No, her parents were the recipients of $10000. The niece was never going to write that check. The parents should have been the ones to thank OP. It would have been a hardship on they parents, but they were going to pay until they received $10000 from OP’s company.
It’s a valid point that your niece may have been raised to be clueless about this kind of etiquette. Perhaps you should give her the benefit of the doubt and again talk to her directly about formally thanking your company.
The problem is, if you continue to assist without gratitude, she will continue to act the way she does. If she didn’t thank the committee the first time, why would she the second or third or fourth times? If you were embarrassed the first time, how much worse will it be repeatedly in the future? So you are stuck either teaching basic courtesy or remain uninvolved. I don’t accept the generational excuse. Plenty of young adults can and do write thank you notes.
I will politely disagree with you on this one, @oldfort. The student received the scholarship, not the parents. The student was responsible for writing a formal thank you, not the parents.
Who was going to pay if there was no scholarship? Isn’t that why school always ask for parents’ tax returns? It is very hard for a student to claim as an independent and pay for school by him/herself. Who did this scholarship benefit?
Did the parents report this extra scholarship to the school? I am surprised their FA didn’t go down by $10K.
If you care about your niece talk to her. I would expect my aunts would let me know if my behavior did not match their expectations. I would do everything in my power to do what they wanted. Give the girl a second chance. She is young. If you teach her that thanking those that help you, either with a connection to or giving you , a scholarship is mandatory and that to not do so is ungrateful and unprofessional I bet she will learn it quick. We have an obligation to those we love to teach them kindly and steer them in the right direction. If her parents are not doing it can you?
Oh, my goodness! What’s wrong with helping somebody? If I shunned every person who didn’t write a thank you, I’d have very few friends and family! Come on, withholding a scholarship from a student is just plain wrong. If you think her lack of a thank you is wrong, withholding a scholarship is 1,000 times worse, in my opinion.
OP isn’t withholding anything, he doesn’t give the scholarship. This young woman can inquire as to its renewability if she wants. Or maybe the committee informs her (if they decide to) and that committee will make the final decision.
I would be surprised if the committee wouldn’t inform the family about renewal, but I think OP would need to sign the application to confirm the niece is a relative (or a friend).
Is it possible to tell the parents that (1) your feelings were hurt by their failure to thank you for your help throughout the process and (2) your niece was the only one not to thank the committee for the scholarship? It can be gently worded but effective.
I would be hurt too and I would be worried about the way in which the family’s failure to thank the company reflected on me at my workplace.
I agree that the OP was venting a little, looking for ideas on what to do next. I say Speak UP! Call the student and tell her she has to send a thank you to the committee.
I was very surprised when I’d drive my kids and their high school friends somewhere and the other kids wouldn’t even acknowledge I was in the car. No hello, no thank you for the ride, no goodbye. My kids don’t act that way. They thank ME if I drive them somewhere, or if I buy them something at the store or if, say, I pay their tuition! My daughter just graduated and I don’t even know who sent her gifts, but I know they all got thank you notes.
Maybe tell her parents that she can qualify for another $30K but she would need to write a thank you note first for the $10K or she will not qualify, because you have other candidates that you could also recommend. And that btw, you are giving her the courtesy of that chance, because you could have deemed her ungrateful and just moved on for the second round.
Your niece and her family committed a faux pas out of ignorance. You’re contemplating being purposely vindictive and spiteful to a child. And if this is the child of your spouse’s sibling, you’re likely going to drive huge wedge between the siblings and do irreversibe damage to their relationship. How does that make you a better person than your niece?
If you don’t help your niece people at work will notice and remember. And not in a good way. If you can be so vindictive and spiteful to a child in your own family why would they trust that you won’t do that, and worse, to people who aren’t related to you?
Actually I think it looks far worse at work to continue helping someone ungrateful, due solely to nepotism. This young woman is likely 18, not 8. Can we please stop calling her a “child”- it is demeaning and infantilizing. If she was admitted to college, she is more than capable of basic courtesy when she wishes it. Do you think she would have treated a friend who gave her great concert tickets this way? Of course not. So either tell her she needs manners to qualify for future scholarships, or walk away from the situation.
My kids wrote thank you notes for just about everything.
Like @MaineLonghorn , my son was awarded an alum scholarship for grad school. He wrote a thank you note each term he received the award.
Both kids received local scholarships when they were revising college freshmen, and wrote thank you notes to each awarding sponsor.
This young woman needs to write a thank you note to the company…at least. They gave her a a very nice scholarship. The parents could write a thank you as well…to their sibling AND to the company.
I think the OP should politely at least suggest the thank you to the company. Now.
This isn’t a box of chocolates, it’s ten thousand dollars. I wouldn’t tell them about the renewal. I wouldn’t have any discussion about it with them. They are rude and ungrateful, another 30k won’t fix that. You got the ball rolling for them of which there was no thank you (to the company in particular is horrible). Let them figure it out from here. Handouts aren’t always the best way to help people.
Maybe her aid was reduced so this outside award made little/no difference?
Have any of you ever been invited to a wedding or party that requested an RSVP? Would you ever do anything other than respond as requested? Of course not. And why do you do it? Because you are 1) aware of why it’s important and 2) because you have no desire to be intentionally rude, inconvenience your host, or impact the hosts seating arrangements or financial position with a caterer. All of this is contingent on your understanding of the matter. Someone who fails to RSVP isn’t generally a terrible person - usually they are just ignorant of the entire situation. Similar to this situation, the OP can either let her perception of her family’s ungratefulness eat away at her (which it clearly has), or she can decide that not everyone knows the unwritten rules of society.
If the OP feels strongly that her niece should send a thank you note to the company and can address that matter tactfully without embarrassing her family, then I don’t think anyone would disagree with that as a strategy to benefit all involved.
I don’t think OP is as angry as she is because her niece didn’t thank the company. She doesn’t even mention the company until post #17. Before that she talks about being used and mooched off of, so it’s apparently being personally thanked that matters to her.
Which public college removes ALL of the parent contribution? That goes against the conventional CC wisdom that outside grants reduce institutional aid by an equal amount. The lowest most families will pay at most colleges is the parent contribution. It’s totally possible that the college reduced the niece’s grants by $10,000 leaving the parent contribution the same. The net result would be that the college saved $10k and the niece didn’t benefit at all and she’s too embarrassed to say anything. The only way OP will know – and it would be useful information for her company – is to have an honest conversation with her niece.