<p>Well, I can’t speak for the midwest because I’ve never lived there. As for other parts of the nation, the emphasis on athletics in HS seems to have run amok in southern states. And I really tire of seeing the top rebounder-scorer from the worst academically performing high schools hold press conferences where 50 reporters attend to hear him (typically not a HER) shine on about how glad he is to join the Dagwood Bumstead College basketball team. But, as was said earlier, philosophically that barn door closed a long time ago.</p>
<p>Our school no longer publishes the names of the honor roll kids because too many parents complained it made their kids feel bad for NOT being on the list. You just cannot win in our PC world.</p>
<p>My neice was a valedictorian in a southern state. When we attended her graduation, we were shocked that she was never mentioned by name, nor did she give a speech. When I asked my sister about this, she shrugged and basically said that the non-academic culture was too big to fight. Neice is attending a top LAC and doing very well there. The “stars” of her school are fighting to find jobs locally.</p>
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<p>Isn’t it interesting how kids who don’t make honor roll are allowed to have feelings, but kids who will never get recognized for athletics don’t have any feelings? There should be a study done on this.</p>
<p>“no longer publishes honor roll”</p>
<p>not all public schools are like this. At our school there’s a special assembly where all the national merit scholars are recognized. As well as mock-trial, the competitive math team, public speaking students, and the competitive Latin team are recognized for their achievements. </p>
<p>there are still places where it’s cool to be nerdy and the other students, including athletes, recognize and applaud those academic winners!</p>
<p>There is one potential downside, it’s a culture of “you better be good at something”. It doesn’t matter if it’s throwing the football or playing chess, but you better win! So average kids, who do have feelings, can suffer a bit.</p>
<p>Columbia_Student: I’m not sure what was the point of the post #17 but to answer the question
Yes, USC did bump up the dollar amount from half tuition to full tuition after learning about her choices and specially the Rice offer.</p>
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DD never applied for FA, so it was not a grant. It was just an offer that if we please to utilize Princeton will be able to provide interest free loan for 4 years or unless the student graduate. MIT has a similar institute loan option but at 8%. Interest free for 4 years was very tempting offer from Princeton for a full paying student.</p>
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<p>Uh, no. That doesn’t make any sense, unless you say everyone who gets straight A’s has the same talent. You could just as easily say there are lots of kids who captained their varsity athletic team.</p>
<p>POIH, thanks for the update information. I didn’t think I remember reading about the full tuition part and the link in post #17 proves that I was not hallucinating due to old age. 
Glad to know that your daughter did receive more money because that is helpful information to future applicants.</p>
<p>^^^:I never updated that thread as I didn’t think it was relevant. I posted in this thread as it was a relevant information. Point was that colleges do pay attention to top academic kids may be not to the level of top atheletes.
Disclaimer: DD was not the top academic child at her school, so you can think of the options the top children from DD school might have been exposed too.</p>