<p>…at many others you do not need to be NMF to get full tuition ± in Merit awards…they are not for “smart” people, but they are fine for many others. One of them is CWRU (private, so OOS / IS does not matter)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The seminal Supreme Court case on insider trading, Chiarella v. United States, involved a a man who was a blue-collar employee of a financial printer. He figured out from type he was setting who the target was in a potential takeover, and bought stock in the target. He wound up making $30,000 over the course of about a year – an amount which, even 35 years ago, would not have impressed Stephen Cohen much – and was charged with both civil violations and criminal violations of insider trading prohibitions. The Supreme Court let him off, but on the fairly technical ground that his employer had never established a duty to keep the information confidential, and he and his employer were not working for the target company.</p>
<p>I don’t think this would happen today, but in the 1970s the SEC was definitely willing to pursue insider trading charges against the (relatively, at least before their trades) poor.</p>
<p>And I seem to recall that Cardiovascular disease skews low SES… any of the Doc’s on here confirm that?</p>
<p>Poor people are more likely to steal bread than rich people. Does this reflect on their morals?</p>
<p>Attempt to derail insanity of this thread with levity: fail. Where’s the methadone thread when you need it? :D</p>
<p>The SEC absolutely pursues insider trading activity by anyone, regardless of income level. You won’t find “convictions,” because the SEC brings civil actions, not criminal (that would be the US Attorney’s Office). The vast majority of SEC insider trading investigations are settled with disgorgement and a fine.</p>
<p>^Stealing reflects on everybody’s morals, period, no exceptions!!! Killing reflects on everybody’s morals, period, no exceptions!!! The list can go on and on…
Besides, the “poor” people in this country are NOT poor by any figma of imagination. Try to explain to some others abroad that person driving the car and living in his house is actually a very poor person. They will feel very very insulted.</p>
<p>Wow, Miami…Toledo doesn’t have poor people? Poor people don’t drive cars and have a house…you must live in an <em>expansive</em> area.</p>
<p>
The thread tangent had nothing to do with ECs or generally being a strong applicant. Need based financial aid and merit aid are quite different. The colleges with heavy sponsorship of NMS have merit aid. Most highly selective colleges do not. Regarding the two colleges you listed, Chicago’s website says they give $2000/yr to NMF, if you report Chicago as your first choice school. Alabama’s site says they give full tuition.</p>
<p>But if you need FA Chicago will deduct the $2K scholarship from your aid. So it is only relevant to full pay candidates, for whom a $2K difference is probably not a deal-breaker.</p>
<p>As for this “density” argument, as I’ve mentioned in other discussions, people wouldn’t get up in arms if somebody said, “I want to play soccer on the top travel team, because I want to play with other talented, motivated players who will spur me on to do my best.” There may be other people who would rather be the star in a somewhat less competitive team in the hopes that they will get noticed. This is pretty much the difference between somebody who wants to go to a highly selective school vs. somebody who’d rather be a high-performing student at a flagship or other school.</p>
<p>^^^100% agree with the above. My son’s common app essay was about how he dreamed of attending a school where almost everyone was academically motivated and couldn’t wait to be around the ‘best and the brightest’. He wanted to go the little fish in the big pond route. Three months into it, he is challenged and surrounded by many kids who are like him. </p>
<p>Also, we are on the other end of the SES from most of the posters on this thread. I can firmly state that my son received the best financial aid offer from the most highly selective school to which he was accepted. It isn’t free, but it is definitely WAY cheaper than our state flagship.</p>
<p>“The thread tangent had nothing to do with ECs or generally being a strong applicant”
In order for a student to be designated a NMF they HAVE to have strong scores, and grades . National Merit does NOT consider WHERE a student is enrolling in college before designating whether a student is a NMF or not.
You are the one implying that NMF’s who enroll at colleges that offer scholarships are somehow less strong academically than those who enroll at non sponsoring colleges. Isnt it possible that the ones who enroll at HYPS, etc dont need the often very generous $$ that can come with a being a NM Scholar?</p>
<p>“Need based financial aid and merit aid are quite different.”</p>
<p>Bottom line- $$ IS $$ -be it merit aid or FA.
The “most selective” colleges have very generous FA programs. Some have both Athletic scholarships and generous FA programs. They will find a way to make it easier to attract the students they want to enroll.</p>
<p>and I give you this testimony as a perfect example-
" I can firmly state that my son received the best financial aid offer from the most highly selective school to which he was accepted."</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What this argument assumes is that students at a top flagship will be randomly distributed in classes reflecting the full range of ability levels at the school. And this just isn’t so. Students at Michigan’s Ross School of Business, for example, have stats very similar to students at Wharton; they take most of their classes at Ross, with other Ross students. Students in Michigan’s College of Engineering have stats very similar to engineering students at any Ivy, and are in an engineering program that is generally considered to be stronger than the engineering programs at many (all?) Ivies; they take most of their classes with other engineering students. A student could very rationally and reasonably make the assertion that he wanted to attend Ross or Michigan’s CoE because he “wants to play with other talented, motivated players who will spur me on to do my best,” and be just as justified in saying it as the student who says she wants to be at Wharton or Cornell Engineering for that same reason.</p>
<p>It matters not one whit to the student in Ross or CoE what the stats of students in the School of Education, or the School of Kinesiology, or the School of Nursing, or the
School of Music, Theater, and Dance are, because their classroom interactions, and very likely their social interactions, will likely be close to nil. (That’s the thing about a big university; it’s big, which means you DON’T interact with most people on campus, especially those in fields very different from your own). Just as it matters not one whit to students in Cornell’s College of Engineering or College of Arts and Sciences (whose stats and credentials are very similar to those at any other Ivy) that some students in the School of Hotel Administration or School of Industrial and Labor Relations may not have similarly impressive academic credentials; those students could just as well be across town at Ithaca College, for all it affects the experience of students in Cornell’s CoE or CAS.</p>
<p>As for traditional arts and sciences studies at a top flagship, two points. First, many offer honors colleges, offering top students the opportunity to self-segregate if they so choose. I seized this opportunity as an undergrad at Michigan, lived in honors housing, took all honors classes as a freshman, consequently my core friendship networks which persisted throughout my college experience and beyond were with other honors students; there simply was never any shortage of highly intelligent and academically capable peers to interact with, and be “pushed” by, in my four years there. Yes, you can take the entire undergrad student body of 28,000 and say, on average, it doesn’t have the same “density” of top students as an Ivy; or you can look more closely and see that the average density across such a large institution actually doesn’t matter very much, if at all, to the actual experiences of top students there, who tend to be clustered in a number of areas within the larger institution where the “density” of top students is very similar to an Ivy. Second, in most fields the top students tend to quickly self-segregate even apart from the honors college, because they typically place into more advanced classes, pursue more challenging majors or courses of study, and advance in their studies as fast and as far as they want to go with no upper limit, leaving the less capable students far in their rearview mirror. As an undergrad at Michigan, I took all honors intro classes in my major and by my junior and senior year was taking mostly graduate-level classes in my major. This was in a graduate program that was at the time ranked #4 or #5 in its field nationally. My “classmates” were grad students in one of the top programs in the field, graduates of some of the finest undergraduate institutions in the country. And this is not at all unusual at places like Michigan.</p>
<p>Look, I have nothing against the Ivies. I did graduate studies at two, taught at a third. They are outstanding educational institutions blessed with quite extraordinary resources, and on the whole they do a fine job of undergraduate education. But having studied and taught at both top publics and top privates, I think the quality of the undergraduate educational experience is not so very different at a top public flagship and at a highly selective private institution–though the particulars of that experience are certainly different. I don’t know that this is true across the board for all flagships, however. I noted with interest Pizzagirl’s comments about Mizzou, for example. I respect her judgment that it would have been more difficult for her to push herself to excel at Mizzou than at the very fine private college she did attend… But I’d also note that the 75th percentile ACT score at Mizzou is the same as the 25th percentile at Michigan, and that Mizzou has precious few, if any, departments or programs that rank among the top 10 or top 25 nationally, whereas at Michigan such departmental rankings are the norm and the expectation. So I think it might have been much more difficult for Pizzagirl to replicate at Mizzou the kind of undergrad experience and opportunities I had at Michigan; the two schools are just very different. And I suspect it may be just as much an error to lump all “flagships” together as it is to lump all “private colleges and universities” together. There can be huge differences within either category.</p>
<p>
As you suggest, this point may be much more true at Michigan than at other flagship honors programs. Indeed, Michigan is probably pretty dense with smart kids in general, and not just in the honors program.</p>
<p>Another thing–and it’s hard to say this tactfully, but what the heck–it’s not just density of high grades/scores that you get at the most selective schools–it’s also density of the quality of being an all-around high achiever. A lot of people who are excellent students and excellent musicians and who excel at some other thing, like writing, or entrepreneurship, etc. While there are certainly kids like this at flagships (especially someplace like Michigan, or Virginia, or Cal), at highly selective schools there are enough of them that there is really a lot of cross-disciplinary synergy. In my experience, it really does make a difference that your roommate is super-accomplished in a field entirely different from your own. It’s a luxury, but it’s a really nice one. This “super-achiever” quality is hard to measure with statistics, but there is no question that the Ivies and similar schools are looking for kids like this, and get an awful lot of them. (I’ll give one example: in my son’s senior suite of six, there were two music majors, and two guys who had performed on “From the Top” as kids–neither of whom was a music major.)</p>
<p>I agree with Hunt. </p>
<p>The whole reason Michigan offers honors colleges, honors dorms, etc, is precisely because they can acknowledge that some of their brightest students may like or prefer “subgroups” where that high density is achieved. I don’t doubt that the honors college at Michigan might be a mini-Yale on Michigan’s campus, or whatever. But that’s the point – there is often desire to create that density because it is appealing. </p>
<p>For me (me personally! No one else!) I prefer a smaller atmosphere with that high density versus a larger atmosphere where the high density is a subgroup (over, of course, the larger atmosphere without that density). Others, of course, may be indifferent towards those first two, or may prefer the feel and excitement of a larger university. </p>
<p>To me, the small highly dense subgroup within a larger context feels like high school all over again, and no thanks on repeating high school :-). But bclintonk loved it. Who am I to say he’s wrong – diff people have diff tastes.</p>
<p>Michigan is not representative of the experience a kid will have at University of New Hampshire, or the non-flagship campus of a bunch of other states.</p>
<p>And for some kids it doesn’t matter, and for others it might matter but they are going to their state U regardless and living at home and taking the bus and it is what it is. And it will still give them a college education which is the envy of much of the world. I’m not telling kids who end up at a college where they are the 98th percentile intellectually (however you measure that) that their life is over or that their education will be faulty. But to claim that this kid should just suck it up and not care about finding his “people” is kind of mean.</p>
<p>We have threads about kids with eating disorders and they need a supportive environment. We have kids with ADHD, and kids who can’t tolerate gluten and kids who want mostly frats or no frats or no Goths or lots of vegans or whatnot. And everyone likes to be helpful and suggest that magic list of schools where this kid will find density and won’t be a freak or an outlier.</p>
<p>But a kid who wants a large and stimulating peer group of kids who are academically oriented and interested in intellectual pursuits outside the classroom is automatically an elitist, and everyone piles on about their cousin whose stats were sky-high and won a Rhodes Scholarship after graduating debt free from Framingham State College.</p>
<p>Do you know how many kids in my town attend our state flagship U and have never- that is- zero times- attended a lecture or a talk or a symposium or seen a performance that wasn’t assigned by a class? It doesn’t matter if Nelson Mandela is debating the Dalai Lama, or Yo-Yo Ma is jamming with the Baroque Ensemble (and tickets are free), or if Bill Gates and Bill Clinton are hosting a symposium on Ending Malaria. </p>
<p>So yeah, a kids life isn’t over if he or she is going to have to work hard to find some density. But don’t pretend that every single state U is U Michigan or U VA.</p>
<p>“It matters not one whit to the student in Ross or CoE what the stats of students in the School of Education, or the School of Kinesiology, or the School of Nursing, or the
School of Music, Theater, and Dance are, because their classroom interactions, and very likely their social interactions, will likely be close to nil. (That’s the thing about a big university; it’s big, which means you DON’T interact with most people on campus, especially those in fields very different”</p>
<p>See, here’s where I feel differently. I attended a school with 6 sub-colleges - I was in the Arts and Sciences college - and it <em>did</em> matter to me that the kids in the schools of Engineering, Music, Speech (incl theater), Journslism and Education were also high performers in their fields (recognizing that talent in music and theater isn’t boiled down to SAT scores, but is manifest a different way). I <em>did</em> want to – and did – interact with them, both in the classroom and socially. </p>
<p>I wanted a feel very consciously different from high school, where the smart kids hung over here and the “average” kids dominated and had nothing to do with them. For me (again me!) that social experience was frustrating and hurtful.</p>
<p>"Do you know how many kids in my town attend our state flagship U and have never- that is- zero times- attended a lecture or a talk or a symposium or seen a performance that wasn’t assigned by a class? It doesn’t matter if Nelson Mandela is debating the Dalai Lama, or Yo-Yo Ma is jamming with the Baroque Ensemble (and tickets are free), or if Bill Gates and Bill Clinton are hosting a symposium on Ending Malaria. "</p>
<p>YES, that’s it exactly, blossom. I would almost suggest it’s intellectual curiosity versus stats per se. The idea that it’s fun and interesting to learn, and that studies are something to take seriously.</p>
<p>“respect her judgment that it would have been more difficult for her to push herself to excel at Mizzou than at the very fine private college she did attend… But I’d also note that the 75th percentile ACT score at Mizzou is the same as the 25th percentile at Michigan, and that Mizzou has precious few, if any, departments or programs that rank among the top 10 or top 25 nationally, whereas at Michigan such departmental rankings are the norm and the expectation.”</p>
<p>Bclintonk, for the majority of students in this country, is their state flagship closer to a Michigan or a Mizzou? I think we both get “spoiled” living in places where we have good (IL) to excellent (MI) state flagships.</p>
<p>
My post was explicitly clear that I was not comparing the scores (or academic strength) of NMSs at different colleges. You are the only one who has talked about comparing academic strength of NMSs at different colleges. I cannot explain any more explicitly than I have previously, so I’ll quote a portion of my earlier post:</p>
<p>“The whole point was estimating schools that have a large “density” of high scoring students in the class, not comparing the scores of national merit scholars at different colleges. Note that high scoring group includes students within the class that have high test scores (for example 98th percentile), but are not National Merit anything.”</p>
<p>
Alabama was mentioned earlier as being a college with one of the largest numbers of NMSs due to their heavy sponsorship, including paying full tuition. Do you really think that Alabama’s full tuition merit scholarship is the same as the generous need based FA given by HYPSM-type colleges, for all top students? Many top students come from high income families that would get minimal need based aid, yet they still qualify for Alabama’s full tuition. This results NMSs being more likely to choose Alabama, leading to the weakened correlation with the score distribution of the full class (not comparing scores of NMSs at different colleges), as has been extensively discussed.</p>