Merit vs. Need-blind marketing

mini
Sun, 17 Apr 2005 12:24:12 +0000

"I agree on a macro level. However, I don’t view the personal letters D received from the President of a merit-aid college any less cynically.

On a micro level, the adcoms, especially at the smaller schools, are not acting that cynically. They do develop an atttachment to “their kids” and don’t like to lose them, especially a URM kid. The motivation may be statistically driven, but if it were just that, the Dean of Students wouldn’t be able to rattle off application essays."

I don’t know why you would consider this cynical. Swarthmore, like every other school, may like its yield to go up in the long run - they think it makes them look better. But in the short-term, increase in yield results in inadequate housing, classes being overfull, some students being shut out of desired courses, and, perhaps, too much money being spent in the financial aid department. There’s nothing cynical about the school doing its very best for those students who end up attending - including not over-encouraging more students to accept when doing so might be dangerous to the quality of education offered.

Pattykk - Other than in art history (and maybe math and astronomy), I don’t think you’ll find one whit of difference between the education offered at Williams and that at Grinnell (which, by the way, has an endowment every bit as large.) The “whit” may as often be in Grinnell’s favor as in Williams’. (You will find a less well-heeled student body, definitely fewer student-athletes, maybe fewer student musicians, and assuredly more interest in foreign languages.)