stats ds got nothing. She seemed relieved to know that the merit aspect was just a few thousand dollars awarded to my ds for being a Natl Hispanic Scholar; her ds is Anglo and so obviously wasn’t eligible.</p>
<p>@LeftofPisa
Because a scholarship denotes merit above and beyond the rest of the applicant pool REGARDLESS of need, whereas financial aid is (theoretically, allowing for preferential packaging at some schools) based ONLY on need. So, you didn’t get $X because you were the “bestest applicant ever” (you could have been or not), you got $X because of your family income. It means the same to you, but not to Applicant B who thinks “oh, A got scholarship from [need only school]. I’m a strong applicant, too–I’ll get a scholarship, too” without releasing that Applicant B’s “scholarship” actually was based on EFC, which can differ greatly between outwardly similar families. </p>
<p>Of course, there’s some stuff that combines merit and need, but for the schools that don’t give merit aid, it is usually strictly need.</p>
<p>Yeah, a friend of my S’s was admitted to a school and told S he got a 30K scholarship. I am sure there was a merit component, but most of it was need based. I had talked S out of applying to the school because he’d need to get serious merit for us to afford it (we have a high EFC we can’t meet). He had already applied to a few schools that we didn’t think would work out financially - reaches with his stats, therefore also a financial reach.</p>
<p>So at the time S was a bit put out, thinking he could have gotten in with a similar ‘scholarship’. I explained it was because of our differing finances; he then had to deal with the fact that just because we have a higher income doesn’t mean we could afford to spend twice as much as his friend’s family to send him to the same school.</p>
<p>And yes, it is hard to bite your tongue when the high school makes a big deal about a certain kid getting such a great “scholarship” to a school that only gives need-based aid and your kid didn’t get that “scholarship” because you are slightly higher income. Bite harder. That kid is only 17 or 18 and has done something worth celebrating.</p>
<p>People seem to be very impressed when they hear that “So-and-so” got a scholarship. Some people love to brag about how much money a school is giving their child. The high schools in our area also love to brag about how much scholarship money their graduates have been awarded.</p>
<p>I don’t begrudge anyone getting financial aid, but the students with the higher stats don’t necessarily get the money, and the students getting the money aren’t necessarily those with the higher stats.</p>
<p>Early in the process, one of my colleagues was telling me that her son some years ago got a scholarship at Cornell and another school offered him more money, so they went to Cornell with the other offer and Cornell increased the scholarship. I felt quite foolish when I passed the story on to a Cornell grad who promptly shot my story down. Of course as much as I would like to, I can’t say anything to my colleague.</p>
<p>I think people use scholarship and financial aid interchangebly, and it is a bit irritating for full pay parents.</p>
<p>Yeah, just like how kids with higher stats don’t necessarily have wealthier parents, and wealthier parents don’t necessarily have kids with higher stats. The common perception is that having or getting money is always linked to innate super-specialness but that’s not always true. Sometimes you just get lucky, applying to school and being the one chosen for a scholarship or getting into the college that meets your need or having parents who were able to save for your college education. Merit does play into it, of course, but it’s not the alpha and the omega by far.</p>
<p>I think people use the word scholarship as opposed to loan. One has to be paid back, the other doesn’t. The above two would support what I think. Even if you are pretty sure that I am wrong you can’t expect people to make a distinction in their speech that the financial aid websites don’t make.</p>
<p>Pea, exactly.
Colleges can use the word “scholarship” for need-based aid as they choose.
Hence the people bragging about their kid’s “full scholarship to Harvard”, since kid is so much smarter than the other bazillion kids who applied to Harvard… no, your kid is super smart and got in. He or she got aid because you are low income. Your family got stellar aid because your school has enough money to attract top students despite their need.</p>
<p>I think when people say their kid got into a school like Harvard and then add that they got a full scholarship they are just expressing their relief that they don’t have to pay the tuition. When my cousin got into a top college the news was always accompanied with the information that he got a full scholarship because it was the only possible explanation for how his chronically unemployed father could afford to send him there.</p>