<p>Boy, this is a tough crowd.</p>
<p>Both of my kids want/wanted to get out of UG w/o debt. Due to high EFC, they wound up letting need only schools go. Where D goes, they give both merit scholarships and grants. Merit requires 3.0 GPA for renewal, not need-based. Grant is need-based and requires 2.0 GPA for renewal. At this school, at least, it pays to know what the terminology means.</p>
<p>Yes, it pays for you to know what the terminology means. The question is, is it important for people who hear “misinformation” (little Jimmy down the block got a scholarship to Harvard!) to correct it – and what’s their agenda in doing so.</p>
<p>A teacher at my kids’ hs said something to me once about how “well, coming from the midwest (Chicago) is a real hook for Harvard – they’re looking for more kids from the midwest.” It was all I could do not to roll my eyes straight out of my head – oh, yes, there is such a shortage of North Shore Chicago kids applying to Harvard. @@ But I realized that my “correcting” her wasn’t really going to accomplish anything – it was just sort of to prove how very smart and enlightened I was.</p>
<p>I correct people who tell me little Suzy got a scholarship to such & such a school (always third-hand info, it seems) when I know for a fact that it’s need-only … like Harvard … simply because I am tired of pretentious people who brag about their kids’ accomplishments. Getting into Harvard is a pretty amazing accomplishment in my book. But it just goes too far for my sensibilities to hear that Suzy not only got into Harvard, but apparently she is so extraordinary that she got a “full ride.” It’s not that it matters. It’s just that I am old & cranky.</p>
<p>^^OK Kelsmom you bit by posting…so is the difference (from the financial aid office) that scholarships have an endowment component and grant aid is from insitutional funds…is there some inherent difference in “free” money?</p>
<p>There is a HUGE difference in free money because student A may get a lot of it because of their parents income and student B may get NOTHING, also because of parents income. That’s called financial aid and that outcome is reasonable - for Harvard - which has no need to lure high stats students. But it’s not reasonable to fool student B into thinking they can get some when all the reasons for it are out of their control (ever read the threads by the kids whose parents won’t contribute a dime and have so much $$ that the kid can’t get any fin aid?).</p>
<p>For a different school, offering merit aid is reasonable to those who deserve it - AS WELL AS financial aid (to those who need it, hey! sometimes the same kids!).</p>
<p>Maybe we should reserve the word “scholarship” for those out of school, Coca Cola, Best Buy, Questbridge things and refer to all school aid as either financial aid or merit aid.</p>
<p>Can I just laugh at all the “entitled” comments? I wouldn’t have been full-pay at a private U/LAC, but my EFC was at the upper end of what my family could comfortably pay, so I looked specifically for merit aid that would lower the COA below that. I got an undergrad education for about ~$30k total, only about ~$5k more than one year of EFC would have cost my family.</p>
<p>For other people, they may go the need-based/need and merit-based route for a number of reasons, and if that works in your situation, more power to you.</p>
<p>But. really, I’d love to hear how considering my family’s finances makes me “entitled” whereas opting for a school where I would have received need-based aid (which, again, I would have been VERY GRATEFUL for) would make me “unentitled.” How is need-based aid any more “virtuous” than merit aid and why think all kids who receive merit aid are “rich” or “entitled”? By no means would I think that anyone who receives need-based aid is “entitled” (like I said before, I’m all for need-based aid), or evben “poor,” so why the double-standard?</p>
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<p>Eh, why rain on Suzy’s parade?</p>
<p>^^OK Kelsmom you bit by posting…so is the difference (from the financial aid office) that scholarships have an endowment component and grant aid is from insitutional funds…is there some inherent difference in “free” money? </p>
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<p>It depends on the school. The sources of scholarships & institutional funding are set up by the powers-that-be in schools. In other words, they are not something financial aid officers usually have any say in (or to be honest, are even privy to …). In fact, a number of our scholarships are out of the hands of anyone in financial aid. They are actually completely handled by Admissions. We just post 'em. I can tell you that some scholarships are definitely from endowments. Others can be from institutional money - that is, they are really tuition discounts designed to draw a set of students the school feels will enhance their student body for whatever purpose. Grant aid can come from endowments, I would imagine … or from institutional funding. Again, how that works is generally done well above my peon level. One of my coworkers came from a small private school & she said their need based aid was often really tuition discounting. So, again, it all depends.</p>
<p>Why rain on Suzy’s parade? Because I am a very “black & white” person, and this particular gray bugs me for whatever reason.</p>
<p>I’ll admit I haven’t read all 13 pages, but had a topical interaction the other night.</p>
<p>A parent (who I had never met before) at a high school event for my younger kid asked where D1 was attending college (it’s an Ivy). I told her, and she said “How can you afford that? How much is it? Do you pay for the whole thing yourselves? Did she get an athletic scholarship? An academic scholarship?” She didn’t wait for me to answer, which was good, because I really couldn’t think what to say. Where to begin? I felt like she had asked to look in my underwear drawer- I felt like she was either asking how much money we make, or why my kid wasn’t smart or athletic enough to get money for school. The conversation was pretty muddled, since she kept insisting there had to be merit or athletic money…</p>
<p>I changed the subject to HER D1 and she said D1 was attending a state school because they would never have let her apply to “expensive” schools (implying that she would have gotten in, if only they had let her apply, but they would never be crazy enough to pay that bill).</p>
<p>The whole thing was weird, and I didn’t feel it was the time or place to explain college financial aid policies. I guess I’m just venting. The general misconceptions about finaid crop up in the oddest ways.</p>
<p>“why rain on Suzy’s parade?”</p>
<p>Exactly! Last year our principal announced on the telephone message that goes to everyone in the school that “Bobby” got a full ride scholarship to MIT. “Bobby” is an URM and neither of his parents went to college. His parents are very nice, humble, and strange as it may seem to some of you “hard-working.” Yes, my child had better SAT scores and grades in calculus but that doesn’t mean he didn’t “deserve” it and she did. It was a big thing for Bobby and his family and deserves the congratulations they got after the phone message.</p>
<p>This thread is exasperating. What is the bid deal, riverrunner, about straightening out your neighbor’s misconceptions? I have no trouble telling shocked parents who wonder how I can afford with a single income to send two kids to college at the same time, including one at one of America’s most expensive LACs. It’s pretty easy to say my flagship state U student chose to live at home and commute, saving on room and board, and my private LAC student has a merit scholarship that pays a quarter of the bill, grant money, loan and work study that pays another quarter, and I pay half out of pocket. Why is that hard to say, even if you are full pay, half-pay, partial pay? I don’t get why some folks find it difficult to explain, even to a clueless neighbor or other parent.</p>
<p>Plainsman –</p>
<p>If people talked the same way to their friends the same way they talked on this website, they wouldn’t have friends for very long. No one likes dull, condescending lectures, especially about something that most people consider minutiae. Even if the information is correct and important to know! It can often be easier just to let something go rather than trying to come up with a way of tactfully correcting someone – especially if that person isn’t someone you have the emotional closeness that you need in order to give them serious advice or correction.</p>
<p>I can understand the frustration of a high school student who has worked really hard through school and has excelled feel frustrated if they can’t attend an “elite” college because their family isn’t need-based, but still unable to foot the bill without major debt when a classmate who hasn’t excelled as much is also accepted and able to attend because he or she qualifies for need-based aid. Personally, I would be concerned to receive so much need-based aid because if finances improve the following tax year I, as a parent, could have an increased EFC, but still not be in a position to easily cover it.</p>
<p>I don’t have a problem with need-based if the college wants to spend its money that way. I do get frustrated by scholarships that are given to less qualified candidates because of factors other than finances a child can’t control (race, gender, etc.).</p>
<p>In any case I have been very fortunate that my daughter has earned major merit money that isn’t tied to my finances. She just has to maintain a 3.0, which should be very easy for her.</p>
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<p>Maybe they want to highlight how generous Princeton is. I don’t consider this statement to contain bragging at all. If you see that then you are reading too much into it.</p>
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<p>Now we’re making a distinction between merit aid and financial aid??? My daughter has a merit-based scholarship. When I had a question about it I was directed to the financial aid office.</p>
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<p>You cannot redefine a word or reserve it for some particular use because you feel like it. The word scholarship is a common one and is already in the dictionary as well as people’s vocabulary. You simply cannot alter its meaning, even a little.</p>
<p>Actually there are so many shades of gray it’s impossible to put it all into black and white. Way upthread my son was mentioned - I won’t go into too much detail but this is a decent stats/ec’s kid who was offered merit at some schools, grant aid at others, a combo at others, but no discount at all at Boston University. In a thread requesting info about whether BU was generous with FA, I posted my experience. Among the responses was one that stated that BU had a small endowment so couldn’t offer much in the way of grant funding (I looked it up and the endowment is a piddling 1.3 billion), and another that said how BU is a great school for people looking for financial aid because it is very transparent in posting a “probablily of need-based grants” table, which lays out a grid of income=x, SAT or ACT scores/GPA=y, your should expect z in grants.</p>
<p>Well, in my son’s case, if you looked at income=x, SAT/ACT scores=y - 96% of students should expect grant aid between 14-27k. If you decided, instead, to look at income=x, grades=y, then 92% should expect grant aid in the 14-20k or so range. In our case, we were offered no grants at all. That’s zero grant aid, merit or otherwise.</p>
<p>This table doesn’t really address merit - it’s financial aid, it depends on income and is offered through the Financial Aid office. But also there is a merit component - it depends on SAT/ACT scores or GPA. However, clearly there is a third component as well - it depends on whether they are looking for a left handed boy from the Boston suburbs. Obviously, they were not, and we weren’t going to pay 55k/year for BU as we had equal academic options that meshed better with our finances.</p>
<p>The point is that not all financial aid based “scholarships” are cut, dried, and purely contingent on need based mathematical formulas. Especially once you get past the tippity top highest endowment need blind schools, awards are quite obviously tweaked to tailor the class the institution is looking for. So parents who’s kids are offered substantial need based grants can be just as proud of their kid’s offers as parents who’s kids were offered discounts with no need component included.</p>
<p>There seems to be an assumption in many of these posts that kids who are receiving substantial need-based FA are necessarily less qualified than your precious little full-pay darlings.</p>
<p>I can assure you that my unhooked white boy from New England got in on his own merit. Given his parents’ education and our location, no school would have assumed that he was going to need a lot of FA. In fact, they probably assumed that he had taken an expensive SAT prep course–he took none–and that we had a private college counselor. (He didn’t.) Nevertheless, he outscored his classmates who had both.</p>
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<p>Wow. Just wow. </p>
<p>Do you REALLY think that people PREFER to be in financial straits?</p>
<p>I have rarely read such mean-spirited, self-righteous claptrap.</p>
<p>“There seems to be an assumption in many of these posts that kids who are receiving substantial need-based FA are necessarily less qualified than your precious little full-pay darlings.” (not sure how to get this to show up in that gray box).</p>
<p>Well I was told exactly the opposite for LACs. Most are not need blind so if you need money you need to be BETTER than those who don’t.</p>
<p>This post was by FLVADAD on a related thread about dream schools. He summarizes the issue so eloquently:
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<p>At least part of the problem today is that full pay at most private schools is a huge amount of money and there is a segment of the population who thought that they were doing everything right so that their kids could go anywhere they wanted if they were admitted. They make too much to get aid but not enough to write the check.</p>
<p>The reality is that whether need-based or merit-based, these kids have worked their butts off to get good grades and good test scores, and deserve every bit of aid they get. As for kids with difficulty getting need-based due to high parental income, I can understand how frustrating that can be, but life ain’t fair afterall… Such kids are better off focusing exclusively on colleges that offer significant amounts of merit-based awards.</p>
<p>Need-based AND merit-based are both scholarships, and not worth the amount of brain cells churned up on this thread…</p>