Marquis Fellowship

Colleges and Universities A-Z Lafayette College
101

<p>I don’t personally feel any injustice on behalf of my son (or his 1500 CR/M score, etc.), just disappointment, because without a Marquis scholarship, the school will, in all likelihood, be beyond our budget. </p>

<p>Lafayette is one of those schools that “meets need” by offering loans in addition to grants, which frees up money that allows them to award targeted merit dollars to students it might lose to its competitors. I still don’t even know if my son will be accepted, but it’s not that hard to imagine that had he applied to Lafayette from an underrepresented state with exactly the same stats, he might have not only been admitted, he might have gotten a scholarship too. </p>

<p>These awards are driven by institutional needs, the primary ones being raising the school’s profile and rankings. Lafayette’s 75th percentile for CR/M scores is 1390–that’s 130 points below Haverford’s (where Lafayette’s last president now presides) and 90 points below Middlebury’s, where Lafayette’s new president was recruited from. These high-prestige, large-dollar Marquis awards are designed to both raise the student body’s stats and to attract students who would have chosen more elite schools over Lafayette (schools like Haverford, Middlebury and Colgate) or chosen one of Lafayette’s wealthier and higher-ranked direct-competitors (like Bucknell and Lehigh).</p>

<p>But they also keep Lafayette firmly entrenched in a category of schools seen by colleges “above” them as having to “buy” their best students. And they also result in a lot of hurt feelings among students who weren’t selected and believe (rightly or not) they were just as “deserving.” </p>

<p>It’s a difficult balancing act, but as Taylor demonstrates quite vividly, it’s clearly working for Lafayette in the long run. Whether it works for the rest of us, whose kids didn’t receive a scholarship, is something we have to decide as we sit down and weigh our various options. </p>

<p>But, let’s not kid ourselves: These awards are BUSINESS DECISIONS, nothing more, nothing less.</p>

<p><a href=“W”>quote</a>hen Lafayette really wants to land a student, it has one especially powerful tool: money.</p>

<p>Of course, they’re a bit more classy about it than that. They don’t just call it money. They call it a merit scholarship.</p>

<p>“Families think their sons and daughters are awarded a merit scholarship because of the fact that they are wonderfully smart and talented,” says Robert Massa, a vice president at Lafayette. “[T]he primary reason for awarding a non-need-based merit scholarship is to change a student’s enrollment decision from another institution to our institution. That’s why colleges do it.”

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<p><a href=“How Colleges Fight For Top Students : Planet Money : NPR”>How Colleges Fight For Top Students : Planet Money : NPR;

<p>Lafayette’s “institutional model” (as estimated by their Net Price Calculator) determined that we can afford to pay $43,000 a year for our son to attend the school. Other schools (the higher-ranked ones that only award need-based aid) have deemed our ability to pay to be ~$27,000 a year–which just so happens to line up with what WE actually believe we can afford. Hence, our need for the Marquis Scholarship, which we thought our son would be competitive for, since his stats were well above the 75th percentile. We wouldn’t even have allowed him to apply if we didn’t believe he had a decent shot at one. </p>

<p>We bet wrong. But nobody forced us to apply either. </p>

102

<p>Thanks to @captainclueless on his quick and informative responses to questions on the thread. I applaud Lafayette for having the Marquis Scholars program and offering scholarships to the top 15% of admitted students. As Taylor mentioned above, it looks like this year’s applicants are a much larger and stronger pool than in past years. What I have learned in my limited experience with college admissions (2 times through with lots of help from CC!) is that the best strategy is to cast a wide net and if merit scholarships are key to attendance, then applying to schools where the student is clearly in the top 25% is key. Even with this in mind, each school is trying to craft their class with unique people. It could be that the “brand” that a particular student represents is very similar to a few others and the school has to make a hard choice. I know this is a tough reality. In the end, I think our kids will end up in great places. It is what they do once they get there that really counts. Good luck to all as they await final decisions.</p>

103

<p>Interesting link you shared, LucieTheLakie. Is there anywhere I can look up for up-to-date articles about Lafayette? And I heard there’s a Facebook group for the Class of 2018 too, right?</p>

<p>Can anyone enlighten me? :(</p>

104

<p>Yes there is a very active class of 18 page! I have a team of 12 ambassadors on it, and every 18er on the page has their own admissions ambassador if they want one!</p>

<p>Also, I encourage you to check out the Lafayette College Prospectives fb page. The ambassadors post new content everyday and answer questions sent to our inbox :)</p>

105

<p>@luciethelakie. Wow could not have said it any better. Lafayette is driving away some of there most competitive students</p>

106

<p>Thanks LucietheLakie for your straightforward and very accurate summary of how merit awards work. Tulane has been doing the same thing through their full-tuition Paul Tulane and Dean scholarships and other generous scholarships, which are largely awarded based on test scores. Not knocking this AT ALL, but it is disappointing when your kid is safely in the 25% of accepted students plus has the usual other outstanding personal qualities that we parents think sets them apart. </p>

<p>I’d like to also add that with Lafayette, and maybe other colleges (all?) I believe that the earlier you get the app and all FA aid docs in, the better. We were only able to visit Lafayette in Dec and also were at the deadline with CSS and IDOC, for reasons outside of our control. We received many emails from Lafayette saying that “lafayette may withhold your admission decision” based on the timing of our FA documentation. My son also happened to be outside of the US with no internet access, and even though he requested emails be sent directly to us, that did not happen. </p>

<p>Despite Lafayette coming late on our radar, it became a top choice, but without aid it will be a no go. Lessons learned for us going through this with DS1 so with the next one we will do it differently. Not too disappointed at this point</p>

107

<p>Because everything happens for a reason so it wasn’t meant to be. DS will thrive at one of his other great schools. :)</p>

108

<p>@lola827 , you stated: “Wow could not have said it any better. Lafayette is driving away some of there most competitive students.” </p>

<p>I think based on the stats Taylor shared above, it sounds like Lafayette is attracting their most competitive students from an application point of view. Adding the Fellowship piece this year sounds like a great marketing strategy imho.</p>

109

<p>Don’t beat yourself up too much, @raincat. Lafayette was always ranked no. 1 or no. 2, for our son, and we visited early and often and met every deadline EARLY. Didn’t matter in the end with regard to the Marquis. </p>

<p>We did receive a LOT of communication encouraging him to apply EDII, but that would have been biting off more than we could chew financially without a guarantee of the scholarship. Maybe the adcoms thought we were bluffing when we told them we couldn’t afford the school with out some merit money, or maye he’ll be accepted with enough FA that it’s still affordable, but if their own net price calculator says differently, I have to think that’s not very likely. Fortunately, he has some other outstanding choices as of now. </p>

<p>Best of luck to you and your son!</p>

110

<p>Sorry, @lola827, but how exactly is Lafayette “driving away” some of its most competitive students? By not offering them all Marquis scholarships and fellowships? I’d think it’s pretty clear that’s not an option.</p>

<p>Alabama is doing the same thing - throwing money at high stat’s candidates to entice them to attend Alabama. They have deep pockets (look at the charts [url=&lt;a href=“http://grapevine.illinoisstate.edu/]here[/url”&gt;http://grapevine.illinoisstate.edu/]here[/url</a>] of state per capita spending on high education), so they can afford to guarantee their awards for all students with scores/GPA’s above a certain cutoff. But those aren’t the only awards available. A handful of the students accepted into one highly selective honors program are offered an additional scholarship as well . . . but only a handful. If not getting that scholarship makes attending Alabama unaffordable, then you go somewhere else.</p>

<p>The same is true at Lafayette - for some students, it’s simply not going to be affordable without the Marquis scholarship or fellowship. So you hope for the best . . . and have other options waiting in the wings in the event it doesn’t work out.</p>

111

<p>^^^Exactly.</p>

112

<p>@dodgersmom of course you have other options, but if you go back and read the stats of those who did not receive anything, you can see they are very bright kids. That being said, each parent stated that their kid could not attend Lafayette without some merit or grant. </p>

113

<p>Need-based grant awards haven’t been made yet, though, @lola827. Don’t assume the worst yet. (Although I’m prepared for more disappointing news!)</p>

114

<p>@luciethelakie Im not assuming the worst, I’m pretty sure we are not considered need based but you never know. It will be interesting to see since.</p>

115

<p>We won’t get need based either. BTW did anyone see the nyt op ed piece on how the EFC calculation should be changed? </p>

116

<p>We were surprised that the kid received no merit aid from Lafayette. The kid has test scores well above 75th percentile, extremely rigorous courseload, hundreds of service hours, visited campus multiple times, had a great time, interviewed on campus. </p>

<p>We were attracted to Lafayette by its commitment to teaching, bringing in more faculty and raising its academic profile. With merit aid, it would have been the kid’s clear first choice. As it is, the kid has excellent options at other schools. </p>

117

<p>We are still waiting to hear from Lafayette. I guess we will know by the end of the week. Waiting for merit aid. We are in the same boat. Kid loved the college, but needs merit aid to attend!</p>

118

<p>The letters are being mailed tomorrow at 9:45 AM (see my post in the regular decision thread!) </p>

<p>Unfortunately, all acceptances including merit aid (the Marquis Scholarship and Fellowship) have already been sent, but I wish you the best of luck on the admission decision!</p>

<p>Taylor</p>