wisteria100 and LoveTheBard,
Yes, yes, I misspoke. I was thinking in terms of if the OP changes her daughter’s ED application to RD. The power of applying to multiple schools is being able to compare offers and even use offers to try to get the applicant’s number-one school to possibly come up with more money.
Grinnellhopeful, do take notice. You will not be able to play schools against one another financially if your daughter is accepted ED to St. Olaf.
My bad for not being clearer.
@ucbalumnus Yes, Socioeconomic diversity is exactly what I was referring to. I wasn’t even thinking about race. Although you can’t necessarily see religious diversity based on Pelll Grant either. But in particular I was speaking of socioeconomic.
@twoinanddone makes a very good argument for the importance of visits by way of the diversity discussion. Student make up is just a numbers game unless you see it in action. If the personality of the school and the student body is to clump into groups based on ethnicity, religion, economics etc. then diversity is simply a % on paper. If the college is doing it right then the student body and the college should be benefiting from a melting pot of ideas and experiences. Otherwise a small school might feel even smaller given the tendency of students to isolate themselves into cultural groups, and it’s really an artificial diversity. You would see this in action on a visit.
^ Yes. I was at a school recently which is not particularly known for diversity; the school’s about 70% white. It was exam time and as I walked through one of the the larger academic buildings I noticed that the groups of kids studying were extremely mixed. I found myself being reminded of the “United Colors of Benetton” style photos colleges used to take where they would artificially gather one kid of every ethnic type for a shot they’d put on the admissions brochure. Except in this case it was totally natural. Not every group was mixed but most were and there didn’t seem to be any large groups that were not. This is something I’ve noticed on other trips to this school while walking around campus or in the dining hall.
I’ve also been at much more racially diverse schools where I question whether the kids benefit from the school’s diversity because they seem to cluster in homogeneous groups. What good is it to attend a school with people very different from you if you don’t interact with them in a more than superficial way?
I don’t think you are going to be able to see economic diversity just by visiting. You’ll see cars parked in the lots but won’t know who they belong to. My daughter (Pell grant kid) had a really cool VW bug at school last semester because my brother loaned it to her. Even schools with a lot of Pell grant kids have very wealthy kids too
Economic diversity will be highest at your state school and schools that meet need.
Any word on the ACT score? I’ve been traveling and haven’t been keeping up.
@Emsmom1 No ACT score yet. It’s maddening. I’m not sure if they will release a batch tomorrow and Friday or not? I don’t know if they have downtime between Christmas and New Year?
I know other people received their scores on the 19th. The official word on the ACT website is that it can take up to eight weeks. However, must people receive them in the first batch.
We don’t know anyone that tested at her testing center on that day. So we don’t know if any of those people received their scores or not. I just logged into the website and it still says Registered. It changes to Tested when it’s been scored. Then you know it will be released very shortly. But those two things can happen hours apart or minutes apart.
The first time she took it her score was released 10 days after she tested.
@intparent That makes sense that you would find the highest economic diversity at schools that meet need. I wonder if the statement rings true for all state schools or if that varies by state? I find our state school to be absolutely unaffordable and the merit aid very stingy. Unless you score a 34 on the ACT. If you score a 34 on the ACT you’re going to still do better financially at a private LAC.
Although, across the state line they have done a fabulous job. For residents of Missouri They will cover full tuition for Pell Grant eligible students. Then for students who are accepted into the Honors college and are Pell eligible they cover all of their financial need, including room and board.
That’s for any Pell eligible student not just students that receive the full Pell amount. So, that reaches middle class families as well.
Kudus to Mizzou.
I’ve said before I don’t find anything wrong with state school. We have several really good state schools in our area. I’ll just say it’s not for every student. It wouldn’t be an atmosphere where my daughter would flourish. But if everything was covered at our state school, that’s where she would attend.
I would love to see more state schools take that approach.
I live in a state that doesn’t value education and has consistently cut funding to education year after year. Two years ago we weren’t sure at the end of the summer if school was going to start in the fall. There was an issue with block grant funding that was found unconstitutional and had to be settled by Kansas Supreme Court. Our district was a district that was directly impacted and didn’t have the money to operate beyond June 30th 2015. So, between my D’s Sophomore and Junior year, we didn’t know what the fall would bring.
I’ll try not to rant politically. And will continue to give kudos to the educators themselves. My children have been blessed to have the most amazing educators from Kindergarten on.
State schools used to be more generous and affordable. There has been a steady decrease in support by state legislatures for quite a while now. Often discussed and lamented out here.
@Grinnellhopeful I urge you not to listen to the naysayers about Rollins College. I am an alum. I went on a partial scholarship as my parents were not wealthy. I was involved in Student Government, Omicron Delta Kappa, and the Rollins Outdoor club in addition to Greek life. The average SAT scores seem similar to St Olaf after a google search (I had not heard of St Olaf). It is plenty academic in nature. I went on to receive a Master’s degree from UNC Chapel Hill. A friend of mine went on to a PHD at Duke and is now a professor at UNC. Other friends are successful small business owners and attorneys. And very few of my friends were from Florida. Many were from the NE, California, even Alaska. A lot were international. The one thing you won’t find at Rollins is snow.
And for those that don’t know, Omicron Delta Kappa is a National Leadership Honor Society, not a fraternity/sorority.
Some schools that meet need do not have much economic diversity due to admitting few Pell students. E.g. Yale has better FA than USC (though both claim to meet need), but Yale has a smaller percentage of Pell students.
State schools vary in affordability for their in state students. While some states like CA do relatively well here, others like IL and PA do poorly. Looks like you noticed the difference between MO as KS.
@chb088 I don’t remember anybody mentioning anybody bringing up Rollins? It’s possible it slipped my mind. But I honestly don’t know anything about it.
To everyone else, my D and I just called ACT (They are there today, yay!). ACT confirmed they received her test, and that In was “in process” which means being scored or has been scored and due for release, unable to tell us which. But verified much to our relief that that are not any issues with her test. We were both a little concerned about that because it looks like there were some issues with October test? I know a bunch of people’s scores were not released, or there were issues with the version of the test or something?
I don’t know how long it takes to actually score it since it’s a Scantron, but hopefully that means we will get the results tomorrow or Friday, not in February.
@Grinnellhopeful I brought it up in response to your question. Two posters responded with very negative responses to it as a LAC choice for your child. They obviously don’t know much about it, so I thought I should add information. If you haven’t yet, your child might want to take a look based on my information.
@chb088 I will have her look at it. Today I’m beginning to fret about the financial packages that we’ve been offered to even though I know that I don’t have the full picture yet.
And I apologize that I missed it when you mentioned it the first time.
@Grinnellhopeful - It’s quite possible that the reason that it’s taking longer is because of the extended time. I believe you mentioned that nobody took the test at the testing center as she – did she take it on the same day as everybody else?
@LoveTheBard No other people took the test at the same testing center she did. She just didn’t know anyone. Although this afternoon she did find someone that tested there and they received their scores last Friday. So, her scores were sent with everyone else’s the tested the same day at a national testing center, and she tested on the same day as everyone else. I actually stayed up till midnight to see if her status had changed, it has not. So, it won’t be today (Wednesday). I guess I had hoped since it was showing as in process, that the score might actually be out today. I mean it’s a scantron test…sigh…so frustrating.
It’s a very simple accommodation. She didn’t even use the full extended time she used about 40 minutes. We know they have it, we know it’s being processed, let’s just hope it doesn’t take until Feb to finish scoring it.
Maybe it will be in Friday’s batch?
Even though California is generous to needy college students, they year my kids started there, 2014, they started public schools two week late because they didn’t have enough money. All EC’s are paid for by the parents. It cost $850 EACH for my kids to play lacrosse. No school buses to their high school unless you lived on the military base.
No state is perfect.
chb088,
No one was insulting Rollins. It’s has a beautiful campus, and I know people who have graduated from there. The school has a fine reputation in FL and the southeast. However, the school did not fit the OP’s preferences, which was for her daughter to stay in the midwest, closer to KS. The OP’s daughter needs full need to be met, and even if a school does so, it will probably not cover travel expenses (during breaks, returning to school in the fall). To paraphrase Dorothy, “Orlando is a long way from KS.”
Rollins does do an impressive job enrolling lower income and lower-middle class students (30% come from the lower 60% of family incomes), but a whopping 15% come from the top 1% (Colorado College and Washington U. lead the pack with 22% and 24% from the top 1%). Fair or not, the common perception of Rollins is that it is an excellent school but also a place to party (probably a given here in FL). The OP’s daughter is also interested (if I remember correctly) in a more progressive environment, not necessarily wildly progressive, but not the even mix that is Rollins (where a fair number of students and those in administration/faculty are conservative).
None of this meets the OP’s desires, which is why when another poster mentioned Rollins, a few of us said that it didn’t sound like a match. Nobody insulted Rollins. Again, Rollins is a fine school, but call me crazy but I think we should be making suggestions that match the OP’s preferences. If not, we could be shouting out schools until our lungs expire.