@VMT is totally right. Georgia Tech is an amazing school. Many people would probably rank it above WPI. In my opinion @Sirius10 you should move on and celebrate the next chapter of your son’s life! Your son has clearly moved on. I mean come on–“now do your own research,” “Women’s Polytechnic Institute,” “be grateful for what you’ve been given.” Really? You are an adult bullying a kid who needs help with financial aid but oh no apparently she must afford WPI and she should be grateful because she got a much higher scholarship than your son. Jeez, someone’s bitter. It’s not that girl’s fault she got a larger scholarship. You want to complain, go complain to WPI. But at this point it doesn’t matter because your son’s committed to another school!!! Stop looking to the past, and look to the future. Don’t put down other kids’ accomplishments when you obviously have a lot to be thankful for as well. Your son got into Georgia Tech so he’s clearly very smart and he will do great things over there.
Wow! This is a tough crowd!
Just want to add there are no losers here! It reads to me like some great kids are going to be attending great schools! I have always taken issue with the desire many have to spend $30,000 in time payments for a new car every five years while complaining about the cost of a good education. New cars do not last a lifetime. Good educations do! Some educations are so insightful that life becomes tolerable… even without the new car.
Curiosity is a great thing and it feeds on education.
@retiredfarmer , I love to read your comments. You are always so eloquent and have such great insight and advice. Thank you for pointing this thread back to what really matters. All these kids seem to be bright and have a great future ahead. I agree that a good education does not come cheap, but is well worth the investment. Merit aid is not a right, but a privilege. I think we have established that merit is in the eyes of the beholder. I don’t think that the schools can ever win. Ideally, everyone would get the money they think they need, but obviously that is not how the system works. Luckily, different schools award money in different ways and at the end, hopefully everyone will have at least one offer that fits their needs. Congratulations to all in your acceptances at WPI and elsewhere. Wishing everyone good luck and wisdom as commitment time approaches.
As I sat my EE self in a meeting of 10, being the only female in the room, I am reminded that being a women in STEM has always been a bit of a lonely place. I remember graduating in the 90’s, one of 8 females in a class of 100 EEs.
I think it is admirable that a school wishes to create “balance.” But, for at least the last 25 years, that imbalance has not been due to “exclusion from any major,” or a lack of female hiring - but more a lack of female graduates in the necessary fields. Women just didn’t choose them.
I know there was a time…but it was a LONG time ago. As a parent of two sons and a daughter, I get the feelings this Mom has. I think every Mom wants their kids compared to each other as humans, without race, gender, nationality - competition on a level playing field.
But the truth is, there is still an imbalance for women in stem, and probably black and Hispanic as well - possibly of both genders. But to correct that requires a reduction in some “population” of at least equally qualified candidates, and the only population left is white males or Asians.
This too is a life lesson that sometimes it’s just not fair. Love the school that loves you back!
@retiredfarmer You rule!
For the record, I would like to reiterate the fact that my son (a white male for those who feel the need for specifics) was awarded an excellent merit scholarship from WPI.
To the female candidates accepted to WPI, again, congratulations on your hard work and a job well done. You should be proud of all your accomplishments. Unfortunately, comments in this thread are a testament of the world you will be exposed to, no matter where you decide to study, and they admittedly do not paint a pretty picture. As a woman and a mother, I am ashamed that such sentiments still exist, and, when expressed by other women, their sting is even more inexplicably hurtful. Perhaps my generation did not do everything it could have, but I promise you that many improvements in equality have been made. (Yes, believe it or not, things used to be much worse.)
As future STEM professionals, you may have to work harder than others to prove yourselves, and you may feel the need to bite your tongues more often. Nonetheless, please be confident in the fact that your perseverance will pay off and future generations of women will be grateful to you. Likewise, be assured that you will also have male classmates and colleagues who will respect you and your work as equals, for that is the upbringing I and, I trust, most parents have instilled in our children.
To the candidates who feel they did not receive their fair share of merit aid, I ask you this: what could YOU have done differently? Instead of asking for and comparing the “stats” and scores of others, what is it that YOU could have done to stand out as a candidate? As more women, minorities and international students are applying to STEM schools, and more non-New Englanders are applying to WPI as well, the applicant pool has logically grown and WPI is at a place in its development where it can pick and choose from the best of the best. Furthermore, WPI has made it loud and clear that they are test-optional. Have you thought about that? What does that really mean? Was your application merely score-based?
To address the question of need-based aid, I was in contact with the FinAid Department, who informed me that WPI is not in a financial position to meet the need of all its students. So, no, no further aid could be awarded. For our family, this means that my entire salary will be used to pay for our son’s education, but we are convinced that this is a sacrifice we should make for his future. We will have to take out loans and hope we will still be able to make ends meet for when our second son applies to school. We may not be able to retire.
In closing, I feel the need to personally address @Sirius10. First of all, your son was accepted to WPI. Congratulations! However, you feel that the merit scholarship received was unfair. But, who are we to decide what is fair? Who are we to pass judgement on WPI’s acceptance or merit criteria? And yet, you have somehow determined that merit funds were earmarked for one group over another. Correct me if I am wrong, but you are not privy to other undisclosed information, such as essays, interviews, complementary work presented, level of coursework, languages spoken, hardships overcome, businesses started, patents applied for/granted, foreign study, research published, etc, etc. You continue to base your argument on one criterion and one alone. Not only have you not looked outside the box, but you fail to even recognize the cardboard around you.
Your comments are no less discriminatory simply because you identify yourself as a woman working in STEM. In fact, if your opinions are any example of those of STEM professionals, then there is obviously much work to be done to change the prevailing attitudes in your field, and any attempts by WPI to even the playing field would be all the more justified.
As you commented on December 22, “We are so disappointed… time to move on,” I think you would do well to move on and stop harassing teenagers who you deem to have unfairly received undue merit scholarships based on your own personal selfish and sexist criteria. Going forward, I truly hope your children are strong people, able to own up to their own short-comings and not lay the blame on others, certain of themselves and their own abilities and unaffected by such hate and spite.
Congratulations on your son’s acceptance to Georgia Tech.
I find that in college admissions, whenever people are not happy with a result, there is a tendency to search for something (or in this case, someone) to blame that is out of their control.
@snowfairy137 Do you study at WPI?
@leh521 I’m an incoming freshman
After looking at this thread, I’m happy my kid was Wait Listed at WPI while receiving substantial offers from a couple of the “Little Ivies”. WPI likely would not have come close to matching the offers given the pressure of Admissions to entice females to accept offers — and being a female will not necessarily advantage the applicant given the postings I’ve seen from super qualified female candidates who were wait listed (Presumably they were “too good” for WPI). So the admissions process is not fair at all, but then again, neither is life. I just wish WPI Admissions were more up front about how things REALLY work. And I as an alumnus I worry that the institution is passing up too many super qualified candidates that ultimately would help the school. For people upset that they didn’t get enough of an award from WPI, the method for awards and admission offers seems to be dominated this year by yield protection, which I find really abhorrent. As for girls getting more than the boys, that actually makes sense, since the m/f ratio is so lopsided — it is a quality of life issue.
In any case congratulations to all who will accept, since they definitely will get a great education if they put in the work.