<p>Calmom - you have been on CC long enough that most of us use Ivies as synonymous for top tier schools.
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<p>This could be true for most top tier prep schools. The fact 5boys’ son got a scholarship from such institution must be because he is an outstanding student, therefore if students from TMS are getting into top tier schools, then there is no reason not to believe he is not academically qualified.</p>
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<p>Maybe I am just not reading it correctly.</p>
<p>It is not just the ability to pay that would matter to Ivies but also pedigree for the lack of a better term. They are considering where you went to school, your family’s name and/or networth, and what you might end up being in future with your given family background. It is amazing to see the names and schools of EA admits in Harvard, Yale, and Princeton and kind of figure out how many got in because of the school or family.</p>
<p>I saw a kid’s name from India admitted to one of the above three and instantly knew which Billionaire’s scion he must be.</p>
<p>Re post #99:
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<p>Sometimes the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing. </p>
<p>I don’t think when a college has need-aware admission practice that the admissions committee renders its decision with the financial aid application in hand. I think more likely the ad com designates which students it wants to admit, and assigns some sort of ranking as to how desirable the particular students are – and then sends the list over to the financial aid department. Then the financial aid department reports back, and maybe some students who would have been admitted get moved into the “defer” pile in the fall, and into the “waitlist” pile in the spring, depending on how much money they need vs. how much value the college has assigned to their attendance.</p>
<p>ED in general is a way for colleges to pull in full-pay students, because in general needy students are less likely to apply ED – especially to a college that does not promise to meet full need of its students. So you could have a situation where this set of events occur.</p>
<p>A. Admissions reader views file, sees that kid attended TMC (something of a feeder school for CC), but is applying EA. Admissions reader thinks TMC=full pay, ranks kid as a “probable” admit, and sends file to staffer to see if they can lock in student. </p>
<p>B. Staffer at admissions office follows instructions, calls student to ask if he wants ED. He says yes.</p>
<p>C. File is sent to financial aid office for review. Financial aid office sends not back indicating that the kid is in their bottom tier for financial need (i.e., needs lots of aid).</p>
<p>D. Admissions director sees file and note from financial aid department, decides to hold off on admission and changes application from “admit” to “defer”. If the goal of the ED call was to lock in a potential full pay (or almost full-pay*) – then that goal can’t be met. Ironically it is possible that in the above scenario the school would have admitted the kid if he had kept his application EA… though that does not necessarily mean he would have received sufficient aid in the end. </p>
<p>*I am guessing that being “almost full pay” in today’s market is probably viewed very favorably – that is, a kid who is attending at a 10-15% discount off of regular tuition is still generating a lot of revenue for the college. Because of that, the mere notation on a file that a kid had applied for financial aid would not provide enough information to the admissions officer wanting to lock in revenue-producers – there are probably a significant number of financial aid applicants each year who qualify for very little in grant money, or who qualify for federal loan only. Student loans are revenue-producers for the college, the same as cash – the college gets the money up front, the student gets the long-term debt.</p>
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I never suggested that he isn’t academically qualified. My point is that the college are not basing their admissions decisions purely on academic qualifications. </p>
<p>The problem is that he doesn’t have the money to pay for the schools he wants to attend, so he does not stand in the same shoes as a student who is able to pay. Texaspg also has a good point.</p>
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That hasn’t been my experience, actually. My personal experience is that it is an unpardonable sin if I dare to suggest that my daughter attended an “Ivy”, and that the diploma she has that says “Universitatis Columbiae” at the top doesn’t really count. ;)</p>
<p>Keep in mind that admission to prestigious prep schools takes a lot more than money. The admission rates are often less than 20% and the students need to have perfect grades, high test scores, strong ECs and essays. Just about every student at preps like Milton would be in the running for Val at their local public schools, and TMS is selective in picking from those schools. Well-known prep schools do well in the college admissions game because the average SAT scores hover around 2100 and even the kids in the middle of the class are extremely strong students who have taken classes that are often more rigorous than the typical AP courses. Do FP kids get some preference, probably, but the kids who get into the ivys, etc. are extremely well-qualified.</p>
<p>I second that wholeheartedly, 1012mom.
Prep school kids are their own worst competition when it comes to getting into college. Obviously, getting into a better college should not be the reason to go!!</p>
<p>My niece, a junior, just returned from TMS. She goes to a hyper-selective NYC private, and this was her way of getting the BS experience (she was W/L at her favorite a year and a half ago). She LOVED it. It has led to a desire to apply to colleges with that feel.
If I learn anything about her impression of the academics, the grading, the other students, I will let you know.</p>
<p>I frankly do not get the impression that TMS’s college results are different from the NYC privates or the New England BS.</p>
<p>p.s. She did miss out on certain AP’s and also test prep, so she has a slog ahead of her to catch up this semester. She would have preferred to go to TMS the second semester in order to ski, as she is an avid skier, but but it would have been worse because she would have missed even more important pre-college stuff.</p>
<p>WOW! I go to sleep and this went a little crazy:-)) Oldfort…your awesome!! </p>
<p>Calmom…your post regarding the linear progression of what might have happened is sadly what I think definitely DID happen. I think it finally explains it… because that was the thing that was driving me crazy the most. MY question is do you think this happens with need blind schools? I would have to say no… but my inner skeptic is not convinced… we will just have to wait and see. Sorry about the confusion with the Ivy feeder comment regarding TMS… when my S was there last year their website stated schools most frequently attended were, Harvard, Princeton, Brown, YAle, DArtmouth, MIdd and Bowdoin. The must have updated it this year.</p>
<p>The interesting thing is that my S had no desire to go to an Ivy… he just wants to go to Colorado College… his second choice is Whitman, which is also need-aware… but the rest in descending order of preference are BAtes, Bowdoin, Midd, Colby and Hamilton…where all but Bates and Colby are need blind,he may have better luck here… but I’m really not couting on it.</p>
<p>Another interesting fact is that my S’s great grandfather is 100% NAtive American Indian with a tribe # and all… my S refused to check that box because he felt he would have been dishonest as he doesn’t feel he identifies with that heritage… I really wanted him to do it, but this is HIS process, not mine</p>
<p>What a fascinating discu…zzzzzzz</p>
<p>Schmaltz…your opinions and comments…zzzzzzz</p>
<p>“Calmom said the reason most TMS students end up at Ivies is their ability to pay”
No she didn’t! I understood exactly what she was saying, as did mini . try reading it again, carefully.</p>
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<p>Oh, gag. Really now. I’m tired of the duplicitousness of “HYP only care about getting those already to the manor born!” with “HYP cares only about getting those unqualified URM’s and overlooking my bright suburban kid!” Make up your mind.
Anyway, the era of HYP selecting according to “who your family is” is long, long gone.</p>
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No, I don’t think it typically happens during the regular admissions round, at least not in such a direct manner. I think that “need-blind” means that the admissions people do not look at the individual financial aid circumstances of the students they admit, though they do make decisions based on other factors that may or may not suggest a student’s economic circumstances. </p>
<p>That is, I think the need blind school accepts students based on overall impression of the file – and then sends the list over to financial aid so the packages are written, without individual student need impacting enrollment. But during the admissions process, the financial aid budget may report back on how its overall budget is doing. If the report from financial aid says, “we’re running short of money” – then the admissions director may relay that message to staff, and then they might pass on the kid from the inner city high school in favor of the kid from the pricey boarding school. Yes, the boarding school kid could be on scholarship like your son, but the odds are against it - and the need-blind schools generally have strong endowments and can afford to play the odds.</p>
<p>I do think they will look directly at need for waitlisted students, if their financial aid budget is running short. That is, I think it’s very possible that by the time the need-blind school goes to their wait list, they may already have a report from financial aid saying that they are out of money and won’t be able to write additional awards, an then they simply go through their wait list and start calling students who are not applying for aid. But at that point other priorities could come into play as well – for example, maybe there is still money in the financial aid coffers, but there is a gender imbalance in in incoming student, or they aren’t meeting their diversity goals – so they start looking for students who meet those needs. </p>
<p>Interesting article from Bowdoin here:
[Need-blind</a> a practice, not policy - The Bowdoin Orient](<a href=“http://orient.bowdoin.edu/orient/article.php?date=2007-09-28§ion=1&id=2]Need-blind”>http://orient.bowdoin.edu/orient/article.php?date=2007-09-28§ion=1&id=2)<br>
This deals mostly with international students, but the point is that Bowdoin is saying that their need-blind admissions is not an iron-clad policy, but a “practice” that would give way in the event of budgetary problems</p>
<p>And one profiling Middlebury:
[Middlebury</a> College: Coping with recession - Apr. 10, 2009](<a href=“http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/10/news/economy/levenson_college.fortune/index.htm]Middlebury”>http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/10/news/economy/levenson_college.fortune/index.htm)</p>
<p>And here’s one about Tufts from 2009 – Tufts was need-blind, but “suspended” its “need-blind” policy (practice?) in considering its final 850 applications in the spring.<br>
[“Need</a> Blind” Admissions In Trouble](<a href=“http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2009/04/post_5.html]"Need”>http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2009/04/post_5.html)
2009 was a bad year all around – and I believe Tufts was one of the schools stung badly because of a large investment with Madoff – but the point is that “need-blind” may be an approach that is simply adhered to up until the time that it isn’t.</p>
<p>That does NOT mean that your son will face problems, though! It looks like your son has a good array of college options and I think he will probably be admitted at several of his choices, and some of those college are very generous with financial aid. So no reason to panic – it is what it is. My kids had moderate to high financial need (depending on how you define things), and I don’t think it impacted admissions decisions in a significant way. My son, for example, was accepted to Lewis & Clark with a very generous, albeit loan-heavy, offer – it would have cost less out of pocket for him to attend L&C than to attend an an in-state university. It’s not that the need-sensitive schools are trying to avoid admitting needy students entirely – its more likely that they want to be making that determination based on a full picture of their incoming class. </p>
<p>Actually, as a parent I would be more concerned about long-term fit as well as the self-help/work expectations of each college. It can be tough to be a student relying heavily on financial aid at a small college that tilts toward wealth. Obviously your son has already spent a good deal of time attending schools with classmates from affluent backgrounds, but it will be different when he is putting in hours at a work study job while his classmates are jetting off to ski weekends. My d. somehow managed to maintain a rather adventurous lifestyle on her own, earned, dime – but she was in an urban area where off-campus work opportunities abounded – she never relied on work-study alone, but work-study ended up as being more of a way to supplement her other earnings.</p>
<p>My son and 5boys’ son have a bit of overlap in their college choices, so I’ve been aware of and wondering about his deferrals as well. There are a couple of things that should probably be noted. Colorado College sent out an email in November saying that several students had asked about switching their applications from EA to ED and that they would allow it. They were basically letting students know it was an option. I doubt that they had even read all of the applications at that point, less than two weeks after the EA deadline, so I think it went out to many, many applicants. It’s easy to read too much into it, but the email really just says it’s an option and nothing more. Because my s needed merit money, he didn’t switch, but it was easy to feel like it meant they wanted him. I think he got a similar letter from another school as well.</p>
<p>Colorado College also asked for quite a bit of financial information with the application. They were they only school that gave an estimated FA package along with merit money information. The other schools listed merit, but said FA information would come later. Because of this, I think that several previous posters are correct in saying that if 5boys’ son needed a lot of aid, they would want to consider him in the context of the RD applicants.</p>
<p>5boys – Keep in mind that even if you do get “good” FA, it may include lots of loans! The money my son was awarded was a combo of merit $, grants and loans.</p>
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<p>Kind of off topic, but I want to point out that even the prior statement does NOT mean that most TMS alums went off to Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Yale, etc. It meant that of a potentially very long list of colleges attended, more attended the listed Ivies than other individual colleges. But that statement would be true if out of a group of 50 alums, 20 were at the listed schools, and the remainder were at 30 different schools. Because TMS draws from a very diverse geographic group, there is likely to be less overlap among the less selective/less well-known colleges that many students end up attending.</p>
<p>I don’t fault you for this reading – a good deal of what is on the TMS web site is marketing hype, and they pay good money to their marketing consultants to learn how to word things in a way that is most likely to attract more students. Not just TMS, off course – EVERY college or private high school web site exists to market the school, and to describe the institution in the most glowing terms possible. </p>
<p>But it is likely that “most” of the alums still end up at their match/safety schools or state universities. TMS <em>probably</em> gets its information about college attendance from surveys of past students, and there is also a survey bias that comes into play – the kids who end up at lower-ranked colleges are far less likely to bother to respond to the survey, especially if they are under the impression that the other alums are all attending prestigious elite colleges. </p>
<p>Again, I’m not trying to put down the school – my observation would be the same if you plugged in the name of just about any other high school that boasts about the success of its students. They are going to use wording that entices parents to send their kids. </p>
<p>It’s just that it gets to be a problem down the line in the admissions process when parents & kids think that the credential of having attended Ritzy Prep is their ticket to admission anywhere. That’s when reality sets in, and the reality is that any given college probably turns down more applicants from Ritzy Prep than it accepts, even though the kids from Ritzy Prep do have a slight edge over the kids from Podunk High. But if they start thinking that they’ve got too many from Ritzy Prep already… well then, the kid from Podunk High starts to look more attractive. As performersmom said, prep school kids are their own worst competition. It would not be an advantage for your son to apply to Colorado College from TMS if 20 other kids kids from TMS are also applying… then instead of being special, he’s just one more TMS kid.</p>
<p>"Oh, gag. Really now. I’m tired of the duplicitousness of “HYP only care about getting those already to the manor born!” with “HYP cares only about getting those unqualified URM’s and overlooking my bright suburban kid!” Make up your mind.
Anyway, the era of HYP selecting according to “who your family is” is long, long gone. "</p>
<p>Pizzagirl - sometimes i think you need to gag a bit and give us all a break since you don’t seem to follow the conversation but just jump into make crappy observations.</p>
<p>If you gag a bit, think about it, you may say something of value?</p>
<p>Calmom:
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<p>English is not my first language, I could be misreading this, but I read it as “TMS kids go on to Ivy’s because of their ability to pay, not because they are necessary academically qualified.”</p>
<p>menloparkmom - how are you reading this?</p>
<p>“Pizzagirl - sometimes i think you need to gag a bit and give us all a break since you don’t seem to follow the conversation but just jump into make crappy observations.”</p>
<p>Easy on PG…I think those of us who don’t know anybody at TMS are doing pretty well just figuring out how to plug our computers into a wall outlet.</p>
<p>I don’t have a clue what TMS is either. Since PG’s post was quoting my post, I am responding in kind.</p>
<p>If she said she disagreed, I have no issues since everyone has an opinion just like everyone has body parts. I could not careless what she said if my post was not directly quoted for her reference and if it was just her 2 cents to the discussion.</p>
<p>All I can say is it was a bunch of garbage directed at me and I am throwing the trash back over the fence?</p>