Our Awards Night had the local scholarship awards as well as some other honors. Most, if not all, of the local scholarships had a need-based component. The course awards did not. It makes a certain amount of sense to have a need component, but sometimes those awards simply offset the amount the finanical aid the college has given. I was on the board of one of the activities my son did in which we had a couple of small scholarships. We decided to keep the honors, but stop the money because most of our fund raising was going to a couple of kids and it was getting harder to raise the funds.
In our case, our school is typically ranked at the bottom of the state. We don’t have much to cheer about. I feel like it’s the admin’s way of saying “Hey! We do have some smart kids going places! We aren’t as bad as you think!” Re: need based awards announced: The kids turn in the grants/scholarships to guidance. The announcer simply reads the list stating “these were the awards submitted to the guidance office by X date.” The awards are also listed in the paper and graduation, but I think the $$$ amounts are only read at the ceremony.
Honestly, based on the reaction of the crowd, I don’t think most people in the audience - including those who received the awards - understand that the grants are need and not merit based. Most oohs and aahs come from the totals and certain name recognition schools. I confess that it was satisfying to hear some of the biggest “wows” and “aahs” came from my S’s OOS merit scholarship to Clemson. (It wasn’t the highest award and not enough to bring the cost down enough for us.) But, those kids are much more impressed with that than more prestigious schools that they’ve never heard of. In the long run, it doesn’t mean much. And while it can be hard to sit through when things don’t seem fair, after a few weeks/months… you move on.
I think there’s rampant confusion in the public about need versus merit based scholarships. I can’t tell you how many people touted their kid’s scholarships to needs-only schools. Hell there was an article in the paper about a local girl earning a free ride to Harvard.
Financial aid from schools is need based, merit is not need based. We have an awards night. They recognize all students going into the military or military academies and all students who got into ivy league but none of that included money. Any money offered from any college was not mentioned. I personally don’t get counting merit/financial aid from colleges you aren’t attending. Ivies don’t even give merit scholarships. Sure my nephew got almost a free ride at an ivy but it was income based not merit based.
Our awards night is for local scholarships in which the scholarship person/group all have its own criteria. Many are income based to be eligible. Class rank isn’t a criteria for most. Actually class rank is not finalized until after senior grades including finals are calculated. Scholarship deadline for applying for the awards given out at awards night is April 1st.
School based awards were also given out - books, department certificates etc again with no money. It is an awards night but award does not imply scholarship. I was actually surprised by a few top students who only received a school award but not a scholarship. These were kids I knew the parents of. Some scholarships were easy guaranteed ones - if you attended a specific elementary school and filled out the application she got a scholarship from them. One seemed very surprised. A few days later the parent told me they found out the student hadn’t even filled out any of the applications.
I’m always surprised by how many families think that they will get into prestigious schools AND get lots of merit money. My kid went to one of the top HS in the country and the students there were very well qualified. When it came to college, it was mostly go to a top school and pay or go to a less known/prestigious college with a great scholarship. Not that prestigious schools don’t give great scholarships, but almost all of the kids we know who have great merit $ are not going to their first choice schools.
That said, scholarships are out there, they just take time and effort. I know a kid who got about 20 of them, but he worked super hard junior year and continues now that he’s in college. Most of the scholarships he got were not dependent on his financial situation. You can’t just get good grades and expect them to come to you.
LOL we are in-state and fairly close to Clemson and a good number of top students from the area go there. When announcing where students are going my one S’s going to an out of state T25ish school gets a lot more oohs and aahs and Clemson is treated as a consolation prize (which it totally is not). Agree, it doesn’t mean much.
We make considerably less than you but still what would seem to be a king’s ransom elsewhere and weren’t offered any money at any of the UCs. He was awarded merit aid everywhere else he applied, bringing their OOS/Private tuition down to in-state UC. It was the opposite of what I expected. California schools should know that even good salaries out here barely pay the bills. I wasn’t expecting much, but even a token $1000 would have been nice.
So, my son left the state and he’s not likely coming back (like a lot of people long out of college). Good job, California, chasing away our best and brightest.
At our kids’ high school, students were asked to submit copies of financial award letters to the guidance department, then the info was summarized in a listing which parents could view online. It did contain student names, but was entirely voluntary.
No $ amounts were listed, but full ride/full tuition merit awards were noted as such.
At graduation, there was a listing of all colleges where any student was accepted, but no individual listing by student name at all.
There is absolutely no way I would have submitted any of our financial aid letters to our high school. And there is no way they could have forced me to do so. Sorry, but none of their business.
Seems gauche to me to mention the amounts. I can’t remember if they did it at my son’s senior awards, but I think it was just local scholarships which were either 500 or 1000, so no one was considerably benefitted.
@thumper1 , the decision to submit award letters or not, was entirely voluntary and up to each family, roughly 1/2 of grads’ families chose not to submit the info.
I’m surprised that GCs are advising about merit scholarships and FA. In our local HS, the GCs are not involved at all with advising on the financial end of things. The most they’d do is, maybe, drop a line in conversation like,“I’ve seen a lot of students get big merit aid from xxxx.” But they wouldn’t help devise an application strategy based on the financial part of the equation. The school/district thinks it’s too tricky and outside the purview of a GC.
You have to give the school the info for them to include it. It’s not like the school gets a copy of your acceptances and awards. We gave merit info after the awards.
There is no way my daugther’s school could have announced every single dollar kids got… Some of the bigger things(like ROTC and some local stuff) was announced, but everything else was just your name being called because you got something from the school you are actually GOING to. My daughter received scholarship $ from several schools, but they only recognized her as getting something from the one she actually went to, and the amount was not mentioned at all.
“This system puts upper middle class families of high achievers at severe disadvantage.”
Kids that are born in to upper-middle-class American families have already won the lottery in a sense as they have a life circumstance that over 99% of the world population can only dream of being born in to.
If you feel like your kid is so severely disadvantaged, you surely would be willing to trade kids with some other random family in the world so that you can give your biological child a better chance at life.
“When announcing where students are going my one S’s going to an out of state T25ish school gets a lot more oohs and aahs and Clemson is treated as a consolation prize (which it totally is not).”
Yep. Perspective. Most teenagers (and some adults) don’t have it.
“In the long run, it doesn’t mean much. And while it can be hard to sit through when things don’t seem fair, after a few weeks/months… you move on.”
Yep.
@brantly - D’s HS had designated college counselors (separate from the guidance counselors). They had a super program that started freshman year and there was a lot of FA advice given. The school was private but part of the city voucher program so there was a large number of low income students. 98% of D’s class went to 4 year college. The other 2% went to the Marines.
Your choice not to attend. They offered the money but you didn’t want it.
At the school I work at, which is also the same school my D attended and my S currently attends…they have an awards assembly during the day. They give out all the academic and book awards. They don’t mention anything about outside scholarships. Our school is a parochial school (Episcopal) and they do give out a couple of scholarships in the assembly that the church/diocese provides to students at Episcopal schools, but they don’t mention the amount.
And @PurpleTitan I agree, upper middle class kids are very privileged. Many kids would do anything to have the kind of advantages upper middle class kids have. Also, life isn’t fair.
The UCs aren’t struggling to attract hordes of bright, talented students, and they do a noticeably better job of enrolling students from the bottom 60% of income than some of their peers.
43.0% UCSD
33.5% UCLA
29.7% Berkeley
16.5% Michigan
15.0% UVA
12.1% William & Mary
I doubt any of the administrators at the UCs lose much sleep whenever a student from a family making $250K enrolls elsewhere because s/he wasn’t offered financial/merit aid.