What I've learned about full-ride scholarships

<p>I would presume most folks posting on this board are concerned with the Bachelor's Degree stage of academia. Given this, it is surprising to me how many folks have the impression that they or their child is going to change the world because of a Bachelor's Degree from a "Tier 1" school, whatever that presumes to be. IMHO this is highly unlikely. In today's environment, if you're truly intending to rocket to the top of whatever ladder you're climbing, that ascension is most likely going to be accompanied by an advanced degree. If you subscribe to this premise, then your goal in the Bachelor's program is to gain prompt, seamless admittance into the advanced degree environs that you seek (separate topic -- get a job with a respected "Tier 1" employer and LET THEM pay for the advanced degree!). I have never heard of a case of an outstanding student failing to get into a highly respected advanced degree program, assuming they were the "cream of the crop" at their undergraduate school, regardless of which "tier" that school occupied. If the advanced degree progression is acknowledged, it follows logically that the advantages both financial and academically, to capturing a near or full-ride at a sub-tier school are overwhelming in several ways. You will have no debt on receipt of your bachelor's degree, and you will absolutely tend to be at the higher end of the intelligence spectrum of your peers. Some see this as a negative - I see it as good strategy. </p>

<p>As I have alluded to in other posts, we have applied several "filters" to our school selection process which are absolutely not academic in any way. For our aerospace engineering prospect, we've looked for decent offerings in the instrumental music program, a decent "club" crew program, a decent ratio of girls-to-guys, and believe it or not, a broad spectrum of degrees such that in the event that he decides to change his major, he will not necessarily have to change schools! Are we the only ones thinking this way? Do people on this board realize what a great % of students change majors after entering college?</p>

<p>This will sound condescending, but I sort of feel sorry for the students and/or families who are so he//-bent on a "Tier 1" or IVY education that the likelihood of a well-rounded experience in college is likely sacrificed in the pursuit of some presumed educational nirvana.</p>

<p>To us, it's a no-brainer which type of school to select for a BACHELOR'S DEGREE. I sense that there are obvious factors which influence the perspective of those posters rendering judgment against the idea of finding and capturing a full-ride scholarship. Further, some of the posts come across as if there is a need to "prove" the investment in the child's education by paying an outsized EFC, since it can't possibly be correct that college could be free.</p>

<p>I have said this before in other posts, but I believe it may be appropriate to say here as well, in the last 25 years I don't recall ever being asked where I went to undergrad school, grad school and with whom I studied yes, undergrad no. I must in principle agree with OH_DAD.</p>

<p>Just thought I'd post this link:
<a href="http://www.guaranteed-scholarships.com/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.guaranteed-scholarships.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>This web site lists scholarships at various colleges which are guaranteed based on the specified criteria (generally test scores & class rank or GPA). </p>

<p>Just a good starting point for someone who wants to follow the path outlined in this thread.</p>

<p>TheDad ~ That was a most eloquent summary of this thread. Bravo!</p>

<p>And as far as undergrad schools go, as we suspected, the name of my son's school has opened many doors to coops and other opportunities that would have been more difficult (if not impossible) if he were going to a State U. The fact that he can get very high paying coop jobs offsets his need for scholarship money, and motivates him to work hard at school and at the internships. </p>

<p>Where the money comes from to pay for the education is all a balance of priorities and family values.</p>

<p>MomfromTexas,</p>

<p>Did you post a listing of your research and did you only include Texas?</p>

<p>I can't believe how rude some of you are being towards the original poster... it's like people feel you can't get a good education if you don't go to some big name school... which is a bunch of crap.</p>

<p>I'm glad that you shared your 'technique' with everyone. :)</p>

<p>To Junebug</p>

<p>You asked if I posted my research and if it was only for Texas. I searched through the south, southwest, and midwest but not the western, northwestern, or northeastern US because my son didn't want those areas. Ask a question about what you are wondering and I will try to answer it.</p>

<p>Very interesting thread, that brings back memories from two years ago. D received a full ride merit scholarship, awarded based on their own exam, recs from HS and interviews, from a huge big ten university. Upon award, she asked "does this mean I'm one of the smartest kids in the school?" Answer after research was yes. Her interest went waaay down and she turned it down. For HER, it was the right decision. For many others, (including my savings) probably not. </p>

<p>My point is that FIT, as TheDad and others point out, is an intensely personal thing. </p>

<p>It is so easy to forget how faculty quality has reached way down in the higher ed heirarchy. The elite grad schools produce so many PhDs that it is not hard to find well trained folks at a wide variety of places. These folks can offer not only great mentoring but also great connections for grad school, if one so chooses. </p>

<p>Just as you don't judge an ivy grad just by the reputation of the alma mater, you approach less well known places the same way.</p>

<p>Kudos to the OP.</p>

<p>TheDad, I agree that you did a very good job of summarizing and pointing out the validity of both sides of the discussion. However, what bothered me was that some posters immediately made assumptions about the OPs reasons behind her approach and condemned her for it, without even bothering to ask about reasons. That was unwarranted and unfair.</p>

<p>The eternal CC debates: private versus public, large versus small, near versus far, go into debt versus don't go into debt, Republican versus Democrat :D.</p>

<p>I didn't notice anyone including myself making assumptions about the OPs intent- I apologize if I did
However I want to add my voice to the "side" that enocurages students to have a range of schools that they are looking at, not just all reaches, not all schools that may offer them a "free ride" but a range of schools that include academic and financial matches.
We think it has been worth it to find a challenging school with a lot of resources that only requires that we come up with the EFC.
I realize some families can't/wont come up with EFC and that is why we have lists like this. BUt I don't think other families/students who make a reasonable contribution to obtaining a college education should be criticized as foolish because they are spending money they don't "have" to</p>

<p>momfromtexas, as someone who paid full ride for both my kids at moderately to very expensive colleges, I applaud your approach. Others could well learn from it, and in fact adapt it in various ways -- for example not setting "full ride" as the cutting point but, say, "full tuition" or some fixed $ amount as their target.</p>

<p>What they can learn from you in particular is how you did your research, the fact that you looked for multiple schools at different levels, and how you combined financial and program information with what your kids were interested in. </p>

<p>I think honors programs at schools at different tier levels do provide something special, and also worth investigating, often including smaller classes and other opportunities.</p>

<p>Thanks for sharing this information.</p>

<p>EK, I was absolutely not talking about you. I was talking about people who assumed, without asking the reasons, that the OP was a rich, selfish parent who just didn't feel like paying tuition and was therefore sacrificing her children's well-being so that she could live well. There was nothing that I could see in her post that justified any of those assumptions. She simply said that this had been their approach, that it had worked for them, and that she was willing to share information about this approach to those who might be interested. </p>

<p>There were several fundamental assumptions made in some early posts that may or may not be true: (1) the OP is rich; (2) the OP is selfish; (3) the OP is putting her own interests in front of her children; (4) going to a 3rd or 4th tier school is NEVER the right answer if a more prestigious or highly-ranked school is available. Thus the ensuing discussion.</p>

<p>Go back and read the early posts.</p>

<p>And by the way, and now I'm done because I've beaten it to death I know--I just think that this kind of reception can discourage shy posters/lurkers from ever posting, when they might have valuable information or important questions to ask.</p>

<p>Patient
Thank you for that last post...I'm a new poster (long-time lurker) and felt warmly received last week, but increasingly alarmed as I read the early posts in this thread.</p>

<p>Clearly the subject touched (several) nerves!</p>

<p>Trying to stay on the topic, NewMassDad is quite correct that for many students "being one of the smartest kids on campus" is a honey-coated trap that they wish to avoid, for good reasons.</p>

<p>I will suggest that the issue around iDad's and OH_Dad's positions are more indeterminate than advocates on either side would normally say. Certainly, drive and high performance in any arena bode well for the individual's future...their point. However, I believe the results of a certain thermodynamic, probabilistic underpinning to them...that <em>some</em> may succeed coming from environment X or Y does not mean it is as easy or as frequent as coming from environment A or B. Again, we generally accept that across the board in other situations, from dysfunctional homes to crappy high schools, why should the rules suddenly change when it's colleges we're looking at? One of TheMom's best friends is a CFO; she says that she most certainly would not have gotten some of the interviews, and hence jobs, that she got without the undergrad school on her resume being in the cluster it was. Ditto for her husband in his scientific field; though both went on to get graduate degrees, the undergrad was a component. </p>

<p>It's generally accepted that certain undergrad schools are feeders for Investment Banking...bleah, I regard that field more as a curse than a blessing myself, but the point remains. Ditto that you're unlikey to be a Supreme Court justice or something of that ilk unless you graduate from one of about three law schools and the odds of getting into those law schools are much longer if you graduate from, say, Loyola Marymount, a third(?) tier school I regard fairly well as opposed to, say, Princeton or U/Chicago. From these datapoints it's not unreasonable to extrapolate that some advantages accrue in less exalted careers down the scale. Is the student's success deterministic of where they did their undergrad? Clearly not. Is there a thumb on the scale? Clearly. </p>

<p>Beyond career & vocational considerations, with respect to the purely intellectual, as time has passed and my experience tromping around this field has increased, I have become a believer in the significance of the intellectual orientation and achievement of one's peers as an impact on most individual students. I know from both first hand and reports on this board of students who transferred from colleges because there just wasn't a sufficient critical mass of students who were passionate about learning to talk to. If you view education as a product being poured into a student's skull by trained technicians (professors), this may not signify. I don't happen to hold that view.</p>

<p>Having researched intensely for years prior to college applications, I left out the phone calls, but did play the merit game quite a bit in that 7 of S's 12 applications went to schools with a great-to-possible chance of hefty merit aid. All of them came in, but he didn't end up at a merit aid school.</p>

<p>If merit aid is necessary, desirable, or even just attractive, by all means cast your hat in the ring, and do whatever it takes to maximize the offers. However, when the last week of April finally arrives, the actual choice is so personal that although finances are still a significant factor, in the end, the student's sense of "Who I am," "What I need," and "What my intuition tells me" are the most important discriminators.</p>

<p>I think this is a great post, and I'll tell you why:</p>

<p>I worry that many people on CC get wrapped up in the "Must Have Tier 1" mentallity, ignoring their own finances and long-term financial stability. </p>

<p>As a parent of someone who required and received good merit scholarship money (although not a full ride), it is still pretty painful to write out those checks every semester. But, because of careful college selection I know we'll be able to do it, and deal with son #2 too. Not only that, but we will still manage to LIVE our lives and do the things we love too. (Have we forgotten that part??? Personally I will not apologize for NEEDING to go to Europe every couple of years. ;) )</p>

<p>But, I can just see a family all pumped up about little Johnny going to "Unnamed Tier 1 College," having met the approval/peer pressure of CC, friends, neighbors and total strangers, only to realize sometime during his sophomore year that they are in SERIOUS financial do-do. And then, along comes child #2! All leading to a huge debt burden, or even bankruptcy.</p>

<p>The dream of "pick the BEST school you can get into," just is that for most families -- a dream.</p>

<p>Being among those who believe momintexas has done a great service, I am posting a link to this thread on the Schools Known for Good Merit Aid stick-y thread. Since that one sticks around - and this one might fade away - I believe all cc folks interested in merit aid should have continued access to momintexas' valuable information, as well as the other constructive perspectives posted here.</p>

<p>thanks again, momintexas.</p>

<p>Most likely, any of us can come up with anecdotal evidence to support either position in this interesting debate.
May I suggest we look at the studies. My understanding from my research is that the results have demonstrated that students of equal talent who attend colleges of different selectivity levels end up having comparable results. See "On the Payoff to Attending an Elite College," by the National Bureau of Economic Research, at <a href="http://www.nber.org/digest/dec99/w7322.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nber.org/digest/dec99/w7322.html&lt;/a>. A quote:

[quote]
They find that school selectivity, measured by the average SAT score of the students at a school, doesn't pay off in a higher income over time. They also find that the average SAT score of the schools students applied to but did not attend is a much stronger predictor of students' subsequent income than the average SAT score of the school students actually attended. They call this finding the "Spielberg Model" because the famed movie producer applied to USC and UCLA film schools only to be rejected, and attended Cal State Long Beach. Evidently, students' motivation, ambition, and desire to learn have a much stronger effect on their subsequent success than the average academic ability of their classmates.

[/quote]
Now I admit that I am paying for my child to attend a "first tier" school. But that is purely because of a matter of personal fit for her, and she is a person for whom her father and I believe fit is critical. Fortunately, we could afford to pay for that choice. But no way do I think that her undergrad school is THE factor in whether she will be successful in later life.
Many can, or will chose to, "buy" elite college educations for our kids. We are kidding ourselves if we think we are greatly enhancing their future prospects. What we can't "buy" for our kids is emotional intelligence, perseverance, raw talent, etc. etc. etc. (If we could, I'm sure we would!) ;)
P.S. Let me head off the objection that income was used as the measure of success for this study. Personal satisfaction, effect on the rest of society, etc. is impossible to measure non-subjectively.
P.P.S. Abraham Lincoln was self educated. I recommend Feb. 19's New York Times book review section p. 18 for some interesting comments re his outcome.</p>

<p>It's useful to cite that study here, but also important to point out that it's the only one of its type, and it may be affected by the period in which it was conducted. There are other peculiar design effects that should be explored.</p>