<p>If "hot" is supposed to mean there is a high value on international studies, then that is a positive thing. However, the word "hot" has many other conotations for most people and I think a more accurate word(s) should be used. When I see "hot" I do not think of international studies.</p>
<p>It was Newsweek magazine that called Richmond "hot" for international studies in its "Hottest colleges" edition. The University would never use that lingo of its own choice but when we quote Newsweek, that's all we can do is use their language. I agree that it is kind of strange but you have to remember that their objective is to sell magazines, which this feature does.</p>
<p>Otis, my school days are long over. Yes, I do have a daughter at W&M but sons are UVA graduates. Nephew and granddaughter currently at Va Tech. AND my youngest is looking into UofR. Not quite sure why your negative comment.</p>
<p>Fantastic attribute for the university with international studies.</p>
<p>I am now more tolerant of the "hot" term used by Newsweek and understand why schools have had to pass the language on as the magazine states it. My daughter is warming up to the idea of attending UR, and I am already excited and proud for her to experience the international studies.</p>
<p>If Ayers is truly serious about de-emphasizing the USNWR rankings, and I think he is, he should follow the lead of Bill Durden at Dickinson and refuse to use the rankings to market the school. I challenge anyone to explain to me what makes Richmond "better" than Dickinson but Holy Cross and Trinity "better" than Richmond. Until more college presidents follow the lead of those on the Education Conservancy we will continue to have blogs devoted to questions about why schools go up or down in the rankings.</p>
<p>Whistlepig says>>And I believe his major concern will need to be figuring out how to spin UR's failure to invest in her student bodies accessability to the U. i.e. how and why should a #40 ranked institution have a monumental (and growing) endowment like it does while concurrently having one of the highest tuition costs in the nation while at the same time providing only meaningful scholarships to a select 50 or so. For more on this, one should read the article in yesterday's NY Times about misuse or failure to reveal any use of endowments ... and UR is the ultimate case, it appears.</p>
<p>I honestly believe that Ayers legacy will be closely tied to this critical issue. For it's outcome will be that the very wealthy and a few very poor will be able to attend UR, but very few of the middle class including even those who are strong students.<<</p>
<p>Very well said. As a dad of a daughter who I hope will choose to attend UR in the next day or two, I hope that the generous money that is offered to her for her freshman year will be similar each succeeding year. The admission rate for women at UR ran, what, about 20% this year? I would hope that some of the 1.6 billion endowment could help my daughter and any other bright young lady or man who wants to help UR grow. </p>
<p>I wonder if UR Admissions has thoughts on this?</p>
<p>Can't agree with Shecallsmedad any more</p>
<p>What's really sad about this magnificent Mt. Everestian endowment- astronomical tuition among the highest in the world- monumentally pathetic FA scenario for all but the destitute or Rhodes Scholar potentials ... is those who are ultimately responsible are mute. Where are the TRUSTEES to whom this publicly owned entity has literally been entrusted? Seemingly unconcerned about the course ...</p>
<p>FLVADAD has said it correctly. MANY seem to manifest this vitual lack of accountability. Still, UR has the unfortunate distinction of heading this pathetic class.</p>
<p>Really ... until Mssr. Robbins or other key players step up to the plate on this, UR will continue down this lane, I'd guess. </p>
<p>Next up: UR faculty will be clamoring to be teaching less time/fewer courses instead of connecting with the cost-burdened students MORE.</p>
<p>Whistle, you know I like you, but you've got a burr up your butt on this one. The trustees are the one who approved the increase in tuition (which I was not thrilled about at all). While UR's tuition itself is high, when you add in room, board and other fees, I've read that it's not in the top 50 most expensive schools (can't provide a link as this was anecdotal). Additionally, 68% of students receive some kind of aid and UR is in the 1% of schools in the country that meets 100% of the needs of every student that attends. </p>
<p>Look, I'm not happy about UR's cost either, as I was wealthy enough to not receive aid, but poor enough that I had to personally take out loans to put myself through, but moaning on a message board time and time again, when, if I'm correct, you don't even have a child attending the school, isn't going to change a thing. You know that.</p>
<p>So, Spider05, you think that a program like "Richmond in Reach" legitimately tries to meet the financial needs of UR students year-in/year-out, freshmen-senior year?
Two days. Two days. That's how long we've got to "pull the trigger" on whether or not to go to UR. We are satisfied with UR. I'm not being paranoid: I just don't want any surprises a year or two down the road. As a middle class family, it's stretching us as it is--even with a lot of grant money. Consequently, all the money we can receive will be helpful.</p>
<p>Apparently, you're an alumnus also Spider05. I'd like a brief synopsis of your experience at UR, if you will. Thanks.</p>
<p>The RIR program caps the loans in your aid package at $4,000 and the rest is grants, work in aid, etc. And I think given that we're just one of 40 some odd schools in the country that will meet 100% of the difference between the EFC and tuition and are need blind in admissions, that's pretty special. In my situation with aid, my dad told me not to bother applying. I come from a middle class family but my father inherited some money, so aid probably wasn't going to come from UR. Despite that, I still had to take out $25,000 in personal loans to finish school due to circumstances unrealted to UR.</p>
<p>As for my personal experience, I went to UR knowing only one sophomore from my high school. I made friends very quickly on my hall through the RC Extreme program, but got very homesick after the first month of school, had new experiences that were making me question things and I actually left school for a few days to go back home to get away for a while and get my mind right. I finished my first semester with a 2.0 from too much fun, not enough studies and trying to adjust to college. I got involved with rugby from the get go, went through fraternity rush (got a bid, but my GPA was too low to join the frat, which in the end was probably one of the best things that happened to me) and started dating a girl at the end of freshman year. After first semester of sophomore year, I was ready to transfer schools because I was denied admission into the Leadership school, which was what I always thought I wanted to do (I'm about as big of a driver as you could meet, so I figured it would suit my personality perfectly). After having my transfer apps in hand, I decided that I enjoyed everything about the school too much to transfer and I continued to get involved in school activities. I took over a student group my sophomore year and grew it to the largest organization on campus by the time I left and I also dedicated myself to helping the club rugby team go from a group of guys that like to drink and play a little rugby to a group that was competiting at invitational only national tournaments. I met a lot of new people my sophomore year, and some of those people are the closest friends I have now. My junior year, I started working as a server at the on-campus bar, The Cellar two nights a week. </p>
<p>During my years, I'd say my biggest complaint was the over emphasis on academics at the expense of quality of life. I'm a very work hard, play hard person and I'm a firm believer that your collegiate education is just as much what you learn outside the walls of the classrooms as in it. When I was looking at schools, UR was very high in the quality of life rankings, but it's hard to find them in those rankings now, although the academic reputation has increased, which is fantastic. UR's focus on undergraduate education was a huge plus for me and the small size of the school made it easier to make a difference on campus. I think I could have gotten a great education wherever I decided to go, but the opportunities I had at UR outside the classroom were special.</p>
<p>I'm now an active donor, on the young grad board, give interviews for admissions and am a season ticket holder in football and basketball. For me, UR was definitely worth the cost, even with the personal loans I had to take out (my job could allow me to retire in 10 years, and I couldn't have gotten it without people I met while at UR).</p>
<p>I agree with some of the other posts regarding UR poor FA/merit aid which seems disproportianate to the size of its endowment. DS was very interested in UR due to its strong sciences and international studies. He seemed to be academically strong and definitely on the high end of UR academic statistics (though not strong enough to be a Richmond Scholar). We are upper middle class "working family", 3 children yet to go through college (and definitely need to plan for graduate and professional school). Have been responsible and saved $$ for approximately $25,000/year (for each child), but this would still mean a total debt of over $500K after it is all said and done without any aid. Other equally competitive schools with smaller endowments have offered significant merit aid. UR offered nothing.</p>
<p>I am all for helping the disadvantaged and think that is great. Its just that the costs of private schools that offer smaller classes and interaction with professors is astronomical and realistically only available to the the very rich or the very poor. I believe these institutions have been propped up by the "easy" access of student loans that allowed the institutions to simply raise tuition (much like the housing loan situation that enabled "easy" loans and drove housing prices through the roof).</p>
<p>In the end, DS has chosen the school that offers a great education and economically makes sense. I just don't understand why a school of UR financial standing seems to be less generous than others who are on the same academic level, yet with less endowment.</p>
<p>Well, that is my $0.02. We didn't "pull the trigger" for UR, but really did like the school.</p>
<p>Is Richmond good at international studies? I thought economics and leadership studies are its thing. Any insight?</p>
<p>Thanks for the very good post Spider05. You definitely sound like a "satisfied customer."</p>
<p>Honestly, the "Richmond in Reach" program is one thing that attracted us to UR--or me, anyway, as the payor. I just find myself basically wondering two things: 1)whether UR will consistently meet my daughter's FA needs each year and 2) why not spend some of that 1.6 billion on all kids? Doesn't Princeton, Yale and other schools with big endowments do that? (Yes, I'm aware of how much larger their endowments are.) Still...</p>
<p>This discussion does remind me some of a discussion I had a week or so ago about health insurance with other insurance professionals. We have, what, 40+ million people in this country without health insurance? (Let me preface what I'm about to say by saying that I think we should have national health coverage.) In my opinion, the insurance industry is trying. There are major numerous medical health products which are legitimately inexpensive and will cover a person in the case of a catastrophic illness--less all the bells and whistles. Do you see people lining up to buy them? H*** no. One person in the group said, and I agree with him, that we could have <em>free</em> national health insurance <em>today</em>--as long as you signed up for it--and tens of millions of people would forget/procrastinate/ whatever and end up not having it when they need it. That's human beings for you. Recently I talked to a lady who lives in a $700,000 lake house, just bought her teenage daughter a new car, and wanted to buy health insurance for her family "because I just got a job and now we can afford it." I wrote her a policy for her family and now it's been put on hold because her dog got very sick. It's great she's taking care of her dog, but health insurance--something that's more affordable than many people want to realize and should be near the top of the list of things we find are important--is put behind a new car, too much house than she can afford, the sick Yorkie and who-knows-what-else.</p>
<p>Long story short of what I'm trying to say is this: it <em>appears</em> that UR is making efforts to admit students without looking at their parents' pocketbooks (how many colleges sincerely do that today?) The RIR program is something that most colleges don't have and appears to be a very commendable program. Like the health insurance industry, UR seems to be trying (though not enough with 1.6 billion to work with?) to meet their students' FA needs. Even if they did spend more of their endowment on kids there would still be a lack of appreciation of it from a segment of the population and some people would find all kinds of excuses not to pay for a great education. </p>
<p>Yes, I'm aware I'm speaking out of both sides of my mouth--welcome to "Make a life altering decision week" at my house.</p>
<p>vtmt, the school gives out 50 Richmond Scholars per class, which is 200 students per year at $50,000 a year in benefit (this is merit, not financial aid). That's $10,000,000 per year in just on scholarship program. The endowment to guarantee this aid every year has to be in excess of $210,000,000 million. Then you have programs like Bonners, Presidential Scholarships, and some other smaller grants that are merit based. I'm not the most knowledgable on the subject, but giving out a minimum of $10,000,000 per year in merit aid is quite a bit. Now, it does go to a small, extremely deserving group. I for one wouldn't mind seeing the awards be 50% grants rather than full grants and spread to twice as many people to help even more students, but that's not my decision. I hate it any time that UR loses out on a student due to financial concerns, but I guess it's always going to happen.</p>
<p>ncmercn, UR was just recently listed as the hottest school in the country for International Studies by Newsweek magazine. Also, UR received a $9 million donation from one of our largest benefactors to create a dedicated building for International Studies, which, in my opinion, will help strengthen the program further. It's scheduled to be completed by the Fall 2010. </p>
<p>shecallsemedad, you're not just talking "larger" endowments, you're talking 10x the size of the endowments (and in Harvard's case, you're talking 30x the endowment). If you were to take our merit program and mulitiply what we give out by 10, that would mean that 500 of 750 students each year would be going on a full ride. In my opinion, that is more impressive than what Harvard and Yale are doing, as they don't have 66% of their students going for free. Even if you calculate it as endowment per student, Harvard has 3x what UR has and Princeton on the high end has 4x the endowment per student than UR does. </p>
<p>Like I said previously, I would like to see UR hand out maybe 25 full rides each year and then 50 50% rides, so more people are helped. Currently, Ayers has requested that UR looks into expanding the full ride to any American family making less than $40,000 a year and he has also asked to see how high we could make that threshold. Unfortunately none of this will effect any of you trying to make decisions now, but UR is looking into it.</p>
<p>Didn't I read someplace, Spider05, in another UR thread here about a hint of "some exciting new announcement" perhaps regarding Financial Aid at UR?
Have any idea what that may be?</p>
<p>Good post by the way. You know, I think much of the frustration parents feel doesn't have as much to do with UR but with the astronomical escalation of college costs, say, during the past twenty years.</p>
<p>Unfortunately the announcement may not be for some time and it likely won't change anything for anyone trying to decide to come to UR, but yes, there will be a big announcement in the future, just not sure how far out and I wish I had never said anything in the first place, I didn't intend to bait as much as I did. </p>
<p>If you don't mind me prying, what is your daughter down to school wise?</p>
<p>I didn't realize it was you who hinted at a "big announcement." Any idea what it might be? Disclaimer: what you say will have absolutely no bearing on where my daughter goes, so nobody will come looking for you if it doesn't come true<s>. I'm just curious--as I was when I first heard about it. </s></p><s>
<p>New York University and UNC-Chapel Hill have been summarily shown the door probably. Boston University is fading and I'm fairly sure we'll be sending a deposit to UR in a day or two. I think she's more enamored with the city of Boston than she is with BU, though BU is a great school in spite it not being that hard to get into. She's concerned with UR's lack of diversity some and the size of the school. I attended a college about the size of UR, her mom to a school about the size of BU. We both see UR's size as being a plus, not a minus. I hope in a couple of years she will see the truth in that as well.</p>
<p>Another thing she's concerned about, with UR's emphasis on business and law, is how much room there is for a left-wing, free spirit kind of person that she sees herself as. I remind her that 1) it is a <em>liberal arts</em> university 2) though there may be a fair number of right-wing type students at UR, right-wing type professors on any college campus in America are about as prevalent as Yankee fans at a Red Sox World Series celebration party 3) you'll find the rich snooty crowd at nearly any university (even "highly diverse" BU and NYU--maybe even more so, there--and even UNC.) 4) you're going to be studying so much you're not going to have time to be a "Boston of NY tourist" every weekend, etc. 5) every kid who goes to college basically has 10-25 people who they are particularly close to, whether one goes to a huge school like BU,NYU, UNC or to a smaller school like UR. Our attention spans can allow us to be particularly close to just so many people.</p>
<p>Did you find the size of UR and it's location- as some say "in a bubble"- to be much of a problem?</p>
</s>
<p>Hi Gang--</p>
<p>There are so many issues going on in this thread. Sorry I haven't been able to keep up with you all. The last several weeks of April are always pretty crazy in our office, as I'm sure you can understand. </p>
<p>As for the "left wing" component of UR's student body, I'd encourage your daughter to join the Class of 2012 Facebook group. They have a couple of threads going on talking about politics and I assure you the liberal thread is quite lively. There are plenty of liberals around UR although that seems to conflict with what most people want to believe about the place. Your left-wing daughter will be able to find a niche, I'm sure. </p>
<p>As for your concern about what will happen to your daughter's aid in subsequent years, I will promise you that your eligibility will continue to be met with the same awarding policy that we used for her this year (we'll meet 100% of your eligibility with mostly grant money, capping her self-help (work study and student loans) at $4,000/year. Scholarships she brings in from other sources would reduce her loans rather than her grants, so it is worth her trouble to continue to seek outside scholarships as it reduces her total indebtedness. But you should remember that your eligibility can change and so the total amount of aid can change too. For most families, the financial situation stays considerably the same over the four years, and so does the aid award. I would invite you to get to know the staff in the financial aid office. There are not many places where you'd get the same level of personal contact as you will at UR and becoming known to the aid folks can be very helpful as you work your way through the next several years. </p>
<p>I agree with your summary comment that much of the frustration that is coming out in this thread is related to the stress that parents are feeling about the cost of college generally especially in a poor economy. Richmond is expensive--but so are most of our competitors. I had a graduate intern actually make me a spreadsheet over the last several weeks of the charges of major private universities. Yes, Richmond has high tuition, but we have room and board that is considerably lower than most and we have no mandatory fees. Our finance folks have chosen to bundle it all into the tuition charge and not to nickel/dime you on your bill. This obviously has a vicious downside in that our cost is more transparent than many. </p>
<p>I would also say that we've heard you loud and clear on feeling mislead about our aid programs. "Affordable" is a very relative term. We're totally honest about the basis of our need-based aid program--it is true that we meet 100%of demonstrated eligibility. The challenge for so many families is that the determination of eligibility works against them. But our materials for prospects even go so far as to recommend visiting a financial aid EFC calculator to get an idea of what your EFC will be--this is not the practice of a place that is trying to hide. But this formula is based on a pretty old-fashioned cost of living and most of us don't live that way these days, do we? We have multiple cell phones and computers, plasma screen TVs and ipods, more cars in our driveways than licensed drivers, many more square feet of living space than the homes in which we grew up, walk-in closets that seem to invite us to fill them up with much more clothing than we'd have collected when our closets were smaller, children who've never experienced a shared bed-room with a sibling, bigger utility bills to heat these larger homes, soaking tubs and the water bills to match, granite countertops and much more (of course this is not every family, but I hope you get the point--our quality of life has escalated along with the cost of college). I'm not trying to criticize these choices because I've made some of them too. </p>
<p>As for our merit program, we've chosen to create this program differently than many of our peers and that is our choice to make. We will be bringing in a new VP for enrollment management this summer (a new position at UR--Admissions and FA have traditionally reported through the Provost) and I expect that there will be some changes in our strategy regarding merit aid. No matter how you create programs like need-based aid and merit-based aid, there will always be winners and losers. You can change the program to soften the criticisms of those on the losing end, but it just creates a different group who end up in the same place--unhappy. Richmond has chosen a principled route in terms staying away from gapping and leveraging based on cynical and sometimes unethical business models. Most people agree with our approach in principle until it leaves their student on the wrong side of the fence. </p>
<p>I too am hopeful that in the new administration we'll have leadership that aspires to address these issues in a positive way and I'm sorry that it won't benefit the students who will have chosen another institution because of this issue this year. I would also say that I'm a firm believer that no single institution is the absolute, 100% right place for any student. While I know there is no parent out there that wouldn't want to make possible their education at the school of their child's dreams once they've been admitted, I would also say that there are many times in life we don't get the object of our dreams and most of us still turn out OK. Our aid programs are most generous to those families for whom our aid is the difference between their child attending college at all and attending UR. I think that the loudest voices here will no doubt find a way for their children to access higher education and that does put them in a position of privilege whether or not they choose to acknowledge it. </p>
<p>I know that Whistle Pig thinks Richmond isn't worth the money, and every individual is welcome to their assessment. But the jibe about no Rhodes scholars in sight is pretty small. We did have a Rhodes about 2 years ago--I believe he's about to finish at Oxford any time now, and we consistenly have students who receive Marshall, Goldwater, Fulbright, Clare Booth Luce scholarships and many other prestigious national awards. They are consistently admitted to the nation's finest graduate and professional programs. Where Richmond has fallen short (in my opinion) is in that it did not have an institutional research position until about 5 years ago, so we do not have a strong history of tracking our graduates and therefore our outcome statistics look weak, when it is a result of lack of follow up on our part, not lack of achievement on the part of our graduates. In addition, we've under-invested in communications infrastructure, (i.e.we were very slow to adopt a fully functioning web development staff among other things) and as a result, our reputation significantly lags the quality of our product. </p>
<p>I will also say that from a historical perspective, Richmond is still learning to think like an elite institution. As strong as the programs and the finances are today, we are very new to this peer group and perhaps it is part of why we've been more conservative in our approach to the use of our endowment. In the late 60's Richmond was on the verge of financial collapse and considering selling its facilities to the state and shutting its doors. It was through the vision of incredibly generous donors (most notably E. Claiborne Robins who gave the University a gift of $50 million dollars in 1969, at that time the largest gift from a private individual to an institution of higher education) that UR has become what it is today. But we've always had very conservative financial management, perhaps because of the memory of our near demise. In addition, for many years, our development office did a great deal to maintain its relationships with major donors but did not sufficiently create a larger culture of consistent philanthropy that might embolden our spending policies. </p>
<p>This is surely enough for one night's posting! I hope that it gives you some context for how it is looking on our end. I wish all of you (or your children as the case may be) have made deposits at places that will help them realize their potential. And I'm sure we'll continue this conversation!</p>
<p>UR Admissions</p>
<p>Thanks for the helpful post, URAdmissions.
No one in my household has "buyer's remorse" regarding choosing UR. In fact, it's quite the contrary. UR has been my personal "first choice" for my daughter for months now. It's just that, when we make a commitment, it's not to do it for a year or two and then bail out if things aren't exactly how we like it. Put that together with the fact that we really don't know as much about UR as we would like (9-10 months ago UR was basically just one college out of hundreds in America to us) and you've simply got a family wanting to go into the next four years with our eyes wide open. Thus, the "hard questions." </p>
<p>I'm sure UR is "worth the money"--of not a possible bargain. I don't know who was supposed to feel mislead by UR aid programs. It wasn't me. Somebody else in this convoluted thread?</p>
<p>I'll tell my daughter about the Facebook discussions. I saw her putting her info on the "Class of 2012" section a couple of days ago.</p>