<p>Dogs, I showed this thread to some friends. Everyone wants to know what your deal is. How old are your kids, where do they go to school and where do they want to go to college?</p>
<p>I don't agree with either of you, taking over this thread and arguing, but I have something to put in.</p>
<p>"I showed this thread to some friends. Everyone wants to know what your deal is."</p>
<p>Who are these people that Dogs is supposed to care about thinking he/she is has a problem? How do we even know they did say that? It's pointless to bring other people's opinions into an argument between the two of you. The lamest argument tactic is the whole "Everyone thinks you're stupid" method.</p>
<p>If you want to put up a worthwhile argument, think of it on your own, I'm sure others on this board agree that it is not that convincing that all of your anonymous friends think Dogs is weird.</p>
<p>Again I will say I'm not taking sides, I think you are both wrong. I just caught that problem.</p>
<p>Thanks TexasMath, thats why I did not answer the last couple of posts to me. I regret my immaturity for getting into that...mea culpa.</p>
<p>No one thinks Dogs has a problem, my classmates are interested in understanding where his perceptions of us and of of elite colleges come from. After 3 years here, we believe understanding comes from really listening to the views of others. Why would you assume we thought there was something wrong with his views because mine are different?</p>
<p>You know there is really something strange about this site. It's as though healthy debate and controversy is not a good thing. They shut down threads about AA and other controversial topics. How will any of us grow if we don't hear differesnt opinions?</p>
<p>And frankly Dogs, did you just stop being able to support your accusations?</p>
<p>mama - I sent you a PM.</p>
<p>"You know there is really something strange about this site. It's as though healthy debate and controversy is not a good thing. They shut down threads about AA and other controversial topics. How will any of us grow if we don't hear differesnt opinions?"</p>
<p>The problem with threads about AA is not that they are shut down, but that they are so boringly redundant and silly. Do you want to read a few? Just type discrimination in the search engine of the old boards, and you will find plenty of them, especially the anecdotal, baseless, and mostly asinine asian discrimination threads that have been completely debunked. </p>
<p>If people have a problem with discrimination or possible AA abuses, they need to seek remedy via advocacy and political action. Obviously, that requires more effort, unselfishness, and dedication than the most vocal groups of "victims" are capable to muster.</p>
<p>True, Xiggi.</p>
<p>I do have to agree with Suze. Dogs came out with a lot of stereotypical assumptions and doesn't see to have anything constructive to say when Suze presented him with her facts.</p>
<p>Texasmathwhiz, as another poster pointed out, this actually had become a great thread. Far more interesting than most because a lively and intelligent debate was taking place!</p>
<p>Am not sure about all the programs, but check out American.</p>
<p>I think for some people selectivity may be important, but people like my kid needs financial aid to go to a college. With $$$$$ hopefully they will not even think about going to a prestigious school. However if I have the $$$$$ to spend then it may be entirely different thing and my kid would choose elite schools. </p>
<p>If fin aid difference is say maybe $20000 in four years, may be we will be okay but if the difference is $100,000 hmmmmm why not go to place which offers more money.</p>
<p>I think it is a very personal family decision when one has to spend $$$$$ for any educational aspects. As a parent we are responsible to make decision based on $$$$$ and other aspects. I am sure most families make decisions based on their personal circumstances.</p>
<p>Suze, you go girl! You are articulate and make your points incredibly well. Hard to tell who the adult is on this thread. If you speak for Andover, I'm interested. Would you talk to my daughter who is thinking of applying? You're going places Suze!</p>
<p>Suze, for what it's worth, I agree with Dogs. I didn't post in reply to one of your earlier comments because there was no way I could say what I was feeling without sounding very harsh. Your posts make me very glad my kids both went to public high schools. </p>
<p>I am glad for you that you like your school, but very glad that my own children do not feel the need to for academic/intellectual segregation in their lives. I am grateful for the diverse group of friends they have -- including the friends that have other interests than academics, or may struggle in school. Their lives are richer for it.</p>
<p>I'm not here to argue with you -- just pointing out that Dogs is not the only one who felt your posts came across as elitist and somewhat offensive.</p>
<p>"... By "we" I am expressing conventional wisdom at my school. "We" believe schools are serving themselves, not students, by awarding money based on grades and scores rather than financial need. We are an extremely liberal student body who believe that equality will be served better through need based aid. Don't be fooled, these school pay high scorers to ratchet up their numbers for US News so that they will attract qualified full payers!! Then they can stop awarding merit aid!!! This is not some benevolent philosophy." - Suze</p>
<p>I too have had some negative feelings about schools that "troll" for high scorers just to up their rankings. However, I am a firm supporter of merit aid that is given out in a more holistic way. Your comment that "equality will be served better through need based aid" is not the solution, because it basically leaves the middle class high and dry. Those who truly have need can usually get finaid. Those who are truly affluent can afford $40,000+ a year. It is those in the middle who end up remortgaging the house or going into serious debt. Some families can't or won't do that, and thus they seek a school offering merit money. </p>
<p>I also don't agree that schools that now offer merit money will suddenly stop doing so once they achieve some ranking in USNWR. Much of the money used for merit offers comes from restricted funds - in which the donor stipulates that the funds or interest from an endowment are to be used in certain ways. Do you have any evidence or data to support that comment?</p>
<p>Kirmom, thanks and I'd be happy to. Just have her PM me. </p>
<p>Calmom, if lucky, we all have a choice as to where and how we want to be educated, why you would find my choice "offensive" baffles me. There is a great deal of diversity at my school, the only thing we do share on the whole is high academic ability. That introduces a new dynamic to our learning that some of us love. Everyone here does not love this, however, and some choose colleges where there is more of a mix and less competition. We all respect each other's choices. Offensive?</p>
<p>April, no, itjust makes sense to me. As schools go up in rank, they seem to want to act more like ivies and compete directly with them. That's why it makes sense to me that they would use their funds more like ivies do when they don't need to use them to up their numbers.</p>
<p>I also wonder if the problem for middle class kids is best served with merit money rather than changing the aid system long term. I think the goal should be that they have the same ability to choose their schools as the wealthy and the poor.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>I also wonder if the problem for middle class kids is best served with merit money rather than changing the aid system long term. I think the goal should be that they have the same ability to choose their schools as the wealthy and the poor.>></p> </blockquote>
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<p>There are two separate but intertwined issues involved here. The first is how to pay for higher education, especially when the family has a middle class income. I agree with Suze that it would be desirable to have a financial aid system that made it more affordable not only for poor families but also for middle class families.<br>
The second is the appropriateness of merit aid. It is used by universities to raise the overall quality of the student body. Is that a bad thing? I have been of the opinion that students learn as much from one another as they do from profs.<br>
When I went to college, BU was a joke of a school. It shrank its student body, made very generous financial aid offers to students it wished to attract, hired some high profile faculty. It is now a very respectable university with many strengths and a much more highly qualified student body than it had 30 years ago. The question one could discuss is whether it and other schools wishing to raise their standards would have been able to achieve this without aggressive use of merit money.</p>
<p>I agree with Calmom in her last post. I had a friend who lived in the wealthy side of town and went to an elite private school, and he was around a load of kids wealthier than him and didn't stand out at all, and he only saw one type: rich, white, and over achieving. I went to a semi-elite, some call it elite public school. I knew some very smart people there who were going great places, I knew people who would be going to state schools, I knew people who were failing out. I was a transfer and I had a great friend there that was also a transfer. The kid was a genius, seriously, but his home life was not good and he was failing out of school and his transfer was terminated.</p>
<p>I feel that I really got to experience high school, and I saw a great many of the types of people I will encounter in my later life. Send a kid to Andover, or any other elite or semi-elite private school, and you are lowering his people vision to 20/1E100.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>I also wonder if the problem for middle class kids is best served with merit money rather than changing the aid system long term. I think the goal should be that they have the same ability to choose their schools as the wealthy and the poor.>></p> </blockquote>
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<p>The only people who have close to the complete ability to choose their colleges are billionaire's kids who meet the minimum qualifications for all colleges in the country. I doubt that Deep Springs would automatically take them, but their chances would be close to 100% at any other college.</p>
<p>It's a complete fallacy that poor people get to choose their own colleges. The poor have far fewer choices than do middle class families.</p>
<p>First, most colleges do not guarantee to meet 100% of demonstrated financial need. The colleges that do this are some of the most difficult in the country to get into -- places like HPYS, Amherst. A smaller proportion of poor students would qualify for such colleges because the quality of high school that most poor kids go to is inadequate to prepare them for rigorous colleges. As a result, they not only lack AP/IB and similar courses, they also have very low board scores. In general, high board scores are linked to SES and to the academic rigor of students' high schools.</p>
<p>In addition, even if poor kids are lucky enough to be able to get into colleges guaranteeing 100% of demonstrated financial need, they are likely to have need that is above that which the college calculates. For instance, they may have to work -- and give some of their earnings to support their parents and siblings. The things that middle class students take for granted -- parents able to take time off from work to drive them to college, grandparents who give them cash presents, parents who are able to buy bedding and other things for their dorm rooms -- are not things that poor students have.</p>
<p>In addition, there are many colleges that are "need sensitive" when it comes to admission. Thus, highly qualified poor kids may be rejected from colleges simply because of the amount of aid that they need. Meanwhile, less qualified middle and upper class students will get acceptances.</p>
<p>Interesting that while we see people posting on CC boards complaining about favoritism and biases in admission, I have never seen anyone posting about how less qualified middle/upper class students may gain admission over highly qualified students who are poor.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, I believe that a disproportionate number of poor students have only the option of their local community colleges -- even if their stats would allow them to go to a 4-year college. I doubt that this is the kind of "choice" that middle class people wish that their own children had.</p>
<p>Before people spout off at the so-called college opportunities that poor students have, I suggest that they talk to some poor students. Afterward, I think that the posters would be counting their blessings about being middle class.</p>
<p>When I taught at a third tier public university, I knew poor students who were working 30 hours a week plus taking a full load and carrying major loans. I also knew students who were earning money by selling their blood. I knew students who had been raised by their elderly, sick grandparents because their dads were nonexistant and their moms were addicts.</p>
<p>The students who had the lavish merit aid were virtually all middle and upper class. Their parents were doctors, executives, lawyers, and the students had had the benefit of excellent public and private high schools.</p>
<p>Need-based financial aid was limited, and the poor students were truly struggling. Most were gapped big time. The college's costs -- which were low by national standards -- were very burdensome to them.</p>
<p>I agree with Northstarmom
We aren't poor- we are probably lower middle in terms of before tax pay- but just a couple months paychecks away from free/reduced lunch.
We can only afford the EFC because 1# we are willing to take out a loan and defer paying into retirement accounts ( something that in hindsight I wish we hadn't started)
and because my daughter is willing and able to work her butt off summers and during the school year as well as take out maximum subsidized loans in addition to earning education vouchers before she even began college.
She got into a school which supposedly meets their version of 100% need ( although others on these boards have had different experience)
because she had the benefit of private schooling which helped her succeed despite her learning disabilties.
Learning disabilities are not unusual especially with kids who might have been born at risk- exposed to lead- poor nutrition etc.
They are still capable of college in many cases- but may also need extra support to get there.
I advise students of poor families about college- and while many of them are very bright- they may not have had all their ducks in a row to be able to be admitted to 100% need schools. Many have applied to schools that gap- and that is severely limiting their ability to continue education. As a result- they are making the choice to attend CC for two years and then transfer, something I wish they didn't have to do- because I think of any students- these students could really benefit from an on-campus experience</p>
<p>Suze, I don't find your choice offensive. I find your attitude toward other, non-elite schools and students who choose to go there offensive. I also find your viewpoint about merit aid and financial aid very naive.</p>
<p>Calmom, I find it extremely offensive that you would tell a child that has chosen a school with high achieving students that there is something bad or elitist about this choice. You are insulting every child who chooses a top 20 college. </p>
<p>In no post did I see this poster put down the choice of kids who don't choose such a school. If I remember your story correctly, you had the son who left a top LAC because of the awful "rich kids," so I do understand where your bias and anger are coming from.</p>
<p>Calmon, I'm with you. I think Suze proves Dog's point by acting so superior. When one apologizes, a gracious person wouldn't answer with a put down like "Frankly, ....". Dog's gave many compliments to Suze in addition to challenging her to consider opening her mind up a little to different perspectives and possibilities. Look at the title of the thread!!!! I disagree with the poster calling Suze's comments "facts". They are opinions like everyone elses on this board. </p>
<p>I hope the High Schoolers who aren't even at the application age would have more urgent things to be doing with their time than spending hours on boards for middle age parents. </p>
<p>Certain types of students sit around debating about "real life" circumstances they'll never encounter. Privilage is a " right or immunity granted as a benefit, advantage, or favor". Those who are privilaged, often based on circumstance of birth, want to hold on tight to their power. They need to defend their "right" to superiority by ensuring that the vestiges of their lifestyle continue to be seen as the pinnacle of success. Life will come full circle for me when a person who attends a name "brand" school shows compassion not contemptment to those who did or could not.</p>