<p>i got 12,000 merit scholarship a year and admission into the honors college, i didn't apply for financial aid so this really has nothing to do with how much you can pay</p>
<p>batgirl3141 I think your #1 rank should entitle you to more than a 50% scholarship especially since you are willing/ or want to... be segregated from the general school population in the honors program when you attend. My daughter was accepted into honors but felt it an elitist compromise, that she would consider dealing with, in exchange for a fair financial pkg. For the same or less money, she'd rather go to a school where the majority of kids are on her level & would challenge her. Much of your college education will come from fellow students & networking, so the more exposure the better. As you will also learn when in college, economics determine human behavior. Like any other entity, institutions who truly wish to better themselves have to devote their resources towards talent. If the other #1 ranked person I addressed my original comment to on this board, chooses not to attend UDel for financial reasons, it will be a true loss for UDel. There's only one of him/you per school. You're irreplaceable. His spot will be filled by someone off the waiting list ranked hundreds of people lower and YOUR academic experience & YOUR school's reputation will be diminished- & that's just one case of hundreds. I do gather from the tone of your post that you will adjust easily to the segregation issue. Good luck with that.</p>
<p>just a N of one sample from last year, friend of D had SAT 1400 Intel semi, got 5k from UDEl last year. I would say it also depends on your choice of major as to how much you receive or if you receive any. kid was Chem E major. Waitlisted @ Bing, accepted Geneseo, accepted Cornell. This kids room mate had a 1500 and got nothing. So no rhyme or reason.</p>
<p>batgirl3141 I thought you were going to BC?</p>
<p>Soparanodad - I saw that Batgirl post yesterday "You bet! I dont know if I'll go even if I get in as Im in at BC early action and I prefer a well rounded college town to be honest" Yesterday, 09:16 PM, "Notre Dame 2013 EA Deferred" board...I'm starting to wonder if I'm talking to a "#1 ranked" college applicant or Paulie Walnuts.</p>
<p>Merit seems all over the place for Delaware, even those with very similar stats.</p>
<p>3 top students with all different merit offers. aoconnor has lesser stats than my son and he/she got a little merit and we got none. Wish merit was listed for every school with a stats graph and we'd know what to expect. </p>
<p>To those top posters who did not get much merit aid, good luck elsewhere. I hope another school sees the merit of having your child and rewards them accordingly. We go some great merit form other schools, so I hope you did too.</p>
<p>To batgirl- We parents are paying for our children's education and have every right to expect merit aid when it is awarded to others. Your attitude reminds me of our horrible tour guide at Delaware who spent the entire tour talking about herself, her "honors" and how she was going to be the most wanted teacher around because she went to Delaware. She made a fool of herself in front of all the families on the tour. The last half hour of the tour was spent with us making some great jokes out of her earshot!!! ........and humble... my older son was also valedictorian, great stats, 13 AP's plus a college course. He never told anyone. He is what humble is all about. He is the most gifted, brilliant person I've ever encountered. Fortunately he understands economics and passed up the $46-50K Berkeley for a full tuition scholarship at another private school. His choice. Good luck to you, but please, for all our sakes and our childrens, loose the attitude.</p>
<p>It is understandable if you feel your child was slighted in the awarding of merit $$$$ but just because your child stats is similar to another who was awarded more $$$$ -- you don't know what else that student had on their application nor do you know what UDEL is looking for this year. </p>
<p>Yes, it is unfair but UDEL doesn't have a set guideline like some schools do. Eg. if you are a NMF -- you get a full ride or if you score a 34 on ACT -- you get full tuition. Ultimately it is UDEL who decides who gets what and there doesn't seem to be a coherent set of stats that will guarantee a certain level of $$$$. </p>
<p>I see this happening on the Pitt discussion board. What would have guaranteed a full tuition last year or the previous year -- students are getting nothing or very little. As a parent, I am thankful that my child had a choice of schools who gave him scholarships but we never expected anything from the schools he applied to. He also realized that he wouldn't be attending an out-of-state school unless the cost was equal to the tuition for our state flagship. We fully expected to pay full freight for his 4 years (in-state) and saved accordingly.</p>
<p>amen crazed!!!</p>
<p>BatGirl,
Why are your stats listed under Boston College as 1250/1600 ,1940/2400 with a GPA of 3.5???? Are you perhaps a troll???</p>
<p>3.5 GPA & #1 Rank & Binding contract Early Decision @ BU & plans to attend UDel honors at the same time. Wish they had High schools like that when i was a kid. Maybe I could have ranked higher than #1?</p>
<p>Thanks sopranodad.</p>
<p>My older son applied to Tulane, BU and Miami as safties as their sites and mailings stated the merit amt's based on GPA and SAT/ACT. No reason to pay full fair at a safety. (BU ended up offering no merit. Don't know why.) All are schools with good reputations. As a Long Islander, we knew the competition to top schools is steep. certainly learned a lot in applying. Learned different things this time around.</p>
<p>Sadly, there are those of us who will not spend upwards of $160-$200,000 for our child's undergraduate education and therefore, they can not attend, and there are other kids, with the same stats who get the great financial aid package with great grants and can go to the same school with little debt. What's not fair to the kids from lower income families is also not fair to the higher income families. Oh well. Just venting. (Sorry but our stocks went down again today!!!)</p>
<p>Would love to know where everyone ends up.</p>
<p>HAHAHAHAH batgirl = fraud....its sad when you need to lie on a message board to make yourself feel better</p>
<p>
[quote]
You would have every right to be insulted & I have trouble taking this school's commitment to academic excellence seriously.</p>
<p>. . . your #1 rank should entitle you to more than a 50% scholarship . . .
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Take to heart Don Corleone's words, you are taking this a little too personally. Colleges dole out the merit aid with an eye to getting the most bang for the buck and have to make hard decisions based on what appears to be no logical basis. There is a logic behind it and it is not personal (well, okay, it probably is for my neighbor's kid who is such a little creep that I'm sure all the adcomms have him figured out and are indulging in a little Schadenfreude when they issue his rejection letters).</p>
<p>Beyond that, it is important to look at the bottom line cost, not just the dollar amount or percentage of the merit aid. Sure, a comparable private school might have offered a lot more, either dollar amount or percentage, but would still be more expensive to attend than UD. That was my son's situation three years ago - UD offered a token amount + Honors program, the two privates offered 1/2 tuition scholarships but were still twice as expensive as UD. (He ended up at an OOS public.) My daughter is going through it now - her offers range from three full-rides to schools she would not otherwise have considered to modest scholarships at a good private and a good OOS public to . . . well, we're still waiting on the last three, expect she will be accepted but won't be offered much if anything. A little disappointed that the good private and good OOS public did not offer more? Yeah, but the OOS public is still in the running, and she dropped the private because she decided that its engineering program is not right for her. But we know that it is not personal, so there is no use getting our collective nose out of joint. And, except for the full-ride offers, UD will still be the best bargain even if it doesn't offer much (we are in-state and we don't know what UD has offered yet because my daughter cannot find her UD acceptance/Honors information so can't log in to see, a matter of some friction between us this evening).</p>
<p>And the business about HS valedictorians being "irreplaceable" is severely overstating things. There are many, many bright, talented, resourceful kids who were 5th, or 12th, or 37th, or, sometimes, "lower 50%" who blossom, mature, break on through to the other side after HS. The valedictorian does not always become the most successful, accomplished member of his/her class. Probably not even more often than not.</p>
<p>Remember the lessons of the Corleone family - Don Vito kept his cool and died an old man of natural causes (okay, so helped along a little by that unfortunate being gunned down at the fruit stand thing, but he survived) and Sonny went off half-cocked and suffered a severe penalty for not paying that toll.</p>
<p>It's not personal. It's business.</p>
<p>Good point, K9Leader. Do you know how many high schools there are in the US? And each one will have a valedictorian or even more than one. Harvard doesn't automatically accept everyone who is a valedictorian so why should UDEL or any school be expected to award major scholarship $$$$. UDEL is a state school and I would assume they don't have the reserves like Harvard.</p>
<p>Also: look at the room and board charges at some of these private schools and other charges. One school has a 1200 room set up fee on top of a 12000 room and board. Delaware realy is a bargain even for OOS and a great location. I know bargain is a relative term we all don't have bat girl money.</p>
<p>I agree with K9 leader as well. Last Year my S was offered much more percentage-wise at some private schools but in the end all of his offers made COA within a couple of grand of each other. He was able to choose which school he was going to attend based solely on program and comfort level without having to focus on cost differences.</p>
<p>MTnest - its sounds to me from your previous posts that Pitt was able to recruit your son with $. "Full scholarship from Pitt/Delaware vs. UVA (no $$$)" 04-01-2008, 07:02 PM on the UVA vs Pitt board. Hopefully that was a win for him & Pitt. Think you guys are missing the point. Udel has been promoting itself being on an uptrend re academic standards. Do you really think the best & the brightest well go there without incentive? Would your son have gone to Pitt otherwise? What is your estimate of the individual kids stat's off the waiting list who will replace the kid ranked #1 of 800? Nothing personal, but especially when B.S. is being shot at kids, including mine, who may be very bright- but naive, I will point it out. Lowballing is a tactic they will encounter for the rest of their lives & now would be a very good time for them to learn about it & recognize it. If someone is not willing to offer them fair value for their talent, perhaps they should move on to someone who will -as did MTnest's son @ Pitt. Most of all - recognize B.S. hype when it comes to academics on the part of schools & "experts". Judge people's authenticity by their actions AND motivations - Batgirl is Exhibit A. It also strikes me as coincidental that (after 200 posts on Pitt boards) MTnest is suddenly on this board "educating" us to be pro- Udel now that he has another child accepted with in-state tuition. Seems to me $ were a big incentive for both kids. I wish them luck but let's call a spade a spade. IMHO the following is either the most naive statement I 've seen on these boards or it was made for some other reason:
"Harvard doesn't automatically accept everyone who is a valedictorian so why should UDEL"</p>
<p>a7856336- and to all..I never listed any stats on a BC thread, my school doesnt even use a 4 point scale! How you determined a 3.5 is beyond me. Further, I plan on attending BC however that doesn't mean I will not see the process through elsewhere. Lastly dopes it is BC NOT BU and its Early Action not binding. So get your facts straight. Obviously there is a difference between those writing on UDel sites compared to BC..I was making a point! Inference is not your specialty. Perhaps you should try community college. Regards, Batgirl3141</p>
<p>a7856336 : perhaps you can call UDEL and negotiaite merit aid?</p>
<p>It could be that Udel and other schools allocate merit aid to students they deem most likely to attend and "lowball" merit aid to seemingly overqualified applicants who they perceive as "safety applicants" & and thus unlikely enrollees.</p>
<p>You can always call Financial Aid and tell them them you will commit your overqualified applicant if they show you the money.The worst that will happen is that they say no and you are exactly where you are now.In the course of that conversation you can get an insight on Merit Aid directly from the institution.</p>
<p>Best of luck to you and your child!</p>
<p>Give it up Bat Girl you were exposed you can spin it any way you want you said you were going to 2 schools on two different threads read your own words it doesn't mater BC or BU.</p>