<p>It sucks, and it is also kind of sad. People think it is some sort of accomplishment when they get things by <em>gaming</em> or having <em>connections</em> It is an accomplishment, I guess, of sorts. Nothing to be proud of. It happens all the time. This is a rather small level example of it, only affecting a few people. This sort of behavior can easily lead to <em>buying</em> loyalty or expecting something from someone because of favors granted. I don’t like this sort of thing, esp. when it is supposed to be a fair competition. Obviously, it isn’t. It is a sham, pure and simple. Surprised that the mom would brag about something so unethical, but some people don’t get ethics, sorry to say. Even the appearance of having ethics.</p>
<p>To some people, there is a high about bragging about connections. I see/hear it a lot when it comes to college things, but this brag was particularly foolish. Even though it might have been true. It also might not have been. the kid might have well deserved the award, and his mom’s braying and bragging has put a pall on that.</p>
<p>I am being Pollyanna and thinking that Child #3 earned his scholarship just like the other two students, and that maybe the mother of #3 was just over excited. Maybe her connection on the committee said that #3 was exactly what the committee likes to reward, and that s/he was going to pull for him because of his relevant achievements?</p>
<p>As others above noted, local/more subjective scholarships do tend to have a more personal aspect that can work to favor or disfavor certain candidates.</p>
<p>But all things being equal, I really have no problem with someone pulling for a local candidate if that candidate is, indeed, qualified. If #3 had not been a qualified candidate for the Singletary, it’s unlikely all the pull in the world could have gotten it for him.</p>
<h1>3 winning the Singletary did not take anything at all away from #1 or #2.</h1>
<p>And if the qualifications for the Singletary are different than those for the Patterson, it’s likely that, just as #3 was not competitive for the Patterson, #1 and #2 may not have been competitive for the Singletary.</p>
<p>Another thought–obviously child #3 did not do well enough on the SAT to get National Merit, but did do well on the ACT-- and different students tend to do better on different tests.</p>
<p>The child of a friend of mine got a 35 on the ACT-- but only a 2090 on the SAT and a 206 on the PSAT ( not that that is a poor score). This child also got mostly 5’s on 9 APs. She is at Johns Hopkins.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input. I should start singing “Let it go!” 
I am very happy for my child and for the other two students as well. I really would not begrudge a free education to anyone. </p>
<p>Let it go… Love it, I need to my son didn’t get into any top choices he had and I was having tough time but now I’m ok </p>
<p>Maybe number 3 was qualified. Those of us commenting really don’t have all the information. But that a voting member would reveal who they were voting for is unethical, IMO. That kind of stuff bothers me. Unless the voting process is a public thing, and everyone knows who voted for who. That would change everything, I suppose. But assuming that the votes are supposed to be private; In that case, that the mom of #3 (side note: how undermining is that, to refer to the football guy as #3, LOL) would say something is not really unethical, (she is not the one doing anything, just broadcasting what someone else is doing) but it does seem kind of odd to me. Wouldn’t you want people to think your child won the thing in an objective competition, not give the appearance that he only got it because strings were pulled? Why would you be proud of that? Or maybe the mom is just clueless, doesn’t even realize how it looks when she says things like that about her son’s achievements.</p>
<p>My daughter has a very nice scholarship (merit and athletic) to a school. So does another girl who is on the same club team as my daughter but at a rival high school. When they played a few weeks ago, the father of the other girl was going on and on about how H had a ‘full ride’ and what a ‘sweet deal’ she got. I also know that the girl claimed a big national award that she didn’t get (my D didn’t get it either, but didn’t claim it!), which may have just been a mistake on the coach’s part, but it is still not correct. Does H have a ‘full ride’ or does she just have what my daughter has (very nice, but not a full ride $15k if you include state grants in the school package)? I’ll probably never know, and it does irk me, but we’re happy with what we got.</p>
<p>I recognize my jealousy, but it does irritate me that he was bragging about the ‘full ride.’ These were knowledgeable sports parents and everyone would know that if one player received a full ride, others (like my daughter) on the team would receive very little (there are 9.9 scholarships to divide among the entire team; if someone takes a whole, that leaves much less for the others).</p>
<p>As stated above, if this were any other kid on the team I wouldn’t even know about it, but since this is a girl on our club team and from a nearby high school, I’m privy to too much info.</p>
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<p>It is just the name of the beast! Fwiw, most people do not really understand what a “full ride” means or care to make distinctions between need-based aid and merit scholarships. How many times does one hear about the athletes who got “full rides” at an … Ivy league school? And the same for mathletes! Walk long enough along the sidelines of competitive sport events and you might think that every Susie or Nathan will attend a prestigigious school for free by playing soccer. </p>
<p>The easiest solution is to ignore the reality and simply smile or say “Good for you, that is wonderful” and move on. Again, most of this type of discussions disappear between Memorial and Labor Day. And perhaps you might find it a bit less irritating to know that the parent who was bragging about the full ride will sweat a little when writing the “real” checks and … might not be able to complain about the high cost of education. And if he or she did, you might in turn smile when saying “Heck, what happened to the full scholarship?”</p>
<p>Mom of kid#3 is a jerk. Karma will lay her low. Vent away. </p>
<p>I hear you on the unfairness. I saw a big scholarship go to an unpleasant not super qualified kid and am still wondering what happened. Maybe this kid had an “in,” too. I kept my mouth shut and just moved on, like you are doing. My kid will do fine. Unpleasant kid will change or perish.</p>
<p>I know people use the term incorrectly, but full ride means free. Full. Entirely paid for. If you get a free ride on a bus, you don’t pay anything. Football players at D-1 schools get a ‘free ride’ because the scholarships can’t be split - room, board, books, tuition, fees. In athletics, full ride means free everything. Other than the D-1 sports that require the entire scholarship go to one player, full rides are very rare.</p>
<p>I know people throw it around but it isn’t correct. If this father had had said ‘full tuition’ that would have been close enough that I’d agree, they did receive enough to cover tuition. But now I’m left to wonder if perhaps H did receive more than us, and that keeps my jealousy alive. This family just rubs me wrong, like the mother of child #3 in the OP, so I don’t want to give them the benefit of the doubt. </p>
<p>My child is nicer than me, and she gets along with the other player and doesn’t care.</p>
<p>I do have to check back to make one observation: who(m)-you-know matters mostly in arenas that are not highly competitive, and for positions and things that many people can perform.</p>
<p>What matters most is what-you-can-do that is not all that common. That is especially true in the arenas with the highest stakes, and the highest levels of competition. What does sometimes come into play, however, if someone does “know” you, is what they think of you. At that point, if they think quite highly of you, whom-you-know does matter a lot.</p>
<p>A friend of mine who long ago attended college a year behind me smiled in recounting his telephone lineman father’s reaction to his application. “You can’t go there…you have to know people and have “pull” to get in there.” When the big envelope arrived, he said he held it up and said to his dad “Hey look, no pull !!”</p>
<p>[He actually did have some pull in the form of super high scores and a talent for speech and debate that was reflected in winning competitions, as well as a strong academic record, which he continued on his way to a top ten law school. Just not the kind of pull (influence) that his dad thought was required. ]</p>
<p>Maybe that other family has a “full ride” because they also got some need-based aid.</p>
<p>Hunt, you can only get merit aid from the school and either athletic money or need money, but not both. You can get other grants, like from the state, and I think federal need based like a pell grant, but no school need based aid.
This is to prevent the athletic department from exceeding the limits on the athletic scholarships by calling it ‘need’ money. I don’t really understand it all, but we were told if we took athletic money, then no school aid (and it’s in the NLI contract).</p>
<p>They might have other outside scholarships (my daughter does) but he was definitely implying that her entire award was an athletic scholarship, just like the mother of child #3 was implying that her son would get the award because of who she knew and not on his own merit. This guy was standing in the bleachers, talking to someone but our entire group heard (he doesn’t even know who I am). I should be more gracious, and I’m grateful for what we’ve received, but like the OP’s situation it just doesn’t seem right or fair. That’s what irked me. </p>
<p>Just complaining and showing a little understanding for OP’s feelings.</p>
<p>Just because the results hadn’t been announced yet doesn’t mean the review process wasn’t already underway. Maybe the committee person had already reviewed the applications and was stating that one of her votes was going to student#3, not just that she was blindly voting for a student with a connection. </p>
<p>It happens. Happened in my daughter’s favor, in fact. We went to an informational program for the state school she had already been accepted to, because her cousin was a student employee in the financial aid office and told us that any student who went to one and requested a campus job was given one. My kid did not qualify for work study for her freshman year, and we were eager to get whatever help we could. During refreshment time we spoke with the financial aid director who happened to be the presenter that evening, and told him that we would be looking at loans for most of her expenses and hoping to get whatever aid she could get, including work study. He then said that he happened to have a scholarship meeting the next day and there was a renewable scholarship for math majors up for grabs, and that he “would be sure to remember her”. </p>
<p>She not only got the math department scholarship (without ever having taken an honors level math class in high school and being a solid B student), but she ended up being asked to work in the financial aid office along with her cousin, which meant that she did not have to go through the application process for the campus jobs. </p>
<p>^^ </p>
<p>It is best to let the schools address the INDIVIDUAL situations. As everything related to financial aid is, it is hard to find general rules. Schools do have some leeway to avoid violating NCAA rules. Fwiw, here’s an excerpt of the combination rules:</p>
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</p>
<p>In so many words, rich schools a la Stanford might not be able to use their vast sets of scholarship money. On the other hand, they might be able to use the “government” funds to sweeten partial athletic scholarships. This said, there seems little difficulty in offering a “full ride” to a deserving athlete who has a very low EFC and let him … walk on. And little in the way for the bragging sideliners to call it a … full ride. And whatever the exact definition of full ride really is. </p>
<p>Again, all of this is pure semantics. The real financial packages should ONLY matter to the recipients and their families. While it is quite wrong for braggers to pile it on (if they do) and misrepresent the real “deals,” it is also equally wrong for OUTSIDERS to worry about the finances of others, and find that the “announcements” of financial aid or scholarships earned by OTHERS tend to diminish the merits of their own kids. </p>
<p>In the end, outsiders, by the mere nature of the applications, only have PARTIAL information. They did not read the applications nor know all the fine details of the financial situations of families. At best, they engage in gossip or idle speculation. And seem to ruin their own good news by misplaced envy. </p>
<p>Lastly, it should be good for all to remember that full rides and athletic scholarships are not guaranteed for 4 years and are subject to annual renewals. </p>
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<p>The weirdest things do indeed happen! Based on the “anecdotes” of a family with two siblings (mine) here are a couple of things that happen out of “chronology”</p>
<ol>
<li>Early admission that would count in the regular round</li>
<li>Scholarship offers before the admission package showed up “online”</li>
<li>Scholarship commitments well before the end of interviews</li>
<li>Walk-on “guarantees” </li>
</ol>
<p>Again, we all would like to believe that rules are iron-clad, but that is hardly the reality, and especially with athletics. Players get verbal commitments from soccer powerhouses 1-2 years before they become eligible, and this notwithstanding that they have 2 years of performance and … grades to accrue! Not really hard to believe after one … sees it happening! </p>
<p>I see the “ins” all the time. Some moms volunteer at HS for years. They get to know the teachers. Miraculously, their kids get the best teachers. They often get a book award.</p>
<p>And I’ve heard people boast of how special their son was because he got a full merit award at H, Y or P. If I heard it 3rd party, I may comment on the difference between FA and Merit, but never to the boaster. When I ran into a former friend, he was telling me how much a certain college loved a mutual friend’s son, so where paying him to stay on for a MS or PhD. I didn’t think it was necessary to explain that many PhD programs are fully funded (nor that my son was at same school & also funded). </p>
<p>I’m sure I’ve shared more of my son’s troubles and successes on CC than I have with IRL acquaintances. The few I share with IRL do the same. </p>
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<p>I agree, and this is also what bothers me about it. On the other hand, since the mother of #3 is clearly a jerk who is lost to all sense of propriety when it comes to these things, it is quite possible that she pressed a committee member about her son’s chances, that person tried to diplomatically sidestep by saying something like “I’m sure he is an outstanding young man and I look forward to reviewing his application,” and mother #3 translated this to “I’m going to push for your son.” I hope so, anyway, otherwise the committee member is as clueless as the mother.</p>
<p>For the OP’s own sake, it is probably better to just chalk it up and move on … after venting. :)</p>
<p>A kid at our HS was displeased by his placement in the regional wind ensemble/you symphony, and he told me that his mother said that first and second chairs went to the kids of “board members.” But, as I said to him, there IS NO board! :)</p>
<p>Of course, many of us have heard someone boasting about kids “winning” a big scholarship to a need-only school. Just last week, for me. :)</p>