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They were “targeted towards you” only because you are a representative of the group they are trying to attract. If you were to decline the invitation, it is likely that another high scoring low income URM student could get the opportunity to visit. I hope that by the time you graduate from Stanford you will realize that your choice to treat this as a free vacation was unethical.</p>
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<p>Maybe so. Maybe not. She didn’t “take it away”. If they had found someone better, or more suitable, or who had the school as their first choice, then for all we know they were picked too, or they would have been.</p>
<p>Perhaps she should contact the college admissions/finaid offices to inform them that she is unlikely to attend due to the inferior finaid offer compared to all other college offers. If they are interested enough in her to pay her airfare to attend an accepted student weekend perhaps they will reconsider their finaid offer.</p>
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<p>While I understand your point, that doesn’t make any sense. The invitations were sent out all at once, usually with decently-near application deadlines. Giving up my spot would not have afforded another student an invitation; instead, the invitation would have gone to no one.</p>
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<p>You must not have read my post, since I already established that some people would have felt my actions were unethical. Given that a) I was invited to these events and b) prior interest or further interest in the college was not a requirement for attendance, I personally do not feel like my actions crossed ethical boundaries. If colleges want to target only students who are likely to attend and/or only students who have demonstrated interest, they are welcomed to do so. For example, Washington University in St. Louis offers invitations to Discovery Weekend for students who have already exhibited interest by returning mailings or submitting the pre-application early. Scripps and Carnegie Mellon were free to do the same.</p>
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<p>Exactly. I was targeted for these travel grants despite having never exhibited interest in the school. I didn’t “take” anyone’s spot. I took the spot that was offered to me. Now, you are free to feel that is unethical - as I stated some would believe - but that does not shift my ethical compass, nor should it. I do not criticize students who attend schools on scholarships that were not their first choice, just because the scholarship was offered to them.</p>
<p>I had little interest in attending these schools when I accepted the travel grants. What if I had came away from Scripps or CMU infatuated with the school? Would my actions have been unethical then?</p>
<p>Thanks for all the feedback! I will suggest that she meet with the financial aid dept while she is there and will have her bring her financial aid offers with her
(although she will not present them unless they are asked for).</p>
<p>I would be sure to tell her that if this college doesn’t match or come close to the other FA offers, then it’s a no for that school. It’s a good learning opportunity for her, and could be empowering. If she loves the school and it is her first choice, then it would be fine for her to show them the other offers and inquire about the possibility of negotiating a higher FA package.</p>
<p>I’m with applicannot - there are so many schools and so many are not on student’s radars that colleges use these tools to gain the interest of student’s who would otherwise not know about their schools and to hopefully draw these students in. Also, they likely do this to bolster their own rankings if they draw in high performing URMs. And the ploy is a good one - I’m sure many students who had never thought twice about a school gained more interest by attending so for every one student who has no interest prior and still has no interest afterwards, there are plenty who do get interested but they won’t know that if they don’t visit.</p>
<p>In many ways it is similar to the timeshare give-aways they offer if you sit through the time-share demo. How many countless people head into those sales pitches only with the intention of getting the free stay, free meal, what have you? Plenty - timeshare salespeople know this but they also know with the right pitch they can hook in many a buyer.</p>
<p>Are posters talking about very different things?</p>
<p>I understood applicannot to say she had been invited before applying. Visiting might have influenced her decision to apply or not. There was nothing unethical about her deciding to go and have a look/see.
It’s different if a student has been admitted, has already decided not to attend, but takes up the offer of being flown for admitted students anyway. Even so, there is still the possibility that the student will have a change of hearts. That’s a calculation that colleges make when offering to pay for visits.</p>
<p>If there really is no way that she will go then there really is not point to taking the trip. FA may however be negotiable and you might want to get that conversation started before the trip and continue it either during or after the trip he she wants to attend the school.</p>
<p>“Fly back programs are not intended for that purpose.
Schools pay for them so that you will consider a school you might not have otherwise.”</p>
<p>I don’t see a problem with a student’s accepting a fly-in from a school that the student wasn’t considering applying to. The fly-ins are to attract students who hadn’t previously considered a school, and the experience could have changed the student’s mind.</p>
<p>This is what I was responding to:
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<p>I understand your reservations, but I still think that as long as there is a slim chance that such visits may change a prospective applicant’s mind, it’s a legitimate strategy on the part of a college, and it’s fine for the prospective applicant to take up the offer.</p>
<p>If the only people who accepted the travel grant were people that knew they were going to the college anyway, the travel grants wouldn’t be very effective at recruiting students that they would not otherwise entice, right?</p>
<p>The whole point is they know the student isn’t sure (or maybe unlikely to) about attending the college. They figure if they can get them on campus, the student might decide to go to school there. They know if they don’t provide the grant, the student won’t go there at all.</p>
<p>I don’t have a problem with visiting a school you would not otherwise consider. It is the attitude of treating this as a free vacation that bothers me.
If you know you will not apply to that school no matter what, why use their resources? why not let others have the opportunity to visit?</p>
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<p>Why? That’s what colleges are offering it as - come see our beautiful campus! Enjoy yourself! We want you to be convinced to apply and attend!</p>
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<p>I said I had no intention of applying - that does not imply that my mind would have never, ever changed. I had every intention of applying to and attending George Washington. I attended their funded program and hated the school. Plus, giving up my spot would not have afforded others the option to visit. These were invitational events.</p>
<p>applicanot, you originally said that you APPLIED for travel grants, not that you were OFFERED them. Moreover you indicated that you regarded this from the get-go as a “free vacation.” It seems that you are changing your description of your actions to justify your behavior.</p>
<p>Or perhaps you are simply clarifying the situation. It is hard to tell. Those who react negatively to your trips probably do so because of your initial description.</p>
<p>Re the OP: while it is clear that this school has initially offered your D less money, it is not clear–to me, anyway–whether this is a deal-breaker for your family. In other words, could you afford it if she really loved the school? If not, then I would suggest that you contact the FA dept and discuss the possibility of an appeal with them. I think that they would appreciate your honesty in doing this before she uses the ticket. If you COULD afford it and are WILLING to pay the extra money, then certainly she could go and see whether this becomes her #1 choice.</p>
<p>In either case, you need to have a conversation with your D about the $$ <em>IF</em> it is going to factor into the final decision.</p>
<p>I am the OP and the bottom line is that I don’t even know if this is the top choice for my daughter. She doesn’t know either - she has never seen the campus and only knows what can be found on the website/brochures. I think that it would be a stretch financially. My feeling at the time I started this thread was what if I just told my daughter that she shouldn’t go on this trip? So that she didn’t fall in love with a school that would be difficult to afford. However, I think that it is worth it to have her go and check it out - I don’t want her to think later “what if”. (By the way, I never mentioned to her that she shouldn’t go on the trip, I was just using CC to think about the options).</p>
<p>I am not ready to negotiate with the financial aid office because at this time the college is like #3 or #4 on my daughters list - she may not even like the school once she gets onto the campus (which happened a few times when we went on college visits). Once she picks a school (or at least narrows it down to a few colleges), then I will look at the financial aid offers and see if we need to start negotiating. </p>
<p>By the way, my daughter is fully aware of the financial aid side of the college selection process. She originally had planned to pick her school by accepting the best financial aid offer. I am trying to get her to look at these schools and base her choice on more than $$…if I told her that she needed to choose school A due to finances she would be in complete agreement.</p>
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<p>I disagree. I applied for travel grants via the invitation, although only for one school (the others were straight up offers). I had to send my transcript to Scripps and explain my financial situation. The other trip I took with no interest (Carnegie Mellon) was via invite. I am not “justifying” my behavior (I have stated numerous times that I have already said some would find this unethical), but I am explaining why I personally do not feel that my actions were unethical.</p>
<p>Yes, I said that those trips were a free vacation. That was in response to the question</p>
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<p>Which I assumed to mean “what was the purpose of going on these trips if you were not originally looking at the schools,” i.e., why bother going on the trips? The trips are designed to pique the interest of students who would not have previously had significant interest in the school (or else they would be a poor recruiting tool). Therefore, it is fair to assume that the trips would be fun ( = vacation-like) rather than droll. So yes, I took them to be a free vacation.</p>
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<p>My goal is to clarify. I understand that not everyone will find my actions ethical (I did, for instance, state the my actions could be considered ethically questionable). I’m 100% okay with that. Ethics and morality are debatable. I’m not okay with having my words twisted. So, I have chosen to clarify my original position.</p>