Did anyone apply for Fall '07?

MilwDad
Thu, 18 Jan 2007 01:11:43 +0000

bigpicdad – You are right that there surely must be some degree of art to this science. In the case of Knox, however, our reaction upon learning there would be no merit aid was along the lines of “how could we have misread those signs?” (It’s a reference to a great line in an early Woody Allen movie – Play it Again, Sam.)

The visit went great, the interviews (we thought) went great, the communication was frequent, the encouragement sincere. Now you’re right that I can’t say I know how the admissions counselors or staff reacted to the application essay, for example, but it seemed pretty good to us and the feedback my son received from other colleges suggests we didn’t have rose colored glasses on when reading it. And the fact that there was no merit aid offered at all strongly suggests this was not a situation grounded in a less enthusiastic reaction to the “soft” parts of an application resume (which, in any case, I believe were quite strong), but that instead there was a sine qua non for merit aid that my son’s resume was, in fact, without. I simply cannot imagine what that could be other than a higher GPA. And again, I have no problem with any college establishing a floor number for GPA or standardized test score or the number of consonants in the applicant’s last name, for that matter. It would just be nice to know what that floor is before deciding whether to invest the time and emotion into applying to a particular school.