<p>Like everyone on this website-- you want to know who's getting in where & if they were lucky enough to receive scholarship (merit) $.</p>
<p>I have it figured out how to ask about acceptances ("Has Johnny heard any happy news regarding colleges?") . People can say as little or as much as they want.</p>
<p>But regarding merit money-- I think that it huge news and I am surprised at how few parents reveal that their S or D received $ offers.</p>
<p>I know kids who are going to colleges where they rec'd big money & it's their big secret- they won't tell you about it. Are they embarassed that they are taking the scholarship vs. attending another school at a full price?</p>
<p>Is there any good way to ask or any good way to share that information w/out sounding like a braggart. I am always so price conconcious--I always say thanks, I got it at TJ MAX, Costco, etc... Maybe the unwillingness to share this info is just a phenomon of living in a high socio economics area?...</p>
<p>Do your bragging on CC … not in real life. If your school is like many, they will ask you to keep them updated on scholarship offers & you will tell them how much your child was awarded. </p>
<p>If people ASK, you can offer the award amounts. If they don’t ask, you can say something like, “They offered great merit aid” as a point of information (or even, “The merit offer wasn’t enough to seriously consider them” if you must). To list the amount is a bit “gauche,” IMO.</p>
<p>One of S’s friends went to HYP. A mutual friend mentioned how great it was he got full merit aid. I kept quiet, as all us CC’ers know it was financial aid, not merit</p>
<p>“I have it figured out how to ask about acceptances (“Has Johnny heard any happy news regarding colleges?”) . People can say as little or as much as they want.”</p>
<p>Please don’t. If Johnny applied ED and just got turned down by his first choice school, or got admitted with financial aid that simply doesn’t work, that’s a bummer that probably still stings pretty badly, and it is quite likely that Johnny just spent a good chunk of winter break getting other applications finalized. </p>
<p>Saying something like, “I’ll be really glad when May rolls around and we’re all done with this college admissions stress,” would, IMO, be a lot kinder. Then if someone wants to share wonderful news, they can, and otherwise, they’re able to just heartily agree without sharing details.</p>
<p>Lots of families are just starting to get unpleasantly surprised on the Financial Aid front, so I wouldn’t bring up big merit awards either. </p>
<p>These next months are ones where great kindness is needed, and the fewer direct questions, the better.</p>
<p>I never ask seniors about college plans or acceptances. They are stressed enough, and I don’t want to draw attention to it. Now, parents and my nosier friends – I’ll ask them the dirt on who is in where!</p>
<p>On money, I can’t possibly think of a gracious way to inquire about it. I never mind people asking me about ds’s offers, but I’m not easily offended. However, not everyone is as thick-skinned as I am so I would never think to ask someone else about their offers. And I have had to correct my very proud BIL, who tells everyone my ds is “on a full ride” at a top LAC that, in fact, offers very little merit money (to me “full ride” has a connotation of totally free thanks to merit aid). I always say, “Between merit and financial aid, the school is quite doable for us.”</p>
I don’t think there’s any good way to ask for what is essentially personal information. I understand the curiosity, if you’re trying to accumulate real-life info that may be helpful in your own child’s college search (“Susie got merit aid at a school she really likes and their stats are similar” kind of thing). But many folks who would share that info on CC don’t want to, and certainly aren’t obligated to, share it in person.</p>
<p>If your intention is to share information in the spirit of helping other applicants along, or to celebrate your child’s good fortune with friends, I don’t see anything wrong with telling others about your kid’s success with admissions and scholarships. If the intention is to put other noses out of joint or settle some old scores, as often happens (not saying that’s you, livesinnewjersey!) - well, that’s just bragging, no matter how it’s said. And even when sharing with friends, it’s important to be sensitive to what’s happening at their houses. As arabrab so wisely said:
<p>Asking about the financial situation is little different than walking up to someone and asking what their salary is which most of us wouldn’t do. Many financial awards are tied directly to the financial situation of the family and people might infer the situation from the award - i.e. a big award may equate to a low family financial situation or vice versa. </p>
<p>Whether someone chooses to spend a large part of their income/savings on the kid’s college education or not is a decision for the family to make and they may prefer to not share the info in order not to be judged by the person querying them so asking about the ‘full-ride’, ‘half-fare’, etc. is something that many people will consider personal. Just take a look at some of the threads on CC where people are judged by other posters one way or the other depending on how much they’re willing to pay or go into debt to send the kid to a particular college. It’s one thing to discuss the info on a mostly anonymous forum like CC but quite a different thing to ask an acquaintance face to face.</p>
<p>Probably more than half the people who ask about such things really do it just as an opening for themselves to discuss their own situation and brag (er…discuss) the acceptances/scholarships they received.</p>
<p>If it happens to flow freely from the person then it can be interesting and sometimes useful info but as ‘youdon’tsay’ says, there’s not a gracious way to inquire about it and really none of the inquirer’s business anyway.</p>
<p>emilybee - is that info anonymous, or posted with student/parent permission, perhaps? It seems like an awful lot of personal information to put forth. I can understand an anonymous listing, which would be of interest to next year’s seniors and their parents. But to specify where an individual kid was accepted and whether a scholarship was offered - I know my kids wouldn’t have wanted that (nor would I).</p>
<p>Our hs paper publishes a senior issue every May, and the kids themselves choose what info to include about their future plans. They’ll only specify the college they expect to attend, and won’t usually include scholarship info. The only way to see what schools have accepted students is to check Naviance, which is anonymous and doesn’t include info about scholarships; and wouldn’t show a student’s complete results. Not sure why anyone actually needs to know that, anyway …</p>
<p>On S1’s senior awards night, there was a program that listed students who received merit scholarships from schools they had applied to but did not show a $ amt.</p>
<p>I honestly don’t think you have a good way of asking about acceptances. Unfortunately there is no way to know if the news has been happy and if it’s not…you have placed the other person in a might awkward position.</p>
<p>Re: merit aid…to be honest, why is it important for you to know someone else’s merit aid offers? Our kids got merit aid at schools and we didn’t tell anyone about them at all. It was really not important and quite frankly…it was none of anyone’s business. There is no nice way to inquire about money or state your own kid’s awards without sounding like you are bragging.</p>
<p>As other have said…do it here. We’ll all celebrate your successes. Don’t put your RL friends in the position of having to have an awkward conversation with you about college acceptance (or not ) and merit awards (or not).</p>
<p>I can understand the curiosity. It is part of that data collection process that helps us benchmark our kids’ prospects for merit aid. But unless you know everything about the other parent’s child (SAT scores, GPA, class rank, major extracurricular accomplishments, likelihood of having written compelling essays and collected glowing letters of recommendation), knowing that this child has been awarded a merit scholarship of $X isn’t really going to add to the data. </p>
<p>The best source of that information I’ve found is the anonymous postings right here on College Confidential. People are very generous about sharing their personal information in away that actually has made it possible for me to guess whether my kid is or isn’t a candidate for merit aid at various schools.</p>
<p>The other thing…inquiring about financial doesn’t always yield you the info you might hope. My favorite was “Wellesley GAVE our child $10,000”. Ahem…I guess the parent who told me this didn’t know that <em>I</em> knew that Wellesley has need based aid only. She made is sound like a merit award. I don’t think she intended for me (or anyone else) to know that her child qualified for need based aid.</p>
<p>Yup- there’s really no good way about it… through CC & having friends w/ older kids I was pretty familiar w/ what schools offer merit $ & that was a big consideration in selecting schools. Whether one was are denied/accepted/ or awarded merit I always appreciated the info. I like how Kelsmom sugesstion “they offered great (or for that matter none) merit money”</p>
<p>Just as DeskPotato says It is part of that data collection process that helps us benchmark our kids’ prospects for merit aid. </p>
<p>Since we’re in the middle of our own process for #2 I’m going silent until next years crop of friends are looking to discuss.</p>
<p>Most people in my circles are completely unaware of CC. So while CC is great info; what’s going on in your own HS & zip code can be very different than other CC posters expereinces. I.e.; what college really wants another kid from NJ?!! People groan when I say I am from NJ… really… :)</p>
<p>I would never ask about the financial aspect. I always just ask if they know what they will be doing next year. Then they can share as little or as much as they wish or just say they don’t know yet.</p>
<p>I live in Hooterville where no one has heard of cc, and I’m betting 5% of the people know the difference between need based and merit aid. I used to choke a little when parents in S1 crowd would brag about the great full-ride “scholarship”, knowing full well the top merit scholarship was $10,000, out of a $40,000 COA. Full-ride to them is also identical to full-tuition. The gc never mentions Profile…etc.</p>
<p>On child 3 now and accepted above. I would never ask about financial aspect, and ask only about sr’s “plans for next year”. S2 was not a scholar and I understand it’s much harder for some kids than others. I am geniunely happy for kid/parent if they are thinking about future and making some plans.</p>
<p>Our school’s honor awards in May make a big deal of presenting all the scholarships individually and announcing amount. I like that because it does help one plan for future kids–as in a $200 scholarship with a 5 page ap and 2 essays is not worth it.</p>
<p>It’s none of your damn business and I’m surprised you would think that a) it’s your place to ask and b) they owe you an accounting or an explanation. That’s why these online forums are so good for people who want to learn about financial aid / merit aid options - it’s anonymous.</p>
People groan when I say I am from NJ… really… :)</p>