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I like the gist of the article, but like many educator's vents, it has zero action steps. Let's see the good Dr. Weisbuch ask the Drew trustees to go SAT optional....or drop merit aid....or, get the NCAC to mandate publishing of the common data sets of all colleges (that way school's can't game the published stats).</p>
<p>IMO, you can't just rant about something unless you are willing to lead the changes....until then, yawn.
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<p>I read the article -well, most of it, because I knew from the first lines what the conclusion would be - and was about to type my usual reply. Then I read Bluebayou post, and I can simply second it. :)</p>
<p>Like BB, I like parts of the article, but find it highly subjective, especially the misleading repetition about Reed's iconoclastic position. I tend to use the term "hypocritical position" more often, but I have written enough about Reed inconsistencies of criticizing a process, yet publishing the CDS on its website, to avoid repeating it here. </p>
<p>As BB said, this author stumbles on the same stone that exposed the signal-to-noise ratio of "luminaries" like Education Conservancy Thacker: long on criticisms and utterly short on ideas. People like to criticize processes that make them appear as they are, and especially weaker than their perceived competition.</p>
<p>Because there are so many different points to bring up in this thread - I was not going to respond as I am out of time today - but one thing that struck me the wrong way was the assertion by some posters that if someone would just work harder they would be on a level playing field - this is nonsense. </p>
<p>As a product of the Mississippi Delta and a resident of upstate South Carolina - I can without a doubt say that anyone who thinks all "poor" people need to do is work harder or be more committed or make education a priority are just plain ignorant. Of course, doing these things are required but certainly not the only component in whether or not someone from a disadvantaged background is academically successful.</p>
<p>Whether a high-achieving student needs the monetary acknowledgement or not, I think the point is that colleges are within their rights to make those merit offers to attract the students they want. </p>
<p>What bothers me in the article cited by the OP is that he attacks the practice of universities offerring money to lure intellectually gifted students, regardless of financial need, but makes no mention of the same practice as it applies to athletes. If it is valid, as doubleplay implies, to pay athletic scholarships because athletes bring excitement, school spirit, etc. to the campus, then why isn't it valid to pay merit scholarships to academic stars for the qualities and talents that they contribute to the campus culture? And for the glory they may well bring to their alma mater in the future?<br>
To be named a National Merit Scholar finalist is a real achievement deserving of recognition and financial reward from those colleges that choose to offer it. Intellectual prowess also takes years of skill development and dedication.</p>
<p>It doesn't bother me if private shcools offer merit aid or athletic aid, I think that is their choice
Public schools, are supposedly supposed to serve their community, and I think they should be encouraged to offer merit aid to keep really good students in state, and even atheltic scholarships, just as long as they intend for those althletes to get a degree, not just make their alumni happy.</p>
<p>I was thinking about you when I failed to comment on Reed's holier-than-thou position, hoping you would join this thread. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>However, perhaps the Pres could just be floating a trial balloon, to see if the Drew alums would support dropping standardized testing and merit aid. Leadership - NOT.</p>
<p>zagat: I don't know if the middle class is a powerful lobby. But they will vote with their feet & drop Drew from consideration if merit aid dries up. It's happened at the Ivies. It will be even more significant at Drew, as they are a competitive school, but not top tier. Drew's tuition is top tier, however! They were successful at drawing in top NJ kids, but I can't see that continuing.</p>
<p>Drew is a DivIII school. I doubt this current president would ever be a fit for a DivI school, as merit doesn't interest him. DivI is all about athletic merit & he might suggest that the gifted athletes tie one hand behind their back before each game to level the playing field.</p>
<p>I hope nobody believes that athleticism and intellegence are mutually exclusive. Somebody posted that athletes don't win Nobel prizes. Off the top of my head I can think of Alan Page (Minnesota Supreme COurt), Bill Bradley (US Senate), and Gerald Ford (President) as examples of brains & athleticism.</p>
<p>Could you please explain your comment re: common app? S's apps were about half and half. I didn't notice anything particularly human about common or college-specific apps. </p>
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As a product of the Mississippi Delta and a resident of upstate South Carolina - I can without a doubt say that anyone who thinks all "poor" people need to do is work harder or be more committed or make education a priority are just plain ignorant.
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I hear ya. Well, okay, I think all poor people have to do to generally score as well on the SAT as rich kids is work harder and make academics more a priority. But my goodness. To do this they need to experience some seriously radical changes, like maybe getting rich and getting new experiences and cultures to sustain that wealth. Its like saying all I have to do to be a top harpist is practice, practice, practice. But at upwards of $10-$50,000 for a harp, I dont think thatll be happening for me anytime soon.</p>
<p>It's my guess that a mediocre college like Drew will see people walk pretty darn fast if they stop discounting, which is in effect what merit money does. There are so many colleges on par with it that those needing and qulifying for merit aid will make a fast path to. Stats and rankings will drop, alum will be horrified and contributions will take a hit. How naive can this guy be? What's his background? Where are the trustees? Great school that reject 80% can take such a stand, but Drew?</p>
<p>I was interested in StickerShock's comment about the middle class abandoning ivies because of no merit aid. Is this true? In my community I see the middle class trying where ivies are concerned. Either going into hock to pay for them or being bitterly dissapointed when aid isn't what they were expecting.</p>
<p>Does Reed limit merit aid to those who can pay? What is their reason for eshewing us News? It's little know in my area although it's relartively within our neck of the woods. People confuse it with Rice. What has been the cost or benefit to them?</p>
<p>quote - National merit scholars deserve to be recognized for their intellectual ability; for the most part, it represents years of avid reading and challenging themselves, not merely attending a summer crash course. </p>
<p>quote - To be named a National Merit Scholar finalist is a real achievement deserving of recognition and financial reward from those colleges that choose to offer it.</p>
<p>How does he know the distance a student has travelled in terms of hard work? It isn't only disadvantaged students who have to work harder to achieve. Schoolwork doesn't come easily to all students. Some have to work twice as hard as others to receive As, but that is not apparent when looking at SATs or transcripts. If merit aid is denied to those who can afford tuition, shouldn't it also be denied to those of any class or circumstance, who have, say, photographic memories or who can earn As with minimal amounts of work? His reasoning is faulty. How does he know that those who receive merit aid and take advantage of it can afford the tuition costs. Can anyone, other than the extremely wealthy, afford over $40,000 a year per child?</p>
<p>I don't understand the comment Reed limiting merit aid to those who can pay
They don't offer merit aid
They do offer need based aid.
As well as there are some dedicated scholarships that you can qualify for that are for students with need, but go beyond what the school
offers.
I don't know why people would confuse it with Rice- one is a university in Texas and one is a liberal arts college in Oregon.
although if you tend to get confused just because the first letter is the same, I am wondering if you shouldn't hire someone to help you look at colleges ;)</p>
<p>All I am saying is that "merit" can be judged by something more than test scores, and I applaud those leaders who recognize it. </p>
<p>My child grew up in households where the adults all have advanced degrees, where books abound, international travel is available, and yes, where we happily paid for an SAT review course. His local public school is free of violence, has ample textbooks, and most teachers have advanced qualifications; he doesn't have to commute three or more hours a day to a magnet school to get a decent education. He qualified for "merit aid" at his safety school, to our delight, but in all honesty his "merit" was mostly a happy accident of birth. I don't think he would have been a NM commended scholar absent his educationally privileged environment and a healthy amount of "nurture" from parents and other adults who value education and academic achievement. It helps that he is a naturally bright kid and a convergent thinker who does well on stadardized tests--again, all by happy chance (at least so far as he is concerned), not by dint of his own effort. </p>
<p>And BTW I agree with some of the other posters who comment that merit aid has morphed into something akin to a discount for even modestly accomplished middle class students, especially at less selective private schools. At the more selective LACs in his application mix, NONE offered merit aid.</p>
<p>zagat: Drew is considered a "more competitive school." I'm not saying it's top tier, but it is not mediocre. It atracts top students from NJ who can get into top-tier but can't swing those schools because most offer no merit-based aid. You are spot on about the schools who are on par with it being likely to sweep up the Drew accepted kids who get no $$$$. </p>
<p>The middle class is largely being locked out of the ivies. They might get in, but as you said, they are disappointed. When we met with a financial planner years ago, $100,000 was the figure he estimated for college costs. He was way off, I'm afraid. And I'm one of those middle class people who would need an awful lot of convincing to go in hock for an ivy when a Rice, NYU, Brandeis, or U Chicago was offering merit. I don't think it is worth it.</p>
<p>Mrs. P: good points. Wealthy, privleged, middle class, or poor. Any kid can have great obstacles to overcome. Learning disabilities, broken homes, alcoholic or abusive parents. How can an admissions director know? Should a student write a maudlin essay titled, "Hiding from daddy after he arrived home sloshed from the country club bar helped me build strength & resolve?"</p>
<p>Given your preference for action over mere criticism, I thought you would have admired Reed's decision to bow out of the rankings process. When I started at Reed in 1985, the issue of the college's participation in the rankings was a very hot topic. This was long before the rankings played a major role in college admissions--in fact, they were only two years old at that point--and Reed's ranking during those early years was quite respectable.</p>
<p>Jrzzmom: I think many colleges do recognize merit beyond the high SAT test scores. That's why colleges offer full rides to URM whose scores are below what they would accept from an affluent applicant.
My beef is with the argument that a high score (NMSF level) has no value, that it is "fake meritocracy," and that the talent and potential it hints at should be ignored because the student had some advantages in obtaining it, those "advantages" being defined by some as a normal middle-class upbringing with two parents and a lot of books in the home .<br>
IMO, national standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT, despite well-documented flaws, do what they were intended to do: bring visibility to talented students of gifted intellect who would otherwise remain invisible to top colleges.
Without his test scores, I think my son would have fallen into this invisibility crack. He attends a good but not spectacular public high school --certainly not the magnet or Ivy-feeder type public -- and has high grades (top 4 percent) but is not one of the top 10 students in his class. He has never been adept at "teacher relations" and doesn't win the school academic awards ("mom, an A- is as good as an A"). He would rather spend his weekends going to movies with friends or to paintball battles than doing community service ( a battle I lost miserably). He did show committment to four years of jazz band and put together a student jazz combo to earn money and serve at community events, but he did not knock himself out on ECs. He is, however, the kind of kid who reads everything that catches his interest, from nonfiction books about math theory to science fiction. He is a kid who goes to the bookstore on his own and chooses the new translation of Beowulf or Dante's Inferno with the Italian and English side by side, or a collection of the stories of O. Henry. How does one quantify the qualities he might bring to his future college campus? His talent is not in a sport that lets him rack up stats and honors. His school's academic teams are recreational rather than competitive and never achieve anywhere near award-winning levels. But, he can show off his intellectual talent, and many years of reading for pleasure and pouring over math-science journals, also for pleasure, by scoring a 1540 on the old SAT and a 2310 on the new SAT and thereby win NMSF recognition.<br>
Those scores gave him a shot at acceptance to one Ivy and several top-20 universities. He did not choose to attend the college that offerred him money for the NMSF distinction, but I continue to believe that it is the business of the college to decide how it wants to offer it's merit aid to attract the students it wants on campus.</p>
<p>i just read through this entire thread and am somewhat surprised at some of the conclusions that have been reached in addition to some things thats have flat-out not been mentioned.</p>
<p>for one, drews financial situation has not been addressed. its not just that merit aid is a horrible spectre that benefits the rich. its that at a school like drew that merit money is coming at the expense of need-based money for everyone else. a
$225 million endowment, great as that sounds, cant do everything. given limited funds, which is the reality, the decision to offer merit aid to kids with no financial need becomes a serious ethical question. </p>
<p>two, a move to eliminate merit aid is not an attack on the middle class. the middle class receives substantial need-based financial aid. more accurately it can be viewed as an attack on the segment of the upper-middle class that is unwilling to borrow against the equity built up in its homes and retirement accounts. fair or not, thats the reality.</p>
<p>three, merit aid does not need to be offered blindly. bucknells new merit program (a result of a required three academic per athletic dollar external fundraising effort when athletic scholarships were approved for the class of 2007) considers financial need when making awards. makes perfect sense to me.</p>
<p>four, dropping the sat requirement is far too romanticized on these boards. its great to take that stand. and get the application boost. watch your acceptance rate dive. earn the ability to mis-report your average sat scores to usnews. watch that ranking climb. oh, wait. that seems like playing the game to me. if theyre serious theyll drop the commonapp. for some reason i bet they waive their online application fee first.</p>
<p>five, merit money for athletics is a necessary evil. i dont love the idea that the kid who can put a ball in a hoop is getting a free ride over me. but im never going to make the money for bucknell that our mens basketball team has this past year. millions of concrete dollars for winning two games in the ncaa tournament. millions more in increased donations. invaluable exposure. all for the price of eight externally funded scholarships, all of which went to academically qualified students. one was a national merit semifinalist. the star center is an electrical engineer. so while it may be evil, it can certainly be made less so.</p>
<p>jazzymom: Reading Beowulf for pleasure is more rare than his good scores. Pure torture for me!</p>
<p>ericat bucknell: $$$for athletes evil? A bit of hyperbole, don't you think? Athletes recruited by DivI schools are not all illiterate Vince Young types. At schools like Stanford & Notre Dame, where admissions standards are kept high for athletes, the scholaship athletes are practically indistinguishable from the rest of the students. (Except for their physical size, perhaps.) ND has no athlete dorms (no Greek life either). No bogus majors. They will bench the star of the team if academic or behavioral issues arise. They boast tons of Academic All-Americans, often the starting star players. Graduation rates for athletes match or exceed those of the entire school population. </p>
<p>If you really want to see if an athletic program upholds the true spirit of student-athleticism, check out the graduation rates of black athletes at any school. As blacks are statistically more likely to come from a lower income level with fewer advantages, you might expect their graduation rates to be lower than the white rate. Not at ND and many fine DivI powers. But sadly, many schools use these kids like cannon fodder to boost their athletic prestige. After their eligibility is used up, it's "Here's your hat, what's your hurry." Many have no future in the pros, no diploma, no future anywhere. </p>
<p>Perhaps we need to explain what our definitions of "middle class," "upper-middle," and "substantial" are. Borrowing against retirement is not prudent. Cost of living differences throughout the country are huge. (NJ has highest property taxes & car insurance rates of the entire nation, for example. Plus a state income tax.) Borrowing against home equity can lead to home foreclosure if your circumstances suddenly change. Your use of the word "unwilling" makes it seem like the upper-middle class is acting like a willful child setting in his heels rather than struggling with important financial decisions that have long term consequences.</p>
<p>if youll reread my last paragraph i make the point that a school does not have to recruit unqualified students for their athletic teams. as i said, the star center on our basketball team is an electrical engineering major who is carrying a gpa in the 3.3 range. another player on the team was a national merit semifinalist. they make athletic scholarships less of a necessary evil, but its still an unjust system in which the athletically talented go to school for free while the academically talented have to pay.</p>
<p>i feel bad arguing on this because we agree. checking out graduation rates, especially for african-americans, is a very good gauge. and my alma mater, bucknell, is as good as any school in the nation in that regard. not a d1 power, but our 100% graduation rate for all athletes two years ago is absolutely amazing regardless of its context.</p>
<p>as to the issue of borrowing ones home or dipping into retirement funds, i understand the consequences (i actually manage my parents retirement funds). and perhaps 'unwilling' took a bit too condemning a tone. but the point remains: for these people its a choice. and if the expected gains of attending that expensive school outweigh the increased costs, it is a good, if perhaps not prudent, choice. the more important issue here, however, is what merit aid means for students who arent getting merit aid at schools like drew: smaller need-based awards. and for these students there often isnt a difficult choice to be made. theres little home equity, no retirement money, few possible adjustments in lifestyle. and its to these people that the drew president feels the money should go, the people who NEED the money to attend any college, not the people for whom merit aid makes attending a private college an easier decision.</p>