@GingerLand I think for MoHo you just had bad luck. They used to offer great merit but they were overenrolled for the past 2 years. My friend’s kid attends there and she says they are seriously getting crowded. Their acceptance rate fell from about 50% to 35% in just one year and I suspect they gave out less merit awards. I assume they are trying to see where they stand in this new admissions landscape. No school wants to give merit awards if they do not need to.
You should get MORE need based aid with 2 in college next year. And if they gave you decent need based aid, they probably aren’t going to offer merit, since they (and other schools at that level) don’t stack aid.
Run their NPC and see if it lets you put 2 kids in if you haven’t done that yet. See how the aid looks then.
@intparent I am trying to say that “next year,” next academic year (this fall) is when I have two kids in school. So the MHO offer of aid is based on two kids. So we get one year of financial aid. And then likely nothing. That’s why I prefer the idea of merit aid. We would get it for all four years regardless of what the financial aid people make of the muddy math of our family’s finances.
@gingerland, my daughter is a junior and we’re just starting down this path. Thank you for sharing your daughter’s story. Your family’s journey has been pivotal in helping me re-think our approach…While on paper, my D20 seems to have the stats for top schools, it just seems like the odds are stacked against her for a variety of reasons. As a lower-middle income single parent family - with aging parents to care for, we just don’t quite meet any criteria (first gen, under 65K), but we also don’t have the resources for her to participate in research, summer programs, etc. Quite honestly, she needs to work this summer to help pay for insurance, gas, etc. - but this doesn’t seem to “count” at top schools either.
If she wants to apply to some top schools, that’s her choice, but we’ll approach it like a lottery - someone has to get lucky, but it’s not something will plan for. I am going to encourage her to use this summer for HER goals, not trying to check off some nebulous box that we think the admissions committee might want to see.
As a mom, I completely understand why you’re discouraged, frustrated, and maybe a bit angry. But your daughter has done amazing things and, as others have said, will continue to shine her light. She sounds wonderful, and I know she’ll have an incredible college experience. And I’m glad you’re looking for the positives - even if it’s the noodles!
@GingerLand - here’s what I think you do. I think you tell the next kid to relax, maybe invest in some SAT prep if needed, and apply to the same type/level of school that would have been safeties for your daughter, We’re basically in the same place - thought the SAT prep was really worth it due to the merit aid awards. Well, he would get the same amount of money for a 1400 as he’s getting with a 1560. And the same amount of $ for a 3.7 as he’s getting with a 3.9. Our next kid will most likely be applying to public schools or lesser regarded LACs. I’m not going through this BS again.
@TrendaLeigh - you are going to have to be really strategic where you place your applications. My son’s GF ended up getting almost completely shut out this year. Deferred ED then rejected at her top school, waitlisted at another, admitted to 2nd choice, but couldn’t afford it, Her remaining option is affordable, but way below the standard of school she should be attending given her intellect and community involvement. It’s really sad and disappointing.
I think it’s very easy to fall prey to the logic leap from “my kid’s stats are comparable to the stats of kids who get merit at this school” to “because my kid has these comparable stats, she will likely get merit.” There are many accepted students with high stats who don’t get merit at places like MHC where the merit is not guaranteed for stats and the number of merit awards is fairly small. (For others reading this thread in the future, look at the CDS to see how many students are actually getting merit.)
@GingerLand - your frame of “and MHO offered only need based aid and thinks she will go?” makes sense at a place with guaranteed merit for stats, but makes less sense at a place like MHC where need-based aid is much more common than merit. They obviously want your daughter (would not have accepted her otherwise) and have made a need-based offer that hopefully gets you close to EFC from NPC. I don’t think schools like MHC falsely promise anything other than this…
Yes, looking at MoHo’s common data set, they’re more inclined to give merit to students who are not receiving need-based aid. In '17-'18, they gave merit awards to 16% of aid recipients, whereas 39% of the students who would otherwise have been full-pay got merit awards. Unfortunately for your family, @GingerLand , you’re not expecting your FA eligibility to continue once your other child graduates, so you ended up with a really disadvantageous offer. (And on top of that they got more competitive this year, as noted up-thread.)
There are schools that tilt the other way. Northeastern, for example, gives more merit to financial aid recipients than to non-recipients. But for most students, that merit aid is a bit of a mirage, since it disappears into their FA and they still pay their EFC. In those cases it costs the school nothing to flatter those kids with merit aid. For the most part I think that MoHo’s approach is more admirable, but not helpful for your particular situation unfortunately. 
Right - so my question is - how are regular people supposed to navigate this landscape? It’s like planning the D-day invasion. If you are willing and able to pay full freight for a school, great. You start early, you find a school that’s a great fit, you apply ED, and if it doesn’t work out, maybe you find another school that has EDII. But if you need or want to shop around for financial aid, you have to apply to a bunch of different schools to see where you end up. That means you also inevitably have to shotgun applications and pay a small fortune in application fees - not to mention all the visits and effort to “demonstrate interest” for your match and safety schools. I’m sorry, but hooked or not, it’s really frustrating when a kid who can clearly perform well academically is having a hard time getting admitted to college. Something is very amiss.
Even my kid with high stats found and applied to schools with a wide range of selectivity, just in case. She applied from a top 5 national university to an LAC ranked around 60, and would have been willing to attend any of them. No ED, but a couple EAs (which takes pressure off of kid is accepted). The lower ranked schools gave her some merit, too. Start by finding safeties.
Demonstrating interest does NOT require a visit to campus. There are other threads on this, though, some not going to go into detail here. But I do think visiting safeties is most important, as it can be harder to find ones the kid genuinely likes.
@intparent was making a point, not asking for advice. My kid has 7 acceptances to great schools ranging in price from almost full ride to over 70k (and a wait-list at CWRU with lots of merit aid, for whatever that’s worth) But the number of hours of research that I put in to helping him craft a list of schools was astronomical. It’s just not feasible for most families. We had my son apply to a lot of low-match/safety schools “just in case” After seeing our results, I can see how many high-stats kids can easily get shut out ( or end up at their state flagship which, hopefully, is at least affordable for them even if it isn’t a great fit)
@Intparent Thanks for sharing strategies that worked for you. Much more productive than the “my kid got into lots of great schools, but the system is rigged and something is broken camp”.
Congratulations OP on some great options for your daughter. I know you were hoping for some other choices (and I am sure she is qualified) but still a great achievement. She has options that others can only dream of and I am sure she will make the most of them.
The system as it currently stands doesn’t allow all qualified students to choose both their school and price. There are simply to many great kids and to few spots. It simply cant work that way. While this reality is disappointing to those that don’t experience their desired results it should not surprise anyone nor does it discredit the system.
@intparent. We did the exact same thing. We helped research the schools which became a hobby for me since I was fascinated about all of this which lead me to CC.
We let our kids apply to wherever they wanted to within reason but I made my son research and apply to schools that he never thought about… From 30-50. We both found out that there are really some great schools out there for engineering. He applied to schools beside the top ten, schools from 20-30, 30-40, 40-50.
So it was evident that first he got some quick acceptances. Which was my plan. It didn’t really matter what the school was but he was happy when “x” school accepted him with merit. He got several of these quickly since I knew the rejections were coming,and they did. He would of been happy to go to any of the schools he applied to…
Then he got accepted to a few of his top choices.
We told both our kids “You will get accepted, wait listed, deferred and rejected by some really great colleges” and they did and told them not to take it personally. It just a game you have to play. They also knew if they didn’t get accepted then community college it is. If they got accepted to one college then that’s where they are going and if they got accepted to more then one college then they would have a choice as long as we could afford to send them.
Both kids landed at great schools for them.
I personally think parents need to be more open with their kids and be more realistic with their choices especially in this day and age.
@TrendaLeigh stop!!
Summer jobs absolutely “count”. It is how your daughter talks about it/puts it into context. My son worked on a local dairy farm making hay for the past 3 years. While that might sound exotic to some it was the only job he could get in our rural area. There are no internships, or impressive shadowing opportunities here.
He ended up writing about that job as his essay and even had the farmer, who had become a mentor, write one of his recommendations.
How many applications like that do you think admissions offices saw? Which is my main point: think outside the box!! Present yourself in a way that is uniquely you.
My older son was unique in that he was a news junkie and followed the news on the BBC, Al Jazeera, as well as US outlets all on his own time. There is nothing he “did” with it, and it didn’t affect his grades etc. But it made him uniquely him.
Yes, good grades and scores are very important but tons of kids have them. What makes your kid different?
I’d like to think this isn’t just a thread for kvetching, but maybe one that those still in the search process for younger kids can learn something from.
Most students, even higher stats ones, go to their public state universities, and that works fine for them. Navigating this process is mostly deciding whether the state flagship or a different state university is the best choice. If there is reciprocity or WUE, that opens up a few more choices. So while it may not be feasible for most families to navigate the admissions process for 100 or so of the thousands of schools vailable, most people also don’t get that tied up in knots about this.
I also think parents learn a lot with their first kid going through it. I know I did. I feel like we kind of lucked out on D1’s search (not least because I was going through a divorce D1’s senior year and ex didn’t pay a cent out of his income for her college). But it did work out, and she’s a successful, happy adult now. What I’ve seen out here is that most kids do fine wherever they end up attending. Have confidence in your kids (or yourself if you are a student) that you don’t need one school or one type of school to get a good college education.
I don’t know why the “venting police” seem to feel the need to flock to posts to explain to parents and students processing difficult results where they went wrong, why they are not entitled to their feelings, and why they are horrible people for having said feelings. Perhaps it would be more helpful to start a new thread with advice for parents of students with the admissions process ahead of them.
OP asked “When your kid gets that 1550 on the SAT and wins their third award, starts an after school program at a disadvantaged elementary school, don’t think they have a chance a at top 50 school. They might. But you never know. Because mine certainly didn’t. I would just love to be told why.”
@intparent @cinnamon1212 @knowstuff @itsatruth Way to help others going forward and answering the OP’s question. Seems totally consistent with what people should come to CC looking for when such a specific question is asked. Real answers, scenarios and solutions… not a communal gripe session that serves no ones future interests.
Let’s also be honest, having the option to attend your “second choice” vs Vassar, seven sisters school is a pretty great option. An amazing State School or Union also in the mix, some merit offered, etc…most would and should be thrilled. Read @HKpossible backstory, that is a hardship. Congrats to the OP and well earned but hardly worth tears.
I think the title of this thread rubs a lot of people the wrong way. 99% of the people attending college are “going nowhere” by the OP’s definition. And most people who do well in life in terms of career and happiness do go to college “nowhere” by the OP’s definition.
^^ This. This this this. I understand that OP needed to do some well-deserved venting and ranting, but @Nocreativity1’s statement above really hit the nail on the head. Hopefully it helps answer OP’s “I would just love to be told why” (though I realize that may have been rhetorical).
Importantly, it’s also a useful mantra for those coming along next to staple to our foreheads.
@Nocreativity1. Think I did that with post #60. This last comment was based on the ongoing conversation. I think my track record of trying to help people here speaks for itself. I am also familiar with HKpossible backstory.
If we all had all the answers of why one school picks “x” over “y”, as stated before we would have a best selling book on our hands. All we can do is try to put someone in the best light possible for the AO’s to pick them. Our collective life experiences plus those of our kids, seems to be helpful to many here. Of course we don’t alway get it right but the intent is there.