<p>The valedictorian at our school declined a prestigious full ride scholarship to our state flagship to attend Harvard. He's competing in Intel etc. Our state flagship isn't the right place for him no matter how much money they throw at him. The number two is probably even more phenomenal with too many credentials to list. Another state school wants her so badly it has offered her a scholarship that includes full ride undergrad plus full ride masters AND doctoral or MD program. They don't offer this scholarship too often. She's deciding between MIT, Stanford etc unless she decides to take them up on their offer. Question is, what happens to the scholarships if the kids decline? Do the schools offer them to someone else or does the money just sit in the fund until next year? Sometimes I think the schools make a mistake when they offer these kinds of scholarships to really extraordinary individuals who will have many choices. They wouldn't have many peers at our state universities. It might be better to offer the scholarships to kids who are exceptional but not genius level.</p>
<p>A lot of schools have a good sense of how many kids will accept big scholarships, and offer accordingly. Not sure about this situation, but this is often the case.</p>
<p>From my experience, schools award more than 100% of their scholarship budget because they know not everyone will ultimately attend. If too many people decided to take the scholarships, then there is a problem, if too few people take the scholarships, then it is up to the school and/or donors on how to award or not award the remaining scholarship funds.</p>
<p>We worked with my daughter’s guidance counselor to try and anticipate scholarships so we could turn them down in advance. We are very well off (more than 2 lower middle class kids could have ever imagined!) and my daughter refused scholarships from anyone or anywhere so that those in greater need could receive them. Her Regents Scholarship was given to the next person in line (if she had accepted it and then not gone to an in-state school, it would have been lost for anyone else for the year). One school offered her a free ride including airfare and room and board; she politely turned them down before she knew if that was where she was going to attend. That scholarship was also given to another deserving student who needed it. I think the sooner you “reject” an award, the better the chances of it being distributed to others, but I don’t know this for a fact.</p>
<p>In the end my daughter got a few school awards which came with small checks ($25-50) and one scholarship from the state for $6000 over 4 years that gets deposited directly to her college tuition. It was a total surprise and we had no way of turning it down.</p>
<p>So whether it’s true or not, we hope all the merit money she was supposed to be awarded was distributed to those more in need of it.</p>
<p>I’ve seen both approaches – schools that over-offer scholarships, knowing that a fairly predictable percentage will be declined, and schools that re-allocate the money as it is freed up. One of my kids was offered a substantial merit scholarship in February, and then the amount got raised three times over the following months. The original offer letter hinted, but did not promise, that the scholarship would eventually prove to be full tuition (which was ultimately the case). Now it may be that this particular practice was limited to this particular endowed fund, and wasn’t used with other scholarships at that university. I wouldn’t know.</p>
<p>amtc…Your post warms my heart. It is people like you that allow other kids to have a real chance of attending college. Thankyou for posting what I always felt very wealthy people could do during their kids college admission period.</p>
<p>I think this varies at different colleges. I can only speak of my D’s experience. As valedictorian of her high school, she automatically won the full scholarship to the state flagship which is given to every val in the state. She had no intentions of going there but this scholarship would not be able to be passed onto someone else. A private college in our state also offered a full scholarship. Again, she had no intentions of applying but was told that if she did not take the offer, this would be passed to the next kid in line from her high school and so she did not submit an application so that the next kid had a chance to get this scholarship.</p>
<p>Good for you, AMTC. What a thoughtful way to handle things!
I guess I would like to see state schools ask students whether they intend to accept and then offer the scholarships to someone else who is a better match if the school’s first choice student does not accept.</p>
<p>That’s fine if the student has no intention of going to the school, but often s/he is waiting to hear from other schools also. There are threads every year about colleges wanting a student to accept or decline a scholarship before other aid offers have been received.</p>
<p>Thanks guys but seriously, there are lots of anonymous, unheralded millionaires and billionaires out there that never make the papers (in a good or bad way)! We know we’re very fortunate; my husband is brilliant but equally important, he was in the right place at the right time and took advantage of that timing. </p>
<p>We both come from very modest means and really want our kids to know that life isn’t about money it’s about happiness.</p>
<p>A friend of mine has a son who applied OOS for a full ride scholarship to a competitive public university. There were 4 full scholarships being offered and he was told after they were awarded that he was #5. One of the four awardees decided to go elsewhere. As soon as she notified the school, they called my friend’s son and offered him the scholarship, which he joyfully accepted.</p>
<p>amtc… I wish you were posting on the “valuable financial aid thread for HPYM thread” There are so many wealthy people who give the impression that kids recieving aid are at such an advantage compared to the wealthy kid. I just shake my head and wonder.</p>
<p>Many Blessings to you and your husband.</p>
<p>I think I noticed that Hendrix says they offer four full tuition-room-board scholarships each year so I think they do what Nrdsb4 described: if any of the first four choices don’t accept, they’d move on to #5, and so on. Very nice.</p>
<p>One of the scholarships that my son was interviewing for made it very clear to the parents that if the scholarship was awarded and the student did not attend, then the scholarship was not offered to another student.</p>