<p>“It is becoming a common scenario post-recession: Affluent applicants, shocked by college sticker prices and leery of debt, are choosing a school not because it is the first choice but because it is the best deal. Students are using their academic credentials to leverage generous merit awards from second- or third-choice schools looking to boost their own academic profiles. Colleges are responding with record sums of merit aid, transforming the admissions process into a polite bidding war…”</p>
<p>Based on the way the article was written, anyone who selects a school based on the remaining COA after merit aid has been involved in a “bidding war”. Since both of my Ds selected their colleges based on the bottom line cost among their acceptances, yes.</p>
<p>Some colleges don’t have the money to participate in “bidding wars.” However, some do…if the students’ stats are really high enough to make it worth their while.</p>
<p>What I find funny/odd is how many people expect a school to give them (or their student ) merit scholarships for good, but not high stats for the school. </p>
<p>When schools do give merit, they aren’t doing it for some benevolent reason…they’re doing it to get high stats kids (especially high test scores) on campus because that has the long term affect of raising rankings, being able to attract better profs, and getting more grants, etc, for the school.</p>
<p>What struck me is that these are public schools “buying” OOS kids in that article.</p>
<p>That is going on. Some publics are buying OOS kids with strong/high stats (not just anyone who is OOS). </p>
<p>You may be surprised that publics are doing this…but it’s very likely that they are not using tax-payer funds for this. They’re likely using donor/alumni funds for this.</p>
<p>OP, I did experience some of this merit bidding. I was particularly struck by the tenaciousness of a small New York City private that persisted in calling back with better offers even though they had already been informed that I was leaning toward a full ride from my state flagship. It all seemed rather ad hoc.</p>
<p>*I’m a little surprised that the girl in the article didn’t get merit aid at American, her first choice. She certainly had the qualifications. *</p>
<p>We don’t really know if she had the qualifications.</p>
<p>It doesn’t mention her actual ACT score…just says, 30+. If her ACT was a 31, then that wouldn’t be high enough for merit from American. </p>
<p>Middle 50% of frosh at AU
ACT Composite: 27 - 31 </p>
<p>Also, since she was from the area, she wouldn’t add to AU’s regional diversity. </p>
<p>AU has competitive merit…which suggests that they will use it to get certain students that help their profile…URMs, kids from unusual states, very high stats, etc. AU also has NMF merit. We don’t know how many non-NMF scholarships AU awards. </p>
<p>While some schools give merit to all in the upper 25%, I’ve seen the “high merit” scholarships mostly go to those in the top 10-15% of the school.</p>
<p>AU definitely gets a lot of apps from its immediate area, and it does want a lot of geographic diversity. I’ve seen this with a number of school. They can fill their class with perfectly good students within an hour away, but they want to be a national school and have the geographic stats reflect this as much as possible.</p>
<p>Daughter’s situation…she is fully-funded as an OOS student through 4 different private donor streams. It was interesting to see the schools call and up their offers through this past year…so I guess yes, she was a sought-after commodity. In the end, the school she chose hit all the “yesses” on her checklist – the best financial offer was just a (lovely) plus…</p>
<p>I went for the best deal myself back in the early 80s. In the grand scheme of things, this is not new. Pershaps, with so many riding the housing bubble in the 90s and early 00s, it fell out of favor for a while, but most people have always been price-conscious.</p>
<p>After having two sons go through the admissions process for very different majors, we found that the SUNY schools were the most aggressive with scholarship offers. I’ve met so many parents who would proudly say that Johnny received enough aid at xyz private school to match the instate tuition. We did see that however both boys received merit scholarships from the state schools that lowered the already reasonable cost of attendance below anything offered by the privates. They found that the private schools couldn’t get that low. Younger son even had two state schools offer him more merit aid in late April without our soliciting it. We thought they were already great deals. Older son was offered an honors program and is looking forward to grad school with no loans and money left in his college fund.</p>
<p>*I’ve met so many parents who would proudly say that Johnny received enough aid at xyz private school to match the instate tuition. We did see that however both boys received merit scholarships from the state schools that lowered the already reasonable cost of attendance below anything offered by the privates. They found that the private schools couldn’t get that low. *</p>
<p>That is very true. Many privates will offer enough merit to strong students to get their price down to the competing in-state flagship rates. However, if the students’ stats are strong, some good public might offer enough merit to bring their COA down to a lot less. </p>
<p>My nephew’s top 3 choices for college…</p>
<p>College A…instate public…COA of $30k
College B…OOS public…COA of $32k…but offered about $24k per year in merit.
College C…instate private…CoA of $50k…offered $20k per year in merit. </p>
<p>If money were an issue, then obviously College B would be the most affordable choice since they calculated they would only have to pay $8k per year plus transportation…a big savings since they have 2 in college and don’t qualify for any aid.</p>
<p>As you can see, College C only got the cost down to their instate public. That’s fine…but not if the instate public rate isn’t affordable either. That can happen when you have more than one child in college and you don’t qualify for any/much aid.</p>
<p>S is attending a private next year that offered enough merit to make attendance there about 10K cheaper than our instate public. He was also offered enough merit at a second private to make COA about equal to our in state public. Because he did not apply anywhere that he was not willing to go and all offered the specific things he wanted in his intended major he made the decision to go where they were showing him they love. He loves the fact he will be able to attend a 4 year private for less than our local public and will graduate loan free.</p>
<p>There are a few colleges moving away from this. Franklin & Marshall, for example, stopped giving merit aid recently. Thought it might be a good choice for D2 (D1 attends Dickinson and has a nice merit scholarship). As D2 is more of a science kid, we thought we would check out F&M. However, since they have stopped giving merit aid, D2 won’t be applying. Her stats are on the high end for F&M, and there are plenty of colleges that will offer some merit in exchange for her stats and geographic diversity.</p>
<p>Commasplice, Pitt offers the Chancellors Scholarship for top students, OOS as well as in state. SUNY Buffalo has some nice OOS scholarships. Actually, many OOS schools tend to have such awards to attract top candidates. Penn State does NOT have much. Michigan is a tough one to get any sizable merit awards if you are OOS, and the UCs are not generous that way. </p>
<p>Interesting that F&M is moving that way. Oberlin went the opposite direction a few years ago. I agree that it may compromise F&M’s pool. If I were a top student and got a nice merit award from schools like Dickinson, Gettysburg, I would be hard put to pick F&M over either of them or advise anyone to do so. My friends’s D went to Dickinson for that very reason, though F &M was her first choice. Just wasn’t worth the premium. Had she be accepted to UPenn, the family would have coughed up the difference. </p>
<p>I know two kids who decided against several schools because of cost whose parents would have pulled out all stops had they gotten into their most selective highly ranked choices. This happens quite a bit. </p>
<p>I had predicted widespread discounting of this sort, many years ago It’s happening, but more slowly than I had expected.</p>