AnAthlete

Besides their stingy financial offers and many applicant using it as a back-up, why else is AU so undesirable among its accepted students?

collegenotime

Most kids apply to what...10, 12 schools. They have to say "no" to most likely 80% (20% yield). American is not a "top 50" school so they can expect much more.

ryan2288

Why do you think?

collegenotime

It's expensive and they don't offer much aid, except to the top 10%.

mamabear1234

I think a lot of kids use it as a safety. Mine applied without visiting, they offered her a large scholarship, so we visited and she seriously considered going there, but in the end chose GW due to preferring the GW campus and a perception in her mind that GW would be stronger academically.

jesiee908

It has low rankings because they don't have strong math or science programs.

ahoo2u

It's a gap school......the FA packages leave a huge GAP

THe kids who have REALY strong stats, will have other offers and options.
So AU has to made great offers to the top of the pile to entice them to come....but that slights the FA for the students graduating - like top 5-20% of the class.

Unless they have family money, or willingess to borrow big bucks...they go else where.

Read the FA threads, lots of disappointment. Sad, too many accepted who who couldn't attend. There isn't enough need based aid to close the gap.

But I also agree, students who apply to AU will apply to a number of other top 50 schools, also anybody who wants to go to DC will apply to of the other DC schools like GW, G-town....if they're strong candidates - they'll have options.

interelations09

I, like many other applicants I'm sure, am applying to American, George Washington, and Georgetown, among a couple other schools. This DC trifecta leaves American at the bottom (or tied with GW) in many people's eyes (not neccessarily my view). This means that the kids with the high statistics will probably go to GW or GT, or the kids with the low statistics will not have enough aid.

It is the system destroying itself.

deface

AU has plans to decrease yield and increase selectivity. It's going to keep the freshman pool static and then slowly decrease it, where it plans to permanently maintain an entering freshman class of 1000 or less.

bigp9998

It's because American costs about $15 thousand more than it should for what you're getting. Almost 50 thousand dollars for a mid-second tier school is outrageous considering that's what Harvard costs. Anybody with decent stats will go somewhere else barring major financial concerns since AU gives merit money.

Everybody who actually fits AU's academic profile (GPA and SATs) will be significantly gapped and find the same quality school elsewhere for tens of thousands of dollars less.

Britty512

AU costs $43,000, and was ranked in the top 10 Best Deal Colleges by US News.

Not sure where the $50,000 a year stats are coming from. GWU is the most expensive school in the country at $54,000, which is $11,000 more than AU.

bigp9998

Tuition: 32816
Fees: 467
Room: 8258
Board: 4160

Total: 45701.

You're right, not quite 50K, but close. Also keep in mind that AU does not even come close to meeting full need. As comparison:
SCHOOLS CONSIDERED FAR BETTER THAN AU:
Columbia 43016
Rice 43790
Princeton 43980

PEER SCHOOLS (USNEWS as a reference--these are the five private schools closest to AU in the US News rankings just as a reference point)
Marquette 35150
Saint Louis University 39190
Baylor 35472
University of Denver 43480
Clark University 40400

Those are just a few I happened to check. My point is that AU costs about the same as a top-tier university and a good deal more than a typical second-tier university (its peer schools).

jkazoo

I'm not an economist, and I'm not going to do an indepth analysis of the cost of living in each of the cities where the schools you listed are located. But I did use an online calculator at CNNMoney.com to compare what a $100,000 salary in Washington DC would be in each of those cities. Use this info - or don't - as you wish. But I hope it drives home the point that to compare the costs of universities solely on "tier" level is silly.

Milwaukee $71,200
St. Louis $68,700
Waco $62,950
Denver $72,675
Worcester* $81,946

*There was no comparison directly to Worcester. Framingham looks to be about the same distance from Boston.

bigp9998

But how many students at AU are paying from a DC salary compared to a salary from elsewhere? When I listed the peer schools, I certainly didn't mean for it to be a perfect comparison or that the rankings are somehow the sole factor in school quality. I just used them as a basis to suggest that American (without merit money) is not quite as good a value as some other posters seem to suggest it is and that most other schools with SIMILAR reputations and offerings tend to cost a fair amount less.

If anything, the cost of attending AU should be inflated slightly because of how expensive everything is compared to Milwaukee/STL/Denver/etc.

jkazoo

I think you missed my point. I wasn't looking at it from the consumer (student) perspective. I was using salary as a benchmark to indicate that by virtue of being in DC, as opposed to Milwaukee etc., the cost of RUNNING American will be more expensive - e.g. faculty and staff salaries, housing, food, etc. You seem to agree with that in your second paragraph.

You may not think that in the short term (the 4 years of attendance) AU provides "value" compared to so-called "peer" schools as defined by US News (and btw I think you give USN too much credit). But given the location, internship possibilities and connections that only DC can provide, I think the long term value can be tremendous.