The only school that I know that comes close to getting the holistic approach right is Franklin Olin College of Engineering. Applications are submitted through Common App, just like Purdue, students are then interviewed before about 200 applicants are identified as semi-finalists for admission. Semi-finalists are invited to campus, in small groups, for a two-day visit during which applicants and school representatives interact in formal and informal settings. About 1/2 of semi-finalists are then offered admission, all with half-tuition scholarship.
Big schools like Purdue are just not equipped to do this kind of holistic review.
I don’t pretend to understand the process by which a university selects those that receive a scholarship. I will contend that at schools which have a limited number of scholarships some of the criteria they use has to be subjective. Otherwise the same group of students will be getting the top scholarships at several schools and some very good applicants would be shut out. If scholarship money were deemed unlimited this might work. The University of Alabama is one of a handful of universities which have guaranteed scholarships and that is made possible through the state of Alabama. I doubt that anyone who has been denied a scholarship at Purdue, Ohio State etc. will not have opportunities at other fine schools. To some degree it is ego. I can understand someones disappointment if the school were a top choice, however, (and as I’ve mentioned in a previous post I have been through this) most people who are angry at the outcome are usually upset because they feel it is something deserved. Purdue, Ohio State, UIUC and many others will each have a fine class of students and more will have the opportunity for a great education because a larger group of them will have the opportunity for scholarships.
@qzar18: In ohio state, the scholarship section there never mentions the word “holistic”. It only lists out minimum scores for “consideration”. They also stated that that “Scholarships are not guarenteed”.
I agree some of the disappointment may be ego. But if a student is using Purdue as a safety because we are all told to apply to a couple of safeties and you don’t even get an honors invite or a minimal merit scholarship then it’s not really a safety. Applicants in the top 1% are not even getting an honors invite which doesn’t cost Purdue anything. Why would anyone with a 35 ACT and 4.0 GPA even consider a large public university that is not even ranked in the top 50 if they can’t participate in the honors program. Purdue’s average ACT is 27 with 60% admittance rate, hardly selective. Of course, those students have a lot of better options but what if for some reason they really liked and wanted to go to Purdue.
I didn’t apply here because Purdue did not interest me (not diverse enough) and I only applied to top 40 schools. We usually have about 20 apply from my school and many of the top stats students have been admitted but shut out of merit and honors. And we are from a highly ranked college prep school.
@Adwaya: Directly from the OSU website “At Ohio State, we believe in the fundamental importance of effective writing; strong writing skills are critical to success in college and beyond. We require that all applicants submit ACT and/or SAT scores with writing exam scores. The writing score is used as part of a holistic review when considering admissions applications; writing scores do not factor into criteria for merit scholarships or selection for specific academic programs”. I stand corrected. They use the holistic approach when reviewing applicants not awarding scholarships. I still believe the holistic process is unrealistic when evaluating thousands of applicants for merit consideration. There should be some metric for narrowing down the field. I’m sure Purdue has some metric in place they just don’t define it out on their website. At least at OSU I know what the qualifications were for the scholarships my daughter rec’d.
Remember, though, admittance rates vary among departments…engineering is very highly ranked–top 10 depending on the ranking you’re using, and CS is also a strong propgram–and the applicants to the best programs are going to have higher stats. That is why, IMO, someone with a 35 and 4.0 would be interested in Purdue, or Wisconsin, or Minnesota, or any of the other schools that may not be a “top 40” nationally, but are in the top 20 for things like engineering and computer science. Kids with 35s (like my S) are rejected form Georgia Tech, Illinois, etc., and competition is fierce in the CS world these days at the top 25 CS/Eng schools, so I don’t view it as “settling” in light of the reputation of the program combined with reasonable cost.
And some people who are very STEM oriented really aren’t all that interested in the often humanities/liberal arts based honors programs–my S didn’t apply to some of them because he had zero interest in the curriculum. So attending Purdue for engineering or computer science, even without honors, is not something to be looked down upon as settling or not having “better options.”
I’m sorry, but something about that post seemed a bit condescending or insulting to people who might be looking forward to attending Purdue…maybe you didn’t mean it that way.
My daughter had never really considered OSU until she received the scholarship notification because they do not offer direct entry into the nursing program. The other 7 schools she applied to do and she was accepted into the program at all of them. I contacted OSU to find out what their requirements were and they were very upfront with me. They told me the minimum GPA requirement to apply, how many applicants they had this year, how many spots were available and what the avg GPA was of students who were accepted. I appreciate this kind of transparency because my daughter knows what the risks and requirements are and can consider them when making her final choice.
Purdue is a great school and I congratulate anyone fortunate enough to go there…I hope my daughter is one of them. But I stand by my comments regarding their holistic process. It’s subjective at best and when you’re talking about millions of dollars in scholarships I think the requirements should be more definitive. I have no problem with admission departments using the holistic approach when considering well rounded applicants that don’t have eye popping academic credentials. But in my opinion merit scholarships should be based primarily on academic achievement, just as athletic or music scholarships are.
Because of ABET accreditation requirements, with a few exceptions, engineering curricula is rather standard particularly at major engineering schools. Purdue, Michigan, UIUC, … strive to improve their curricula by addressing the needs and concerns of their constituents periodically. They all are good schools, period.
I had an opportunity to attend a presentation at Purdue College of Engineering recently, there is no doubt in my mind that the college is truly committed to maintaining a positive and effective learning environment for its students. I was even pleasantly surprised by some of the forward-looking ideas they are working on implementing.
The issue of merit scholarship awards (how it is decided) has very little to do with the quality of engineering education at Purdue. As I mentioned in a previous post, I chatted with a number of engineering students during my recent visit, they were all impressive but only one of them was in Honors College. There are many talented and able students at Purdue that are not attached to the Honors Program.
Check your financial status on the mypurdue site, they have started to display the college-specific (so engineering, agriculture, business, etc) scholarships on there :).
Yeah the presidential didn’t show up for me on there, but an engineering scholarship did. I selected the aid year 2016-2017 and then there was a link that said “You have been awarded…”
@VayneMain: Hoping my daughter gets something from the nursing dept. Was your’s substantial? Don’t mean to pry but there is little info on the Purdue website about the number or value of departmen
tal scholarships.
I just went onto the mypurdue portal and saw my financial aid status. The link for the “awarded” break down isn’t working, so does anyone know if the number listed by that includes the scholarships that I’ve been awarded?
Ours did. It also included a Stafford loan int he total–I got kind of excited at first because I thought S received another scholarship but nope, just the loan.