<p>Hahaha… corranged, you are very U of C.</p>
<p>I really can’t contribute much to this conversation, as I know even less about financial aid/scholarships as I do about the admissions process (and even then, it’s me using common sense and what I imagine Ted O’Neill, Libby, et. al. look for). What frustrates me the most right now is the insinuation that ethnic minorities may somehow not be “deserving” of their spot at the U of C or elsewhere. Maybe it’s because I’m reading into these posts too much. Maybe it’s because I have a lot of friends who are leaps and bounds smarter than me here who also happen to come from under-represented backgrounds…</p>
<p>OP: Chicago does not have a varsity fencing team, so I don’t imagine your suitemate would have been recruited for that. I also know that there are plenty of high-scoring and high-performing ethnic minorities who don’t get into superelite schools-- students who fit the profile of HYPS+ even before their background is factored in. (I know this because I went to high school with a lot of students in this scenario!) Perhaps your suitemate has other things going for him that weren’t represented in his summary of himself for you?</p>
<p>Blindkite: I’ve never heard of U of C doing that for any applicant.</p>
<p>FWIW, all the merit award winners I know happen to be white and un-hooked, much like corranged. That’s not to say that the entire merit aid pool is representative racially of the admitted students pool, but it is to say that merit aid is not solely a lure for “hooked” applicants.</p>