“Schools don’t give money to benefit students”
The students benefit from not having to pay a ton of money for a quality education.
Let’s do the same exercise with yield. UTD’s yield for last year was:
3751/10576 = 35%
Now we now from CC that there are NMS who applied to UTD but decided to go to a different school. But let’s make that number unreasonably small. Say a quarter of the number who decided to attend UTD. (Honestly, I think it’s probably bigger than 172 – a lot of NMS had it as a financial safety.)
So excluding all the NMS, the yield is now:
3579/10361 = 35%
It is smaller, but you can only see it if you round to more significant digits than whole numbers. And in that case, who cares?
Honestly, from the college’s POV, it only makes sense to hand out these scholarships if they’re getting large secondary impacts from having this caliber of student on their campus. Otherwise, it’s way too much money to marginally raise – if at all – their graduation rate and their yield and similar data. If all you want to do is game the numbers, giving lots of money to NMS isn’t an effective strategy.
@Riversider what is a “top college” in your opinion?
@mdpmdp They give money for SAT/ACT as well so money plays a significant role there.
@riversider Interesting that you are projecting your desire/need for prestige to so many others. The obsession with rankings and prestige is soul sucking. Comparison is the thief of joy. Believe it or not there are many people who look for fit not just a name meant to impress and confer status.
I can’t speak for 90% of these kids but I can speak for those that I know personally. Those that I know are smart, confident, mature, and completely comfortable in their own abilities that they don’t need prestige to hide behind or prop themselves up. They do stand on their own merits and don’t need the name of a school to validate their excellence or their worth. They are not merely tolerating their schools, they are taking full advantage and soaring. They chose what worked best for them and they are in great company of others who did the same. They are living and loving, not simply tolerating. Those that aren’t are free to move on with one or two years of classes free of charge on their transcripts.
It is not that “lower schools can not attract high achievers on their own without merit money”, it is just so hard to get the word out and be noticed among all the noise of prestige. The clamoring for outside validation that one is “the best and better than all others” is so intense and it creates such a racket that it crowds out all other paths. It is not that those schools can’t attract on their own, it is that they are drown out by an ocean of equally fabulous choices. The money differentiates them. Money talks and is often able to cut through that other noise to at least put schools on the radar. It is spending their marketing budget in a different way.
You can’t pretend that top schools aren’t playing the same game to some extent. Top 20s have huge marketing budgets and are stuffing our mailboxes with advertisements and throwing all sorts of money at underrepresented low socioeconomic students in the form of need aid. Have you seen the size of the “Yale Book” that arrived in all of our homes? (I now have multiples) Is anyone implying that Yale can not attract high achievers on their own with throwing away that money? Of course, it is their money, their mission, and their decision how to use it. If the school doesn’t fit your needs, move on. But to imply that schools that market differently are somehow not as worthy is a false narrative. When the curtain is pulled back and people look objectively, that prestige is not always all that was sold. When data is provided of the sheer number of top achievers at schools outside of that prestigious circle it destroys the narrative so many like to spin. Seems like some who paid for the prestige or who bought the narrative in other ways must now find fault the different paths to success to justify their own costly choices.
For USoCal, NMFs who are accepted and chose USC as 1st choice before 5/1 May also receive some additional awards from the particular college they attend, like engineering, business, etc. It’s far from a full-ride (tho some are interviewed for a full tuition award), but it helps for students who want a discount on a quality education and are interested in attending that U.
There is more to good schools than prestige but you do you and pick what suits you. My opinion is not a martial law order. Ignore it.
Except that you haven’t really given anything that resembles a complete opinion. You don’t like schools that offer generous NMF scholarships. That I get. But your reasoning as to why has never been clear. That was never more obvious than your positing that 90% of NMF scholars are sad pandas that wish they were elsewhere. Someone asked what your opinion of a good school was but you didn’t answer. I would guess a highly ranked, prestigious school. And you’re more than welcome to prefer those. No one is dissing the big name schools. So why dismiss that students who choose to go the big money route? Is your opinion that only those with degrees from prestigious schools can succeed? That seems to ignore the actual outcome of many scholarship kids. I could go on and on about the successes of students from my son’s school, but it seems to me that you really don’t care about them because it doesn’t fit your narrative.
I would think if you’re all about the big names for your own, you’d be thrilled by the high stats kids willing to chase merit money.
So I guess I’m just genuinely baffled as to why you are so bothered by these kinds of programs since clearly they are not something you are interested in pursuing.
My kid is a happy, thriving scholarship kid. That other kids thrive at prestigious schools has absolutely 0% bearing on his life. So why does my kid’s success bother you?
What? Why are you taking it personally?
@Riversider why don’t you ever answer direct questions asked of you?
Internet and books are saturated with these topics, repetitive lengthy arguments on CC are not going to change minds in defensive denial mode. Learn to let go, obsessional follow up of a topic is not healthy.