<p>I found that site a little late in the game but since my son wanted to stay within a certain radius (at that time) many of them couldn’t be considered. My daughters will be a bit different that way. </p>
<p>I saw this link to an article he wrote about the merit money again, but earlier in the game.
<a href=“http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2006/05/2006052401c/careers.html[/url]”>http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2006/05/2006052401c/careers.html</a></p>
<p>I recommend Weisbuch’s essays in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. The guy is really smart, really funny, and as Cadbury said, more than a little irreverent. (If you’re used to the usual rhetoric of college presidents, he’ like a breath of fresh air.) And his heart seems to be in the right place. A couple of samples, just for the flavor:</p>
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<p>If true, then the Prez is a typical hypocrite.</p>
<p>I understand the need for merit money and why the president thinks the way he does. Many wealthy and privately educated students get great scores and many offers of large merit awards. One gentleman was saying that after saving over 200,000 for his daughter’s college tuition, the full scholarship won on SAT scores (not perfect but high) was a gift…he felt he was given a windfall unexpectedly. Nothing wrong with that, but the woman listening who had a child that scored 100 points lower, received much less and is working 2 jobs, can’t quite do much more than smile.</p>
<p>Bluebayou, in my haste, I didn’t make myself clear enough. When I said upper-classmen, I meant they were there before he came, juniors and seniors and were privy to the policy of merit/SAT. He wont change things already in place as far as awards promised, he’s thinking ahead.</p>
<p>Yes, I think Weisbuch’s heart is in the right place. Here is another excerpt from a Chronicle (5/06) article. (Would someone please tell me how to make those quote boxes?) In this piece he’s a little more explicit re: what he means, but only just a little:</p>
<p>“But isn’t merit great? Depends on who and how you define it. Merit doesn’t make me very happy when it means that students have a 1-in-2 chance of earning a B.A. by age 24 if their family makes $90,000 a year or more; a 1-in-4 chance if their family earns $61,000 to $90,000; and less than 6 percent if their family income is lower than $35,000.”</p>
<p>Obviously, many of us would like to see all kinds of financial aid (and support services) directed toward that last group. But what about the second group he mentions? We fall in the lower end of that $61-90K group; and, having worked hard in school (public), my D is very well prepared. What does Weisbuch have to say about merit aid to this group? It’s really not clear, is it? </p>
<p>Here’s more. Note that here he refers to “kids with less financial need” – not the wealthy!</p>
<p>"What are the motives for a behavior that seems designed to encourage social strife and to undermine any true notion of merit? The answers are at once pragmatic and short-sighted. Faculty members naturally want better-prepared students, though they are not quite willing to admit that that means fewer students from disadvantaged circumstances.</p>
<p>Then, too, in future years, alumni from wealthy families will provide more and larger gifts after graduation. SAT means and medians rise when you provide more money to kids who score better, who also are usually kids with less financial need – and who, I would add, have traveled much less distance to get to their present level of achievement." </p>
<p>Let’s go back to those top LAC’s that base financial aid strictly on need as defined by the FAFSA, etc that I mentioned earlier… Again, my kid could (and did) get into some of those schools; but she/we would have had to incur a huge debt. At those schools, I think that it may be the middle category that suffers the most because of the lack of merit aid. This is an issue that comes up again and again on CC.</p>
<p>So I’d like to see more clarity on this issue. It’s not enough to simply refer to “the merit aid scam”. How are kids like mine and Debrun’s supposed to feel about that? </p>
<p>Also, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that I still think it’s OK (and even desirable) for a college to dedicate PART of its financial aid budget to attracting students with certain desired characteristics. Strategically speaking, schools like Drew absolutely MUST do that to enhance their reputations. </p>
<p>To his credit, Weisbuch really has made a major commitment to racial and ethnic diversity. One could see that in the administrators sharing the dais with him at Convocation. In addition, as the NJ.com article says, 20% of Drew’s incoming class are members of racial/ethnic minorities. That’s very cool on both counts!</p>
<p>I agree again, Cadbury, the middleclass get squeezed more times than not. The very poor or even “under 40,000” get perks or free rides if they show promise, the very rich get parents or grandparents paying their tuition, the working class, scrape by. I don’t think he is quoted well, his letters to parents and talks with the students are sometimes more clear than articles in the newspapers. One thing I do know, he truely wants to give students that show promise for many different reasons, a chance even if they don’t have 1400-up scores or trust funds. How he does it will probably be ongoing. I’m sure he realizes he can’t cut out a huge number of middle-income" students, but he does want to spread it around. There are probably a lot of factors he didn’t go into they will look at.</p>
<p>cadbury:</p>
<p>Obviously, this thread is not intended to discuss the worthiness of merit aid or need-based aid, but if the Prez publicly states merit aid is a “scam” then he must eliminate it, and not used it to attract "students with certain characteristics. Can’t be both a scam and a recruiting tool. If he does not eliminate it 100%, “he makes me think” that he’s a typical hypocrite. [Of course, those kids who did receive merit money prior to his ‘merit aid epiphany’ should be supported thru graduation.]</p>
<p>bluebayou,</p>
<p>Therein lies the rub. Either he’s being a hypocrite or he’s being unclear. As I noted above, I’d like to see a little more clarity and a little more circumspection.</p>
<p>But don’t get me wrong; I think Weisbuch has some great ideas. He may just be a bit too green as a new prez to understand the full ramifications of everything he says or writes. I fear that some of that translates into lower morale on campus, and may make it more difficult for him to achieve his goals.</p>
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<p>Well, Weisbuch could borrow a page from his esteemed friend at Sarah Lawrence: drop the SAT and start a duplicitous campaign in the press about being “singled out.” This way, the US Noose could happily accomodate Drew and slot them a bit above SLC in the alphabetized list. </p>
<p>Then he could also be happy about having done the “right” thing as he witnesses the much sought-after demotion.</p>
<p>Allow me to remain cynical and doubt that represents what he and the SLC’s past president wanted!</p>
<p>I think this prez just doesn’t know the difference between talking among friends and talking publicly. (He should ask Larry Summers.) Things we say for our friends can be more free-wheeling, especially since they know the context we use to frame our comments. I can imagine his blithe sarcasm, “What did we do wrong?” in this context. What’s a bit naive is to expect the general public to understand this and take his comments in this vein. And I really don’t care what car he drives; a bit of narcissism there IMO.</p>
<p>Merit issue: All the above can be true. I do agree with cabury. It’s a shame to build a school with the resources of Drew and not have the student body who can really benefit from them. Really needy and able applicants don’t need merit aid; that’s what need-based aid is for. Really wealthy applicants may choose the schools cadbury’s daughter turned down. To build a class and reputation merit-money is just one of the seeds. Without those middle class high achievers the school loses many potential scholars and the needy candidates end up with classmates who may not challenge them enough and who view them across a huge social gulf. Wash U. followed this strategy and now never has to give merit aid again if they don’t want to.</p>
<p>mythmom:</p>
<p>But the BIG difference between Drew and WashU (and Emory and USC and…), is that their Presidents did not call merit aid a “scam.” :rolleyes:</p>
<p>“I prefer more data rather than less when looking at an experiment.”</p>
<p>So do I. It’s just that I know from my experience in education that the experiment called education relies in part for its optimum performance on data that would never & will never appear on scantrons, as well as add’l data that is in fact on scantrons. And I could never, ahead of a decision, rank what would be more/most/less/least important among the entire bank of data – particularly since I know that I need a subset of data to interpret, rank, & evaluate those scantrons most accurately.
:)</p>
<p>bluebayou: I agree. That falls into the category of one of those unfortunate utterances that should only be made among friends, friends who understand that it may be a necessary evil but a scam nevertheless. Obviously for cadbury’s daughter it was not a scam, so this comment shows disrespect for his own student body. That said, there are people who just cannot keep their feet out of their mouths.</p>
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<p>Of course, most colleges that are really, truly test-score optional are also high school G.P.A. optional, because they are open admission colleges that will admit anyone with “a heartbeat and a check.”</p>
<p>Omigod (as the kids would say), that’s exactly it, mythmom! It feels totally disrespectful of the kids at Drew (and elsewhere) who get merit aid!</p>
<p>Meanwhile…Tokenadult, you don’t really mean that, do you? Bates, Bowdoin, Reed, Sarah Lawrence, Bard, Wheaton, Connecticut College (most recently), etc, etc, etc.</p>
<p>I mean exactly what I said. The majority of colleges that are listed by FairTest as colleges that will admit students without SAT scores are colleges that will admit anyone who applies. I’m not aware of ANY college that thinks it will improve its enrollment, its reputation, its endowment, or its ability to attract strong faculty members by being “SAT hostile” and actively preferring students with lower SAT scores to students with higher SAT scores. Some colleges, and you (cadbury) have named most of them, are colleges that have somewhat of favorable reputations in their own regions of the country that for competitive reasons have announced that they will admit applicants who don’t submit SAT scores. But in the same region of the country are other colleges that would never dream of adopting such a policy.</p>
<p>“I’m not aware of ANY college that thinks it will improve its enrollment, its reputation, its endowment, or its ability to attract strong faculty members by being ‘SAT hostile’ …”</p>
<p>Sorry, tokenadult, but I have to disagree with you. Several of the schools I list pride themselves on such a policy. Top-ranked Bates has been adamantly (and actively) anti-SAT for 25 years!</p>
<p>“…and actively preferring students with lower SAT scores to students with higher SAT scores.”</p>
<p>Since scores are irrelevant for this group of schools, the second part of your statement is totally nonsensical! How could they “actively prefer” students with lower SAT scores?</p>
<p>BTW I was mistaken about Reed. They’ve totally withdrawn themselves from the rankings, but they still require SAT/ACT.</p>
<p>Actually, I think Bates, in particular, does. There are many CC’ers who are admitted to Bowdoin and not Bates who have submitted their SAT scores. My own son was admitted to Williams and Amherst and rejected at Bates, even though he did have EC’s, community service and all that. His best friend with much lower SAT’s (he submitted) was admitted to Bates and is attending. It may be that they didn’t want to take more than one from such a small high school, I don’t know. Or it may be yield management. At the other schools both boys applied to (Chicago, Wesleyan and Brown) S was admitted, not his friend. So, they did seem to show a preference for a lower scorer, or maybe the student they thought was more likely to attend. Or perhaps they just liked that friend is Indian. Diversity in Maine is hard to come by. Or maybe they just liked him; he is a wonderful young man.</p>
<p>It was a wonderful outcome because I had urged this boy (through his mom) to apply to Bates because I just had a feeling it was his school. He loves it. My S was viewing it as more of a safety. Hahaha.</p>
<p>All is well, and all are happy. S is at Williams, his first choice. </p>
<p>Just some anecdotal evidence (not the best, I know) to indicate the bizarre contention that Bates may actually prefer lower scores may, in fact, be partically true.</p>
<p>Edit: Sorry to be name dropping all these schools; not usual practice, just in service of question at hand.</p>
<p>Edit 2: D’s boyfriend went to Drew and it was on D’s list, but then they broke up. We received some need based aid or we would have pursued merit aid too.</p>
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<p><a href=“http://www.bates.edu/apply.xml[/url]”>http://www.bates.edu/apply.xml</a></p>