<p>Perhaps your school could have an additional ceremony, where each child marches up, states the parents’ salaries, bonuses, benefits, and assets, and then marches off.</p>
<p>Lots of kids don’t get “awards” when their parents earn and/or have too much money.</p>
<p>Such a ceremony might be embarrassing, low-class, and violate confidentiality, eh?</p>
<p>I’ll be going to my third kid’s senior events in the next month. I’ve learned through my other two not to expect much. Certain “townie” names will come up over and over again for scholarships and awards even though they are not top students or athletes, but they are connected in the town. I’m not bitter and I’ve learned not to care at all. My son’s going to Harvard in the fall.</p>
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<p>I hope the 50% was a typo.</p>
<p>Our public school lists all the scholarships in the graduation program, minus the amount. The school will list the total amount for the graduating class. There are always several students with nothing listed next to their name, and they are usually the oldest in the family, who didn’t know the ramifications of not turning in the scholarship info. It’s ridiculous, but most of us play along.</p>
<p>We do the same sort of thing at our school. Only students receiving awards attend. They get an invitation in the mail. </p>
<p>The difference in ours is this:</p>
<p>There is a package of LOCAL scholarships. These are the recipients that come across the stage to receive recognition and shake the hand of the benefactor. Also included, and really the biggest ones are scholarships offered by branches of the military. Also included (as groups) cords for top 10, val & sal, cords for top 10%, cords for community service, cords for various honor societies, cords for kids who graduate with over 30 college hours, etc.</p>
<p>At the end, students who received University Scholarships are called up (as a group) and their name and award and college are called out one by one - but they come up together and stand in one group, and just wave when their name is called.</p>
<p>We used to do the 3 hour thing. I think this cut it in about half.</p>
<p>Our kids are encourage to only cite those scholarships they intend to accept.</p>
<p>OP, so now you know: bring a cushion and something to read. 
You might also want to encourage your younger children to make up interesting sounding scholarships they “received”. </p>
<p>D2 goes to a teeny high school, so her graduation ceremony next year will be short and sweet (and also well-catered!). D1 attended a public magnet housed at a large high school, so the ceremony went onandonandon. We’d brought something to read, but that didn’t help when one teacher started screaming the names of each graduate into the microphone, which then blasted out of the sound system. Just to make it more special, she read each graduate’s full name–many, if not most of the kids on her list had two middle names. And then she followed each and every student’s name with a shriek of congratulations. It was excruciating. I’d rather take the two hour listing of scholarships, myself. :)</p>
<p>I hope the 50% was a typo. </p>
<p>Sadly, no.</p>
<p>“You are more than likely suffering from PHSBSS. Post High School BS Syndrome.” </p>
<p>I love this!!!</p>
<p>I have seen some funny announcements: Student A is awarded $15,000 by college X, $20,000 by college Y, $30,000 by college Z. And A will attend college U in the fall.</p>
<p>If someone were to march up to say, “I have been offered 15,000 scholarship from Harvard,” would it be disclosing of one’s income? Could one conclude that people with higher scholarship $$ means they have less household income? I have often heard even merit aid is based on need sometimes.</p>
<p>“A three hour ceremony? You are more than likely suffering from PHSBSS. Post High School BS Syndrome.”</p>
<p>Well put! I love it. I’m grateful that I didn’t have to sit through it.</p>
<p>“If someone were to march up to say, “I have been offered 15,000 scholarship from Harvard,” would it be disclosing of one’s income?”</p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p>One of the problems with these ceremonies is that most high schools equate financial aid with scholarships. If two kids got into Princeton, one could say he got $40,000 scholarship if that’s what his family got in financial aid. The second kid whose family is full pay will have “no scholarship.” Listing all the financial aid received as scholarships is disingenuous. High school awards ceremonies are just one of those things you have to get through.</p>
<p>What prefect said. My daughter got a 20000grant. Purely financial. But heck let’s call it an award.</p>
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<p>Not always. There are many special circumstances that Harvard will work with even if you are over the upper limit of the financial aid parameter. They are very generous.</p>
<p>But Harvard does not offer any merit scholarships, so anybody who announces that they got a scholarship from there is announcing that they demonstrated financial need under Harvard’s formula (which, as Viewer indicates, is quite generous).</p>
<p>Remember when awards banquets were just the kids who participated?</p>
<p>Sometimes the parents came, too?</p>
<p>So, if you had a football award banquet, it was football, and the math team had theirs, and nobody had to go and sit through anybody else’s kids banquet? Our parents were much smarter about some things, imho.</p>
<p>If somebody had told my dad he had to go watch other kids get awards, he would have laughed at them.</p>
<p>^^My dad would never have gone. My mother used to have to drag him kicking and whining to graduations and any other “event.” At our school it’s just the seniors and just the seniors receiving awards and it is a night function. They do run down the laundry list of kids who received merit scholarships, but only if the kids report them. They also announce the senior scholars which are not calculated until the last week of school so that is always interesting. My first did not self report so he received a local scholarship and was up and down short and sweet. My second listed every scholarship from every school he applied and it was a tad embarassing (for me) although one or two of the colleges sent ‘award certificates’ to the high school and he was given those that night. I haven’t asked “three” what he did, but then we haven’t received the invite to the event yet :-)</p>
<p>We have separate awards banquets for extra-curriculars, and not for just seniors. They usually consist of patches for letterman jackets, certificates, medals, etc. But the one I think being referenced here is for scholarships and chords and graduation honor type things, and at most schools you’re not invited unless you’re getting an award.</p>
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<p>Yes, you may be disclosing that you had a financial need, but even stating a scholarship amount does not hint at your income.</p>
<p>glent95, our school does the same thing. Only difference is that they only announce scholarships that the kid intends to accept. Still, I found myself feeling the same way you did. Standing ovation for the kid who got $50,000 in merit money to East Southwestern U’s Boondock campus, but not a word about the kid who’s going to MIT. Think I’ll just leave my grownup card home next year.</p>
<p>Our community also makes a humongous deal over athletic scholarships. The local paper prints a special full color section highlighting all the future college athletes. Val and Sal get a one-line blurb next to the obituaries.</p>