Parents of the HS Class of 2026

[anxiousmom711]

Congrats to your S26!!!

[CFP]

@anxiousmom711

The other thing you’re seeing more of now is schools offering free tuition to students from families who make less than $xxxx per year or half tuition to students from families who make less than $xxxx per year. Which seems good on paper, but I don’t quite understand why that’s good for them. Aren’t they then just going to end up with fewer full pay students?

IMO, the top colleges offer this because they want a diverse pool of students and many families are willing to pay full price (thus offsetting the lower or no pay student) for a prestigious school.

[tamagotchi]

@anxiousmom711

The other thing you’re seeing more of now is schools offering free tuition to students from families who make less than $xxxx per year or half tuition to students from families who make less than $xxxx per year.

Generally these are schools that already offer generous financial aid to students. I believe the reason for these explicit offers is that many families believe they make too much money to apply for aid and don’t even bother running an NPC. I’ve seen parents and students here posting that they believe they aren’t eligible for aid at any schools even when the family income is only $100k or $150k (a level that would receive some aid at many schools). When families see a school explicitly list their income level as eligible for free tuition, it encourages them to apply. (And I think these offers have a spillover effect that encourages families to run the NPC at other schools… which is also good.)

[anxiousmom711]

Some of the schools I’m thinking of wouldn’t necessarily be considered top colleges. It probably works great at Harvard or Princeton, maybe less so at the schools that are just a level down from that.

[anxiousmom711]

@tamagotchi

’ve seen parents and students here posting that they believe they aren’t eligible for aid at any schools even when the family income is only $100k or $150k (a level that would receive some aid at many schools).

That makes a lot of sense!

[fiftyfifty1]

@ViZi

to Lawrence University in Appleton, WI.

Congrats! Lawrence is a terrific school. I know 3 grads: a successful lawyer in NYC, an outstanding doctor, and a geology professor. It’s a happy place with good education. Congrats!

[Evangeline2026]

I think maybe they just need content . I agree with you - like why put a negative spin on it? I care about the final cost of attendance. And if in the meantime, my D26 can feel good about getting a merit scholarship, who cares. And they aren’t going to just lower the cost of the school because plenty of their students may still pay full price (I think International students often do?)

Also, I wonder if merit somehow counts differently in taxes or something than a “discount”. I have no idea though. Like a bigger write off? Schools are for-profit though, so I don’t think that would matter. This is not in my realm of expertise so ignore me if this sounds dumb

[beefeater]

@Evangeline2026

And if in the meantime, my D26 can feel good about getting a merit scholarship, who cares.

I totally agree with this angle. There’s the “love the school that loves you back” maxim that comes up, and I can definitely see it making sense.

One more anecdote about this - a good friend’s son runs track and is pretty good. Recruitable for D3. He ended up getting into a top school, but not as a recruit. He then walked onto the team because he was still pretty good. Just the coach didn’t have enough spots. So the friend’s son is happy he’s at the school and is running track, but has that little tinge of “But I couldn’t get recruited for this.” So a little cloud on what should be a fully sunny result. I think sometimes people can undersell the value of being wanted, especially to a 17/18 year old. Merit scholarships are also a nice way to seem wanted.

[ECCA2026]

@heatherroal

However, many of the “scholarships” that are given upon admission are simply a marketing tool.

Anecdotally, I used to work for a college that had a “tuition reset”. They cut their tuition in half, from $28,000 to $14,000. The thinking was that if they gave a low price up front, more people would apply and eventually attend. Unfortunately, it backfired because families saw the “cheap” tuition as compared to other privates in the area and thought that meant the education would not be as good as a school that had a sticker price of triple that (or more).

Two points. I think of the things in your full post as at least two distinct categories as well. Category 1 is “merit” or whatever one wants to call it, that only some students get for whatever reason. I think I define merit there a lot broader than some folks seem to. I don’t think of it as just stats or athletics or arts ability or something. I think of it as any reason they want you in particular for you. Holistic admissions values a ton of things that don’t show up in stats that I class as merit.

Category 2 relates to what you described, money that is given to everybody but called merit (e.g., the $10k Oberlin gives to all students or the $25k that Agnes Scott does). On that point, we asked Agnes Scott why they do not just lower their tuition and they told us exactly what you highlight from your experience. That people like the $25k off a higher tuition more than they like a $25k lower sticker price. People like the feeling that they got a discount.

Agnes Scott also offers other merit awards on top of that that is more individualized.

[art_2929]

I agree. I try to tell people as much as I can. We were really surprised by these offerings that no one told us about or are not easily found.

[sbinaz]

That’s awesome news! Congrats!

[nycasdmom]

AMAZING!!! Big congrats. What a nice thing to celebrate over the holiday (or long weekend if you don’t celebrate)

[nycasdmom]

I’m with you on high COL places. The FAFSA and CSS really should take that into consideration as part of the equation.

[SpreadsheetMom]

@ViZi

but I’m very excited that S26 got his first acceptance - to Lawrence University in Appleton, WI. He wants a small school in a place with seasons (we’re from Los Angeles).an

Fantastic – congrats to your S26! That first one is so exciting, and how great that it’s a place you’ve already visited that he knows he likes!

[SpreadsheetMom]

I live 20 minutes from the mall they used for that set. Wish it looked like that for real!

[sbinaz]

D26 got another email from admissions department at University of the Incarnate Word. Oh my gosh, they’re challenging to deal with. In the email, they said that they need official ACT, SAT and AP test scores in order to make an admissions decision.

Um…you guys already admitted her.

This after a good solid 3, almost 4, weeks of back & forth over her high school transcript. They repeated claimed that they hadn’t received it from our high school even though on SCOIR, it showed that the college had downloaded it.

That college is now solidly in last place and because of all the nonsense, we’re probably going to opt not to go tour it in the spring.

[Evangeline2026]

I don’t blame you. How frustrating. One of D26 portals keeps changing her email to an email that she must have used when we visited - but definitely isn’t the one she used on common app or her log in to portal etc. All of a sudden she couldn’t log in to her portal after weeks of being able to and it said the email isn’t anyone with an application at their school LOL. She called once and they changed it back, but now it changed again. At least now she knows to just try the old email. But doesn’t give me great confidence that their technology has glitches.

[sbinaz]

All of this has resulted in D26 & I talking about how difficult will it be as an enrolled student to get regular day-to-day things done while attending there.

[ECCA2026]

If this is the attention she gets when they are wooing her, I can only imagine what it will be like when they are not.

[anxiousmom711]

Geesh! I’d have totally written them off after that. It’s like the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.