They simply said, they decided to award more to need based and less academic merit. They said we could call again in April but was unlikely that they would be awarding anymore. I’m guessing maybe less alumni endowment donations.
Based on results reported above, it sounds like merit was not given out just on basis of grades and scores. Did everyone do the optional essay - wondering if there is some correlation and if they are trying to gauge a student’s level of interest in PC?
S is applying RD and we had been hoping for some merit.
Hi everyone! Just wanted to clarify a few things about our merit scholarship programs…
-Except for offering slightly fewer Friar Leadership Scholarships, we are making the same number of offers of merit-based scholarships as we have the past few years. It’s correct that we do emphasize need-based aid over merit-based aid in the grand scheme of our financial assistance programs, but there’s nothing different about the quantity of offers for this class compared to the past few.
-What is different for this year is the strength and volume of our early applicant pool. We received ~6400 applications compared to ~6000 last year. If you look at the Class of 2018 (those graduating from Providence this year), we only received ~4700 early applications that year. While our application pool is continuing to grow overall, we’re also seeing that more and more students are going through the admission process through our EA or EDI programs.
-Finally, the only things we use for the awarding of our merit scholarships are strength of curriculum (based off what was offered to a student at their school), unweighted and recalculated GPA, test scores (since we’re test-optional, only if they’re in the file), and the overall academic tone of an application. Our Committee on Scholarships does not factor in demonstrated interest, the supplemental essay, or any other personal characteristics. Also, we absolutely do not factor in whether we think a student may enroll or not (meaning we think they’re too strong for our pool) when awarding scholarships. The top tier of our merit program (80% tuition) is exclusively students who have maxed out their curriculum and never received a single A minus. There are many more of those students who are in the 60% tier, as well. It’s always tough to articulate that a single A minus can knock you down a level, but we have to be fair to the whole applicant pool. We also enroll quite a few of these students and they’re some of our best scholars on campus!
Hope that helps. If you have any additional questions, feel free to reach out!
here is a question that i am hoping someone can answer:
If a student is awarded with a scholarship (of any amount) but does not end up attending PC, what happens to that scholarship? Will that scholarship be awarded to another accepted student? Or does that scholarship money just go unused?
@PC Admissions: So you pretty much have to have qualifications that would get you into Harvard now in order to receive any merit scholarship from PC? You always attracted great candidates with your scholarship offers and now you’re deterring them from coming by offering them nothing. Most of the people with Harvard qualifications aren’t going to PC and you’re losing the next level of superior applicants that would have come had you given them a little bait. Instead, it seems the trend is to take much lesser qualified ED students who will pay the full ride. Providence is taking a big risk - tarnishing your image just as you were starting to shine.
@PCAdmission - thank you for the update, it is helpful.
@Maddie4 I totally agree with you!! Well said… many people disgusted with merit aid this year at PC…sad will back fire
@PCAdmission, I did have one question. Can you speak to the likelihood of a candidate being deferred in the EA round and then being accepted with merit aid during the RD round? I assume the answer is that it is unlikely, but I figure there could be some dynamic we don’t know about.
From the discussions on this board and elsewhere it appears that there are many strong candidates who have attractive offers in hand but a somewhat surprising deferral from PC. It would be helpful to know if we can pretty much write off the chance of merit aid, in which case candidly I think many families will probably move on regardless of how much the student loves Providence.
Thanks.
Or I would like to know what is likelihood of those accepted without merit being offered merit in spring when all the others decline? My child accepted with no merit, her two friends both accepted merit, one accepted to BC with merit and going there and the other accepted to Villanova and going there. My child without merit can’t go to PC, so PC loses all 3…how does this logic work and where does money go?
Hmmm
Knowing that students have great choices, we usually make about four times as many offers of merit scholarships than we actually have available. We are expecting that not everyone will take us up on our scholarship offer, so the money does not go back into a big pool or anything like that. If fewer students take us up on our merit offers than we expected, we do not go back and re-award scholarships but instead put that money into need-based aid.
As for the academic strength required for merit, it is not exclusively going to students with flawless records, that is just the top tier. Approximately 25% of our admitted students receive a merit-based scholarship offer. The scholarships are, however, for those students at the top of our applicant pool. We do not award a scholarship to all admitted students as some other institutions may because of our previously cited commitment to need-based aid.
Finally, with regard to the question about a deferred candidate receiving merit…since the reason for their deferral was more than likely that academically they are around the averages of our applicant pool, I would agree with your assumption that it is highly unlikely they receive a scholarship. The only one that a student could possibly receive post-deferral would be the $10,000/yr leadership scholarship.
@PCAdmission Thank you for responding. My DS was accepted early action with 4-year housing to BC noting that the reason he got 4 years was because he was in the top 15% of their applicants. Seems a little difficult to believe he could he be in the top 15% of BC’s applicant pool but not be in the top 25% of Providence’s to qualify for merit? There are typically 40+ applications from our high school. My guess is it’s because you took several ED (again, with much lower qualifications) from our town who are paying the full tuition and decided you had enough people from our town so you didn’t need to offer scholarships to the kids who deserve them because there were too many people from our town already?
We review applications in the context of the whole applicant pool. If every applicant from a given school, city, or region were competitive, they would all receive favorable news. For detailed questions, please contact our office and a counselor would be happy to provide additional information.
@Maddie4 My daughter was one of the top applicants from a very competitive high school which also had many applicants to PC. Same situation, lots of average students accepted ED who are paying the full tuition, so NO merit to students who were top of their class and were undoubtedly within the top 25% of PC’s applicants. Calls by several parents to admissions - they had no answer. Hugely disappointing. Alumni family as well which makes it really sting since our daughter was really looking forward to going.
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My son is in the top 5% of his class and would be 3rd generation PC student. No merit money…Really confused!!
Judging by the number of posts from surprised and angry parents, it is obvious that despite claims that PC has changed nothing, there clearly seems to be a change in the way merit was awarded this year. My guess is that they are waiting to see how many ED kids will pay the full price. If quota is met there is no need to offer any additional merit. Not sure how many kids will wait for PC to change their mind and offer more merit before accepting a spot somewhere else.
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We’re waiting on FA to be mailed out on that 18th. No merit here either and need some cash to make it work. Talked to S tonight about back-up plans at schools that offered money or invited him to apply for addt scholarships.
Will the financial aid packages that were just mailed include any multicultural scholarships? @PCAdmission
No. The Multicultural Scholarship Committee only meets at the end of Regular Decision, so those notifications will be made sometime around the third week of March.
I’m glad to hear it wasn’t just us. I thought my daughter did something wrong. PC was very high on her list. I thought we had a decent shot at the 80% scholarship. She got something in the teens (maybe 18K). It’s a nice scholarship, but nowhere near what we were hoping for.
She hasn’t mentioned Providence since. I was going to call to see if there was any chance of getting a higher award, but it doesn’t sound like it will help.
Has anyone received their financial aid?