<p>My DD goes to a very rigorous high school noted for its significant grade deflation. I'm very proud of her for what she has accomplished there, because she's worked very hard - but her GPA is nothing to brag about. So when I looked on the websites of the colleges where she's applying at their criteria for automatic merit scholarships, I concluded that she wouldn't qualify for any; her ACT is in the range for consideration, but her GPA is well below what the websites say is necessary. We'll qualify for some need-based aid, but I frankly doubted that any of the privates would be affordable, since none meet need. (Fortunately, we have a good financial safety public where she's been admitted and would be happy to go.)</p>
<p>So imagine our (very pleasant) surprise when the two privates to which she's been accepted so far both came through with what I would consider substantial "merit" awards - $13,000 at one (COA ~$39K) and $14,000 at the other (COA ~$48K).</p>
<p>But that leads me to believe that perhaps the conventional wisdom about sticker prices being just that and that "nobody pays sticker price" is accurate.</p>
<p>My D1 (college senior) goes to a private where she gets 15K a year in merit aid (no need based aid, although she did have work study one year). Most of her friends do not have any merit scholarships, and many of them also do not get need based aid (I have asked her). Her GPA and test scores were also slightly below the ranges for the awards she got, but she had super strong ECs and knocked her interview out of the park. So while lots of students don’t pay full freight due to merit and/or need based aid, there are also a lot that do not. Be proud of your D, it is great that she got these offers!</p>
<p>She also got into some higher ranked colleges that did not offer any merit aid (and no need-based aid). So we would have been full pay (and she seriously considered some of those schools). Full pay students are definitely out there.</p>
<p>Congrats! It’s nice she was given these offers and perhaps there are things in her app that make her very desirable to those Us. Would definitely check out the requirements for KEEPING the merit awards, if they are renewable & how many students keep the awards for all 4 years vs. those who lose it due to academic or other issues.</p>
<p>Would definitely NOT say that “nobody pays sticker price,” as very few schools could stay in business on such a business model. Perhaps they do award a good # of merit awards on students they would like to attract and for whom they believe some merit award will be the tip that gets them to enroll–all about yield.</p>
<p>At many or most schools, at least in the top 250 or so, the so-called sticker price has very, very little relationship to the college’s actual costs, and everything to do with competitive pricing. So there is a little dance that goes on: the college wants to accept the “best possible” students (however they define - for at least some, “wealthiest” qualifies) and in doing so maximize income. So the the trick is to set the cost for each student at precisely that level where the student would still be likely to attend. The student/family, in contrast, wants to attend the “best possible” school (however defined - could be where dad went), and minimize the cost. If the sticker price is set high, there’s a lot of room on the dance floor, and some students/families won’t balk at the top price. There’s not much to be said for an “everyday low price” for everyone, though one might lower the sticker price if having difficulty attracting the students you want, or raise the price (and then offer more scholarships) if you want to look more prestigious. </p>
<p>College admissions staff attend training seminars where they learn game theory, tricks of preferential pricing, etc. They are professional at what they do, and they’ve all thought it through.</p>
<p>I have heard from several sources (including a college consultant) that charging high tuition rates and offsetting that with a generous scholarship program is generally in a college’s better interest than charging lower tuition rates across the board. Enrollment management and psychological effects (high prices must mean a better product, a merit scholarship must mean that the college <em>really</em> wants me) aside, it’s also supposed to automatically raise their US News rank because of how the ranking’s “financial resources” bookkeeping works (higher sticker prices = more formal income, more scholarships = generous financial aid). </p>
<p>I remember being very amused when one college offered me a $15K leadership award even though I did not have a single leadership position on my resume.</p>
<p>That being said, even the most expensive private colleges have their fair share of full-paying students. Congratulations to your D!</p>
<p>Maybe these schools are aware of the relative equivalence of a gpa from a more challenging school. Still raises the question of “is the COA worth it”. What schools are you talking about?</p>
<p>Speaking of relationship between tuition and perceived prestige:</p>
<p>Does anyone remember the name of the public business school that raised their tuition significantly and received three times as many applications the following year?</p>
<p>But how would the college even be able to estimate what price we would “balk at” at this point? DD did indicate that she would be applying for financial aid - but these are FAFSA-only schools, so we haven’t submitted any financial information yet?</p>
<p>Nice to hear its possible to get the merit aid when your d’s grades werent exceptional. My d’s school also is difficult and the teachers are very stingy with the As, including classes like theatre, gym and health! Not kidding. The school is great, and has a great reputation with colleges, but I still worry that they do not want to accept kids with lower GPAs because it would hurt their stats. (I’m talking As and Bs here, not terrible grades). We need merit aid, too, btw.</p>
<p>So they’ve run it through their computers (or their heads), and figured out that if you were, theoretically, without need (and they do know your zip code, but that’s another matter), this is about the size of incentive needed to get your kid to, at least in theory, attend. Notice how close the amount of the “merit” awards are to each other - could be coincidence…or they could have attended the same seminar. </p>
<p>“Does anyone remember the name of the public business school that raised their tuition significantly and received three times as many applications the following year?”</p>
<p>Wasn’t three times, but it is the University of Richmond.</p>
<p>My DD’s school is also well-regarded among colleges that know of it, so I was less surprised at one of the merit awards that came from a school that gets a lot of applicants from her school every year; but the other school is one where few kids have applied, and the admissions counselor we talked to when we were there last summer knew nothing about her HS.</p>
I like to think of it in terms of the “net worth” that an applicant has for the institution. High-achieving students create good publicity for the college, so it’s worthwhile to let them attend at a steep discount if that lures them away from competitors. Under-achieving students can be tolerated if they subsidize the other students. </p>
<p>The college can decide how much money your D would have to contribute to make it worthwhile for the college to have her. And while they do not know your personal financial situation, they probably know from experience what percentage of applicants will accept their offers.</p>
<p>Varying levels of grade inflation or lack thereof make it not completely obvious which GPA threshold is more easily kept. See [url=<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com%5DNational”>http://www.gradeinflation.com]National</a> Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities<a href=“list%20of%20schools%20at%20the%20bottom”>/url</a>.</p>
Thanks. I am pretty sure that something tripled in the story - but it might have been tuition, not applicants. Anyway, I’ll try to dig up the old story.</p>
<p>I think some schools want the higher test scores and are willing to give a good merit scholarship even if the GPA doesn’t meet their stated guidelines. With so many kids with high GPAs these days, an occasional student with a lower GPA isn’t going to hurt them. and, the benefit of the better test scores is worth it to them.</p>
<p>Those middle quartiles are what many people look at. </p>
<p>Congratulations to your daughter on her scholarships! It is always nice to receive merit awards in this economy. You can always check out the college’s Common Data Set which will show the number of merit as well as need awards for the most recent class. The CDS also will give you the average award amount.
I believe merit awards have been harder to come by in recent years. I was thrilled when my DS (now a college sophomore) received his merit awards a couple years ago. It puts your student in the enviable position of choosing a strong undergraduate program and graduating with little or no debt or possibly keeping some powder dry for graduate school.
Good Luck to you and your daughter!</p>
<p>Congratulations to your D on her scholarships. </p>
<p>When D1 was applying to colleges last year, her HS posted the acceptance letters of students on a wall outside of the GC offices. Some of the letters had merit scholarships noted in the acceptance letters. The actual amounts were crossed out, but I could not help but notice how many students with less than stellar class ranks and ECs were getting “merit scholarships”. The schools that were giving the merit scholarships to the less qualified applicants were not top tier, by any stretch of the imagination, and most likely were not worth the $50K sticker price.</p>
<p>The larger nerit awards were also from out of state schools.I believe that they gave the scholarships to entice students who may not considering attending to attend. For example, my D did receive a substantial scholarship from Drexel. 2 other kids in her class also received scholarships, but to a much lesser extent (their required GPA for maintaining the scholarship was much less than D’s). None of the kids attended Drexel.</p>
<p>we are finding this year that a high UW gpa and average SATs is leading to merit awards that were not expected. Thought that not applying for FA might be the reason, but OP is seeing the same having applied for FA.</p>
<p>11k/yr from UVM, 10k from Fairfield, 13k from Emmanual</p>
<p>Congratulations on your daughter’s merit awards! I suspect her class rank probably made up for the low GPA (relative to the grade inflation at most high schools) and that these colleges looked at your daughter’s classes and grades in comparison with other students at her school. At the opposite end of the spectrum, last year my children’s high school had about 30 valedictorians (10% of class) because it gives that honor to anyone with a weighted GPA above 4.0 (weighted for AP classes only, not honors classes). I am aware of other schools that do this too and suspect this is why so many good (but not great colleges) can talk about rejecting so many valedictorians.</p>