<p>This may describe other colleges too. "Bottom line, Dr. Pohl says, is that 'were going to meet full need out of the box for our best students who have financial need.' All told, about 200 students in each incoming class receive scholarships for half the tuition, and about 100 for full tuition, whether they need it or not."</p>
<p>Nice find, Tokenadult. I like that word “talent blind”.</p>
<p>great article. should be required reading for all HS students and parents.</p>
<p>I’m sure the office of HYPS is quite different, but this gives a good example of how a private school, especially one that uses the CSS profile, works.</p>
<p>The hat tip goes to a friend of mine on an email list for homeschoolers. I’m surprised I didn’t see the article through my own reading of the New York Times. </p>
<p>Some of the facts reported in the story are HARSH. I’ll have to watch out next year when my son applies.</p>
<p>the date in the URL says 4/19, but the published date say 4/14 in the article</p>
<p>awe! I hope I get some financial aid from BU then!</p>
<p>Hmmm…BU thinks they can actually land the girl with the 2350 SAT with an award that will require her to pay $100,000 for her education? Why did they even bother? Her mom only brings in 112k a year and dad is out out of the picture. Seems like they are way out of touch with what other schools are offering in terms of need based aid. I’m assuming her GPA, etc. is consistent with her test scores. BU is definitely off our list after reading this.</p>
<p>I find it fascinating that nowhere in the article does it state that many of the BU merit awards require FA forms to be filled out EVEN if one knows they do not qualify for FA…and that there is no “true” merit in those cases; only ones which qualify for aid…</p>
<p>Oregon Dad - that’s $25K Family Contribution + probably $8500 in loans if the workstudy comes in at $2K. Ouch.</p>
<p>BU requires that the finaid forms be filled out for all those receiving scholarships EXCEPT their special application scholarships (e.g. Trustee, MLK scholarship). However, there ARE some true merit awards at BU. All performance based awards in the College of Fine Arts are based on audition or portfolio…not on need. Our EFC exceeded the COA at BU when DS was a freshman and he got a VERY generous music performance award…annually. It was a merit award and in his last two years did not require the completion of any finaid forms.</p>
<p>However, we DID have to complete both the Profile and FAFSA for him as an incoming Freshman and as a sophomore (they changed that for merit only awards after his soph year).</p>
<p>The article had some good talking points in it…but truthfully, nothing new. BU has always awarded better financial aid to both needy AND bright students.</p>
<p>I thought that the article was very depressing.</p>
<p>Its all a big game, isn’t it?</p>
<p>BU has always been upfront about this. THey actually send a financial aid matrix showing students what they can expect in terms of financial and merit aid.</p>
<p>Far from the way my office works! :)</p>
<p>I have to admit, I find their honesty refreshing. Any student/family who applies & is upset with the aid offer from BU needs to keep quiet & deal with it - it’s not like they weren’t warned. It’s a marketing tool … but they are upfront about it.</p>
<p>P.S. The federal formula DOES consider child support.</p>
<p>S was offered a National Scholarship, 1/2 tuition. He applied for the Trustee Scholarship, full tuition. Had he received the Trustee Scholarship the money would have tipped the scales and he would have likely attended. Instead he will be accepting an offer from a higher-ranked school he prefers but would have passed over had BU offered him the TS. </p>
<p>Using BU’s terminology, they were saying “we love you, Laxtaxi son, but only half as much as you would like.” </p>
<p>LOL</p>
<p>The 2 things about the story that I found my interesting were:</p>
<p>-That they gave more to half that appealed
-That ‘more’ was between $500 and $2K, a drop in the bucket for most.</p>
<p>Why don’t they just call the Office of Financial Aid the Marketing, Recruitment, and Bribery Department?</p>
<p>It would be more truthful.</p>
<p>i would go if any of that actually applied to me… internationals are the source of money that goes into those programs. my parents make less than 60k yet still have to pay full 52k or something. this is simply ridiculous.</p>
<p>The package that BU gave me was half of what Cornell gave me. I got like 14500 in grants from BU, and 32k from Cornell. Something’s strange about that, but I won’t complain.</p>
<p>Just like admissions, though, isn’t it? It’s all numbers. It doesn’t behoove a school to give someone tons of aid when they figure they’re probably good enough to get in somewhere better and with a decent aid package. Would you have chosen BU over Cornell if the aid had been matched or even slightly increased? </p>
<p>The takeaway here is that BU rewards the kids they love…the kids they love and the ones they think would realistically go here.</p>
<p>My EFC = $0. I got 6k grants and 6k loans from BU. L o l. I refreshed that page like 10 times to see if it was mistake. Then again, my stats don’t stack up with the usual students that go there.</p>