@Mom2aphysicsgeek Ugh. I am not being clear. I am indeed talking about “named” type scholarships that are open to kids who do not qualify for need based aid. I say you never know until you get your package because you don’t know if you’ll be chosen. Here’s an example below. It says “Belk Scholars are energetic, adventurous, studious, artistic, athletic, creative, collaborative, engaged, and compassionate.” That doesn’t give one much to go on.
Obviously students don’t know if they will be selected, but they definitely do not find out in their FA package, either. Since only up to 8 students are selected and 100s apply, the assumption should be going into it that it is extremely competitive. Just the nomination process is competitive.
That is a far cry from “Today, these tuition discounts usually come in the guise of “merit scholarships,” but often the students who get them are hardly the best and the brightest.” They are not in the same category.
I didn’t read the article bc there is a cry to eliminate merit scholarships and only offer need-based aid and I have read plenty of those types of articles already.
BUT…the only type of merit aid that is 100% known before applications is automatic merit that is published on a chart. I am not sure why that makes competitive merit questionable in value and undeserved. No, students don’t know. They should apply accordingly and not make the assumption that they will be awarded the scholarship.
The kinds of merit scholarships described by that sentence are more likely the unannounced ones (or preferentially packaged financial aid) that colleges may award based on what they see in the applicant pool, competition for students with other colleges, and/or the current state of the college’s budget.
“Right, but the issue raised was what kinds of kids are they trying to attract? The brightest or the wealthiest?”
Both. Ideally all students would be bright, interesting, add to diversity, and either wealthy or on Pell Grant.
Outside of the superrich tippy-tops, colleges are trying to get the best class they can while making the finances work. That means getting the smartest kids they can, most interesting kids they can, meeting institutional needs, shaping a diverse class, doing well in the rankings (because so many students and parents care so much about them; just now in the admissions forum, some kid was hurt that School A rejected him/her even though they got in to School B and School B has some really neat strengths and is loved by it’s students and both schools were seen as in the same category when I was in college; School A is ranked much higher now and is known to game it’s ranking ruthlessly). . . while making the finances work.
@shortnuke “Ultimately, I think it comes down to a relatively simple value call. Schools that are offering discounts are doing so because they realize that their isn’t enough demand for their product at the full price”
In my opinion - at this point - with sticker prices at 65K+, there are about 10 schools that are “worth” full sticker price. Then again, top 30 schools have a list of kids, out the door, that are willing to pay full price… So colleges will keep raising prices and fleecing students and parents.
Heh. I’m at the point now where I believe no undergrad education is worth a total cost of over $200K. Mind you, if I have the money, I’d be willing to spend up to $300K on a kid’s education, but that includes HS and grad school as well as study-abroad.
@ucbalumnus Yes. Preferential packaging. I was incorrectly saying differential packaging (that’s what I get for multitasking while posting), but yes, that is what I was the process I was referring to.
Those types of scholarships are awarded in a much different way (no knowing until you get your FA package) than competitive merit with interviews, selection committees, etc.
Lumping scholarships into a single category is about as accurate as describing college admissions as a single process.
Fwiw, I just broke down and read the linked article. Seriously, it just another article with a narrow list of schools that fit the author’s desired profile. Using Simmons 100% do not pay full price example…token merit stroking egos…is different than Mt. Holyoke’s even though Mt Holyoke’s merit does not appear to include interviews, etc, Lumpimg their awards in with 100% of students receiving scholarships is a stretch.
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/admission/merit It does not specify number of Trustee scholarships, but the 2 others state 25 and 2 are awarded per yr. Obviously the latter 2 should be considered extremely competitive. The school not stating precisely how students are selected is no different than admissions itself at elite schools. (Similar to Smith’s response in the article.) The author simply shows that need isn’t the determining factor in the award.
He doesn’t address named merit with selection committees, governing boards, interview weekends, etc nor automatic merit based on published data. Automatic merit doesn’t fit the article’s profile type schools. Committee/interview merit defies his agenda that the process is unclear.
When admissions is holistic, not sure why anyone would expect a firm line in the sand for merit awardee profiles. Can’t easily quantify? Yes. But no different than the admissions process itself…“a select group of our highest-achieving first-year students…”
At least there is some information on admissions, so that applicants can make reasonable reach/match/safety estimates. There is generally less information about non-automatic-for-stats merit scholarships, so the only reasonable guess in most cases is to treat them as reaches.
These relatively small “merit” discounts are marketing tools. Nobody wants to advertise a discount months in advance. That would help competitors undercut your price or your timing. Colleges presumably want freedom to decide on the fly whether to award fewer-and-larger or more-but-smaller “merit” grants. A shrewd time to set these discounts would be after the ED applications are in, when schools have a clearer idea how many highly-qualified, full-pay students will enroll.
They’re part of the war chest to use in recruiting.
WashU and UChicago have long utilized them (in their cases, to take students from HYPS or maybe other Ivies/equivalents).
I heard someone I know who said a daughter of someone he knew got a merit scholarship from WashU after she had already committed there just by mentioning that she had an offer from one of HYPS (I forget which). WashU probably had leftover money in their war chest.
@PurpleTitan I wish more highly ranked LACs did that. My husband (who works for a company that sells its product to colleges) insists that we should be able to get a discount at any school if they really want S19. He said schools discount all of the time. He’s slowly coming around to understanding that will not be the case with us since our EFC is north of $80,000 and some of the schools on S19’s list just plain do not give merit money without need.
So, we are left with the question - which schools are worth $70,000 per year? Once acceptances come in, I assume we are going to be left with a choice between lower-ranked LACs with a little discount and higher-ranked LACs at full price. I have no idea how we will decide on the best value. I think we need to do our due diligence and make sure we only allow S19 to apply to those full price schools that we think bring something special to the table for him. So hard to figure that out though.
In the end, it may be the case that the discounted LAC is the best fit and the best bang for our buck. Who knows.
Also, all the OH privates discount for some applicants now.
Richmond has those few full-tuition scholarships. So does Knox.
And NCF is a public LAC that sends alums to grad school at a rate that rivals that of many more expensive LACs (thus why I have them as a Near-Ivy on the same tier with Macalester and Mudd). BTW, both Macalester and Mudd also offer scholarships. So does Grinnell. For that matter, so does Whitman. And Macalester, Grinnell, and Whitman have student bodies with test scores that aren’t much different from the very top LACs (while Mudd blows everyone away on test scores).
Finally, Truman State is somewhat bigger but is MO’s public honors LAC.
Both NCF and Truman are quite a bit cheaper than full-pay at a private yet have student bodies with test scores that aren’t too shabby.
@homerdog
One of my students got several fabulous offers/scholarship/honors from Miami of Ohio. The student has so far been offered $102k in merit money ($26k/yr) and was selected to be in the University Academic Scholars Program, that comes with all sorts of other bells and whistles http://miamioh.edu/admission/uasp/ They also got a $30k/yr scholarship from Tulane. Another of my students got the STRIDE scholarship from Smith, which is a $20k/ yr scholarship plus $3k/yr stipend.
So there are many ways to be a family with zero need who can get lots of $$$$ and opportunities at very fine colleges and universities.
@OHMomof2: “indeed the second article I linked explains that the Ohio privates STARTED this whole thing.”
The OH privates are in a tough situation. Tons of tiny LACs all over, like the East Coast, but unlike the East Coast, not many of the natives have a built-in bias towards privates. In fact, OH publics offer a bunch of hidden gems (more than most other states it’s size). Furthermore, OSU has risen a lot in prestige and desirability. And OH HS enrollment has fallen quite a bit from their peak. And while they are close to the East Coast, they are still in “fly-over country” to many people on both coasts as well as internationals.
The situation has gotten worse for them on pretty much all fronts.
The article misses the point that many families are NOT willing to necessarily pay more to send their students to these colleges, especially when lower priced alternatives are available. As the article states, some of the schools are competing against much lower priced honors colleges at state universities. Thus, the merit aid is not necessarily going to families who are willing to pay more, but to those who may otherwise walk away. For other families, the amount of need-based aid is just not enough and the merit aid is the extra needed.
The Ohio (and Indiana and Kentucky) small schools were all over my daughter as an athletic recruit with good stats. Imagine how excited they would have been to get a girl with an Irish name who turned out to be Asian!
