@dancingwithstarswould love to join group for accepted students
Did anyone apply for financial aid? Does anyone when the decision for that comes out?
Sorry, never mind. “Financial aid award letters will be available within approximately two weeks following acceptance to WPI or review of all required financial aid applications and documentation, whichever is later.” I found it. 
D got in with 30K Presidential Scholarship, 3.85 UW GPA and 1450 SAT. Tennis Captain and very strong extra curricullar
@Annie4321 I’m surprised your son did not get a better offer than that. His stats and extra curriculars sound great.
I think WPI and some of the tech schools are really trying to entice women and URMs to their schools ( totally fine!) at the expense of other kids. Where are you from? Did you apply for financial aid?
My son is interested in attending there too, but I don’t think we’ll get any more merit than your kid. Similar kind of kid, good scores, good ECs, some leadership and some school awards. But he is full pay white kid from the burbs of MA.
I think they are looking to shell out money to kids from further away, and attract a more diverse school culture. The same with RPI. My older son got in there last year. During a meeting with the head of admissions she basically told the crowd that everyone gets some sort of $$ package, except if you are an international student. We didn’t get 1 cent, ha! It was kind of ridiculous. I’m getting the feeling WPI might be leaning toward the same sentiment.
The merit aid incentive makes sense. A college wouldn’t want to compromise admissions standards based on gender, that wouldn’t be fair to the males who were more qualified (as well as the females who aren’t qualified, but admitted regardless.) According to the 2016/2017 CDS, WPI received around 2,000 female applicants and 7,000 male applicants. For a school that wants a 50/50 ratio, this means incentivizing females w/ more scholarship money in order to increase the yield rate. Is it fair? No. Is it the fairest way to reach the 50/50 balance? Yes.
@miscparentname @sciencenerd123 I might be wrong, but as I understand any school that offers early decision require any student who has been accepted to withdraw all other applications immediately. I am not aware of any school Ivy League or otherwise that works differently. That is the point of applying early decision after all, that there is an irrevocable commitment to enroll once accepted and immediately withdraw all other college applications. Perhaps you mean that your S applied Early Action…not Early Decision?
@LoisLane100 @hopeyhippie We were in exactly the same boat last year when DS was accepted to WPI. He also had many other choices including some really good UC options in CA (we live in the Bay Area) and some more difficult to get in to schools East. He matriculated to WPI and we and he have not regretted it for a moment. It is just the right fit for him culturally and the technical program is both interesting and challenging. One thing that we are seeing as parents is that the Professors really care about their students and it shows in how they interact with the kids. Its really a different experience than I know he would have had especially in the UC environments.
@chel17 w.r.t. ED, since ability to afford is a means to break the ED agreement, admits that have applied for FA should wait until FA decisions are released before withdrawing other applications. I’ve also never heard an admissions counselor say that they would not release you from an ED agreement if you have changed your mind on the college.
My son was accepted with a merit scholarship that is closer in amount to what the female candidates seem to have been offered. However, he is a dual-national, bilingual, residing in an under-represented country, and is completing a gruelling program of studies of IB as well as the baccalaureate program required by our country of residence. Perhaps he ticked a lot of boxes. My son’s test scores were not excellent; however, the WPI admissions department was very vocal about being test optional.
WPI is now at a position in rank and popularity that it can pick and choose between candidates with very similar stats. From my perspective, what seems to be important to them is who you are, what drives you, and what you can contribute to the WPI community. On paper, stats are only stats. Candidates need to demonstrate who they really are and who they are destined to become.
@DancingwithStars I would love to join the group chat!
D got in with 31K Presidential Scholarship, 3.85 UW GPA and 1460 SAT. @DancingwithStars I would love to join the group chat!
@DancingwithStars, would love to be added to chat group as well.
@DancingwithStars yeah I would love to be in a group chat!!!
We got our financial aid package… It’s laughable… Not a single dollar awarded beside the $5,500 unsubsidized loan everyone gets. I am flabbergasted! How can they advertise that they cover approximately 80% of demonstrated need? There is at least a 30K gap between cost of attending and our EFC… It is not like we were close to the price for tuition and room/board. My advice to those deferred: make sure you have solid alternative options bc it looks like there is no real financial aid to speak of. Can anyone else comment on their financial aid? There will definitely be one extra spot available for admission for the regular decision candidates. I feel it is not even worth calling to appeal if they do not award anything at all…
@Annie4321 My son’s FA package was pretty discouraging as well, to say the least. Sure, he got $33.5K a year for Presidential scholarship, but other than that, $5k in grant-based aid, and the $5500 unsubsidized, $3K subsidized loan, and around $1K work study. At $68K a year cost of attendance, that leaves us in the hole for almost $20K a year!!! Our EFC is $500. Not $5000, not $50000… 500 dollars! I read in another thread that WPI meets 100% need of 40-some percent of their students, and around 87% of others. But they didn’t even come close for us. I know right before he got his acceptance letter, WPI asked to verify our FAFSA and then they altered it on their side. But my son’s been at private school for four years getting FA and we’ve always had a very low EFC (some years it was $0), so we know our numbers are accurate. Still, it was really frustrating to have them give us so little in aid, because as a result, he won’t be able to attend. Why give kids these huge merit scholarships if the gap between their scholarship and EFC is going to be so huge? We just can’t pull $20K out of thin air… SIGH! It was devastating to my poor son, who’s worked so hard all these years, only to see his dream of going to a great school disappear because we are not rich. We are really hoping for BC to be more generous, although he didn’t get invited for Gabelli (which was shocking to me).
I’ve thought much about the extremely complex issue of financial aid and the great mystery of how colleges dole it out. My only conclusion has been that it is in fact extremely complex. “Fairness” is always in the eyes of the beholder. Aid like anything else is a limited resource with unlimited demand. My other conclusion has been that the college admissions process is very stress filled for applicants and parents alike. The combination of the two can create threads that might appear to be unkind or treat others as less deserving despite the best of intentions. WPI may very well be providing more merit funds to encourage women or for that matter other groups of interest to matriculate whether those groups are based on gender, geographic or other demographic criteria. The reality is that each and every kid that has been accepted and probably including most that applied to WPI and other top schools is deserving and have extraordinary individual profiles. Does it suck that there is not enough financial aid to really meet 100% of the demand? YES of course it does. Is it biased and more fair to one group or individual vis a vis another? YES of course it is. Sometimes it can suck on both sides of a problem.
As one point of information, I just looked at the website for one of the tech start ups in CA (which is one of the most progressive states in terms of opportunities for women). of their ~ 30 employees 6 were women, 24 were men. Of the Technical team-1 woman, 16 men. I guess on a personal note, I am a little more than OK with offering an additional incentive to help women start their career path on a technical road.
To those that have been accepted-huge congratulations! One of many accomplishments to come undoubtedly. Don’t let anyone steal your joy!
To those deferred or rejected and those with financial awards not sufficient to attend- this is not the end of the road. Our S received several bizarre rejections and lack of aid that made no sense at all. I have no doubt that you will have many many excellent and even better options.
@chel17
The admissions process is rough on admissions staff also!
@hunt251
“Tons of leadership positions and ECs.”
I suspect leadership and ECs played a significant role. Very strong academics are there. Success is not measured by having the highest SAT score. Welcome to the hardest working team dwelling on planet earth! Now do something significant to help the rest of our orb. It appears we need it!
:bz
@retiredfarmer
Thank you so much. I am eagerly looking forward to WPI!!!