Wow - that’s pretty hardcore, given that some can’t afford to do that. D23’s 18 TE applications are, at minimum a 9h drive and at maximum 21 hour drive (one way). We can afford the trips, but it’s not logistically feasible to hit all of them by the time they make decisions. We’ve visited 9 of them at this point.
Not that I don’t get it - they want to know that someone will come, and visits are skin in the game. I just worry that given the low % chance to get TE at any one school, and hence the need to apply to 10 - 20 of them, this might not be a realistic way to gauge interest (whether the barrier is financial or logistical).
I agree, it’s completely overwhelming. My kid is in the thick of academic competition season - Chess, Math Team, Scholastic Bowl, some weird test competitions. Anytime we schedule something there’s a conflict. Athletics would be the same, I’m sure.
My son did a virtual music audition at Dayton and he received 27,500 merit (renewable x4 yrs). But even with that the COA is still 34k/yr which is more than we are able to spend.
Sadly this is also the case for many set-rate TE schools. Even if you get the TE award, often the COA is still 35 - 45k a year. Given that (I would presume) most people in the TE universe don’t make the kind of salary to make that COA possible, I’ve often wondered why TE doesn’t require a listed school to be full tuition, or at least require the total COA to be under a certain ceiling. CIC (the other TE, like FACHEX) is full tuition only.
Yup. My son has been offered their top merit of $30K for tuition + $1K for books which leaves a total COA of $31K per year. Our state flagship (UIUC) is $32K per year with a stronger program. I am struggling with patience waiting for all the pieces to come together for my son to make a decision. If he got TE at Pitt that is probably the top choice, but that’s like 2% of applicants who receive that.
Thanks for this discussion. As a parent of two 2024 kids I’m following along and it is so challenging to figure out how to visit all these schools - especially since one has higher stats so looking at more competitive schools -which means more. I’m grateful to hear that visiting all is not the norm or always feasible.
I really hate the demonstrated interest game.
A. Many schools are far away from where a student lives
B. Many families cannot afford to travel
C. Some kids have extra-curriculars literally every weekend.
D. Senior year is tough enough with school and apps. Applying and requesting info should indicate interest.
But I guess with kids applying to 20 schools these days they have to try something!
Occidental in LA only gives out a few TE awards and gives preference to those that apply ED. Seems counter-intuitive as most folks applying for TE have a budget they need to honor, right?
Looking at demonstrated interest (DI) doesn’t bother me. DI can include reading emails, visiting the website, attending an online event, asking a question by email, doing the interview, requesting information, attending a local college fair and talking to the rep. All that is fine.
The part I mind is when a school says you must visit in person.
I think I saw that. We didn’t apply to Oxy for other reasons.
Muhlenberg had the ED requirement/preference and then provides your room and board, too. A great deal for any who are interested and who know they want to attend no matter what.
We visited Muhlenberg but ultimately D23 wanted a more urban campus and didn’t apply. Didn’t realized they also offered room and board too with the TE! The issue I have with the ED TE preference is that even if the school is your kiddo’s top choice, you can’t apply ED and be competitive for the TE award unless you are willingly to commit to the cost of the school without the TE discount.
Concerned that by explicitly stating this ED preference, there will be some that will apply ED so they have a better chance at getting the TE and then bail if they don’t get it. Those that follow the rules will be at a disadvantage. IMO—all TE candidates should be evaluated the same, regardless of whether they applied ED/EA/RD.
My 23 also wasn’t interested in Muhlenberg due to similar reasons. I added that to my post partly for next year’s parents who may search this thread for info. Good to know about that option for someone who’s deeply interested.
Your point is solid. To force a family to commit to ED when seeking to use a TE benefit doesn’t make a lot of sense for the family. That’s a very school-focused requirement.
Overall, I’m disappointed with the fact TE is handled differently at different schools. You have to become an “expert” to research what’s going on, and the coordinating organization could certainly require a few things like a school of X size must offer Y TE spots.
How does TE work? My wife’s school has historically only given tuition waivers for its own F&S. More than twenty years ago it was involved in TE but said too many chose its school and not enough of its F&S went elsewhere.
It’s a reciprocal exchange. So, if School X averages 4 TE a year to incoming students they have to maintain a “balance” of sending 4 kids of their own F&S to other schools in the TE universe. Once one of the two (input/output) is out of balance, it causes problems for the school. So, if School X takes a lot of inputs but no one at School X uses TE to go to other schools, School X may well just stop offering it, since it means they are handing out scholarships but there’s no actual reciprocal usage by their own F&S. If School X has lots of outputs, but no inputs, that causes a different problem, and may mean they have to offer fewer outbound scholarships. In addition, obviously, TE is competitive, and goes to the best students, given the number of awards offered.
I tried to get D23 to consider Muhlenberg, given how good a school it was and given that it was full tuition + room/board, but she refused to do ED, which was required obviously.
I agree with you about the complaint regarding the complexity. I’ve spent untold hours building a excel spreadsheet on all this TE stuff (hence my name on CC), and even after doing all of that, I’ve been massively disappointed with the amount of data and information available at individual schools on TE. It’s really bad. 95% have no data on the number they give out yearly, the number of apps they get, what types of stats in the past accepted TE offers have gone to, whether they give them out for EA or ED or wait for RD, and so on. If each school published its own information, parents would make far better decisions about how to go about this and not waste their time.
Example: when I learned that Conn College gave out 1 - sometimes 2 - TE a year, I crossed them off the list as a waste of time. But if you look at their % on TE it says “lower that 10%” which is true, but I’d guess it’s more like 1% than 10%. And their 75% for ACT begins at 33, but I’d guess if you don’t have a 35 or 36 you are wasting your time applying for it.
Don’t get me wrong, some schools give decent info on these questions, but they are really rare. Most give out nothing at all. It’s maddening from the parent end of things, and really does result in 20 applications that are shooting in the dark (on some level).
Dayton page on TE site says initial offers go out in December and with final decisions in early February. Site also says financial need based on the FAFSA will come into play. At this stage of the game, I am assuming that Dayton won’t be offering TE to my son. He did visit over the summer but won’t be visiting in February.
Hopefully someone on this thread gets one of the 9-12 they award.