Merit Aid Stats

Colleges and Universities A-Z Rhodes College
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<p>I was wondering if anyone who was currently attending Rhodes or has a S or D attending, could post some information on the kinds of stats people with substantial scholarships/fellowships have and an approximation of how much they received. </p>

<p>SAT, GPA, brief ECs, Rank, etc, would be very helpful. </p>

<p>If anyone has any intimate knowledge about the Bellingrath, Morse, or Cambridge Fellowships I would love to contact you and get some more information.. the website is incredibly vague. Thanks</p>

2

<p>PM Curmudgeon. His D has the top scholarship.</p>

3

<p>Gee...uhhh...I think I know what you are asking but before I try to answer we need to separate fact from fiction. Stats alone will not get you any of those three. Lesser amounts, I think stats alone may do the trick. </p>

<p>The Cambridge and Morse are probably more stats driven than the Bellingrath IMO, but this is not Case Western or UMiami where you can (maybe) ferret that data out. Some data points we have experienced on CC suggest that a 34 ACT kid can get a lesser award than a 32 ACT kid, even with comparable "hard" stats and rank. Why? Soft factors, and ....well, simply because they can. It's their $. </p>

<p>The Bellingrath? Different kettle of fish altogether IMO. While requiring HYP stats, HYP stats won't even guarantee a spot at the finalist table. Literally. </p>

<p>This may be illustrative. Read it all the way through 'cuz this isn't braggin' (Well, I guess it is but it's braggin' for a higher purpose ;)). Wait till you get to the punch-line. </p>

<p>A (female) Texas kid I know had a 35 ACT with a 36 Math (not many of those, especially female), only Valedictorian of her High School with highest GPA in school memory, State Qualified Solo and Ensemble, 2 (maybe 3) year Section Leader in State-ranked Marching Band, President of Honor Society , 4 year starting post and co-captain on a State Championship Basketball Team, big volunteer hours and projects, unique profile (raised goats for part-time job), blah-blah, blah. One CC'er called her "Ellie Mae Jabbar". She was admitted to Yale and Amherst and had zero rejects. She received the top generally available merit awards at UMiami, Case, Hamilton, and Scripps - and was an AMS Scholar at Colgate.</p>

<p>**This kid did NOT make the first cut for finalists for the Bellingrath,<a href="Ya%20never%20know.">/b</a> .......but she did get a call and made the most of it. She will tell you point-blank - the kids assembled there were the finest students and among the finest folk she has ever been around. Anywhere. </p>

<p>She made fast friends who are friends to this day. Several decided that week-end , even without the top award, that they were Rhodes-bound. Some of them had HYPSD admits. </p>

<p>I'd say that to get in the ballpark (not get one, just to get in the game) of a Morse or Cambridge award a student would need at least a top 10% rank (or a slightly lower rank at a great high school) , great rec's, good to great ec's, and a 1400+/1600 MV SAT or a 31+ACT (maybe a 32), while taking a courseload their GC said was "tough". </p>

<p>Remember, Rhodes has generous awards below these three. Their merit program is both deep and wide. To quote my D, "the top 20% of Rhodes kids are as smart as any school's smartest kids, anywhere". And to my knowledge, she's a pretty good judge of things like that. </p>

<p>Maybe that was some help. Good luck.</p>

<p>Edit: Rhodes loves community service oriented kids. Just loves them. Not kids who grub some hours, but kids who care about things and show it.</p>

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<p>She will tell you point-blank - the kids assembled there were the finest students and among the finest folk she has ever been around. Anywhere.</p>

<p>She felt humbled and honored to even be allowed to attend the weekend with such a group.</p>

5

<p>AWESOME. Thank you. That's what I was looking for. It did raise some questions though. Do all scholarship nominees/finalists get a phone call? Did notification of nominee/finalist status come in the mail with the acceptance letter? Were there any interviews, other than the original admission interview, for scholarship purposes?</p>

<p>Curmudgeon- you've scared me by saying "she got the call" haha. Is it possible to construct a timeline of events for the scholarship process?</p>

6

<p>It may have changed but search my name around March or April 2006. My memory is fading VERY fast. I'll give it a shot, too. </p>

<p>What I remember is her getting a call because it was just a week (or thereabouts) before the Bellingrath weekend. They had to book her a plane flight etc. I remember it was LATE. Like when Yale was announcing RD acceptances or more likely right before. Maybe she was accepted between invite and the weekend? (Yale and Rhodes were the last two standing.)</p>

<p>Maybe call your admissions rep and see what the story is this year?</p>

<p>My D did interview but I don't think there was a separate interview for scholarships. In fact I'm almost completely certain there wasn't. But again, I suffer from the dreaded memory disease known as C.R.S.. ;)</p>

<p>With my affliction I have a near perfect shot of getting this wrong but maybe the scholarships come out about now-ish (D got about $21,500- $24,500 I think? Barely doable for us, but she wanted to go anyway.) , then maybe a week or so passes the first batch of Belly finalists are called, then if there are some who have committed elsewhere and graciously gave up their weekends (I think I remember they lost 2), then that's when the next batch down gets a call and it was pretty rushed. </p>

<p>I'm confident I screwed this up , maybe someone with a better memory will help? Pretty please? I'm dying here.</p>

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<p>Here's a thread when I knew a little something, and another Belly dad chimed in, too. <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/230427-hi-curmudgeon-about-rhodes.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/230427-hi-curmudgeon-about-rhodes.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Uno mas. <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/rhodes-college/107953-hello.html?highlight=Bellingrath#post1882780%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/rhodes-college/107953-hello.html?highlight=Bellingrath#post1882780&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

9

<p>and this.
[quote]
Another point that I made about checking past recipients and the Common Data Set.</p>

<p>Rhodes lists at least 23 academic scholarships to be awarded each year of $21K or more with a COA of @ $37K. . We needed about $21K. So, the entering class is over 460 kids so she needed to be in the top 5% of enrolling kids.</p>

<p>2005 Bellingrath Finalists (Top Scholarship) , the 21 kids had a 1511 average SAT according to the Rhodes website. (these were NOT enrolled kids, just best scholarship applicants.) D was over that. 17.5% of enrolled had an ACT Math between 30-36. 20% had an SAT above 700 V, and 17.4 had Math above 700. D had all of those +. In our minds that meant she was a merit match for an award of $21K or above and for the two highest awards she at least had a fair shot. The Morse at $28,500 is just academics and the Bellingrath is all encompassing with a big service element. That's the basic analysis we did at every merit school. We went on to look for places where she could bring geo diversity , gender diversity, rural diversity.</p>

<p>Folks, best as I can tell - this is the start of the leg work you have to do. Of course it all starts with "the kid wants to go there". At least it did at my house. I just drove the bus.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>It appears from the thread above and some other old posts that the initial Bellingrath letters went out sooner than I remembered but I know D did not get one of those. She got a call.</p>

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<p>rfwcphs1 -</p>

<p>The Bellingrath candidates are nominated in early February - We went to visit Rhodes last February (around the 15th or 16th of the month) and the Admissions Office told us that the Bellingrath candidates had already been notified. But as Curmudgeon stated, it is a long process as some of the nominees choose not to attend Rhodes so other students are selected from there. I would find it safe to say if you haven't heard anything by now about the Bellingrath, then chances are that your student wasn't nominated for the scholarship. I would recommend that you call the Admissions Office and speak to the woman who is in charge of the Bellingrath Committee - I spoke with her last year and she was the one who told me that my son was not selected.</p>

<p>But, the good news was that he did receive the Cambridge Scholarship ($24,000) - His stats are as follows:
Weighted GPA - 4.65
Unweighted GPA - 3.89
Rank - Top 4% (27 out of 680 students)
SATs - 1540
ACTs - 34
ECs and awards -National Merit Finalist, National Honor Society, Cum Laude Society, Illinois State Scholar, AP Scholar, numerous academic awards, Cross Country and Track, MVP Cross Country 3 years, athletic academic awards, some community and school volunteering (but not a whole lot) </p>

<p>He received notification of his scholarship award in the financial aid letter that was sent at the beginning of April - in fact, he received a very "healthy" financial aid package. But he decided not to attend Rhodes (He is a freshman at the University of Notre Dame). </p>

<p>I hope this info helps. Good luck to your student!</p>

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<p>My S got $22k in combination of scholarship and grant. Just enough to make it work for us, coincidentally. We were happy with the package.</p>

<p>ACT 34
Around a 3.4 GPA
Lots of leadership experience but not that strong in service experienc
Some ECs - fencing etc.
High school (boarding school) doesn't rank</p>

<p>We all love Rhodes. I agree with Curmudgeon's comments above - there are some great kids at Rhodes and CCMom and I are glad it has worked out for our S. We'd do it again.</p>

12

<p>The great thing about Rhodes is that scholarships/fellowships appear to be based as much on numbers as on leadership, community service, and academic involvement. There are also many different types of scholarships/fellowships that are available that can further increase one's chances of receiving merit aid at Rhodes. From all the information I gathered when researching colleges, it does seem to hold true that for a school of its calibar, Rhodes is most generous with merit aid in order to attract an academically astute student body. In addition, there are great scholarship opportunities even during your time as an undergrad--its possible to get funding for research projects as well as for study abroad experiences.</p>

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<p>do international students get generous aid aswell ?</p>

14

<p>Hey I just wanted to update this as I think they may have changed the process a little bit. I was notified I was receiving a Cambridge Scholarship back in February (applied Early Action which I think is a huge factor in merit aid for Rhodes) and thought that that was all I would receive. It turns out that I had been nominated for the Bellingrath but wasn’t told until I received it the first week of April. I talked to the President and my admissions councilor, and both said I was the top candidate and first decision they made (and that decisions weren’t made until April 3rd). I did miss the scholarship weekend though, so maybe they would’ve told me then that I had been nominated. I have very high stats (2300 SAT, 35 ACT, 2390 SATII, 14 APs with 4s and 5s) and played two varsity sports along with several leadership positions in political and community service clubs, but I think a big factor was my commitment to community service and the fact that I took a year off to work as a missionary in Peru. So I agree with curmudgeon that the lower scholarships may be stat based but the higher ones take a broader look.</p>

<p>P.S. I applied before my gap year as well and received much less merit aid, but I also applied regular decision…</p>

15

<p>Wow. The Bellingrath selection process seems to have changed a bunch. Used to be just finalists (about 20 iirc) came to the weekend, there were a series of interviews and a panel discussion-y thing, attendance was mandatory to be considered, and they let you know soon after.</p>

16

<p>FYI, on the Rhodes Bellingrath website, there’s no mention of an interview process. Did your D mention if there was one this year or not, cur?</p>

<p>FWIW, I’ve noticed the same thing with the top scholarship at my much less selective university–lots of amazing kids with sky high stats and lots of accomplishments don’t even make the interview cut. It puzzles me every time I hear it because I would have thought many of these kids would have been shoo-ins for the scholarship, much less the interview cut.</p>

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<p>I dunno. I think the scholarship weekend was changed this year but I had no idea it was changed this much.</p>