Your high school really needs to rethink its practice of publicizing scholarship records, or this sad tale will be repeated.
I am going to Tech, but on my applications Tech was listed as a 3rd choice to help increase my scholarship money, as recommended by my high school consulor. I didn’t realize that scholarship records weren’t publized. Every year they accounce the average scholarship per student, and the total which is multimillion but it is really done by 5 people. I have contacted the schools and the money is being redistrubuted to this years class. It was a lot of small privates or colleges on the CC auto full tuition list. But what I don’t understand is why the money disappears, doesn’t it eventually go to someone else? And if the scholarships are automatic, except for $160,000 (that I was in no way expecting, I didn’t think I would get in as a double major much less a nice scholarship) from SMU and a few thousand from other colleges. My stats aren’t great either I only have a 32 ACT and a 4.4 unweighted from a crappy high school. I don’t think this is as wrong as some people are painting it. In one example I got an official scholarship package in 45 MINUTES after filled in the application that took a mere 5 minutes. I don’t think I made the quality of schools clear. They are largely unknown, and known to be Stalker schools that harass for applications. Yes I did something wrong, but thankfully most of the money is going back. I wouldn’t recommend this, but I think minimal damage was done.
In the end, what are your “real choices” (or top 3 choices) and how much will they (each) cost if you calculate (tuition, fees, room&board) - (scholarships, grants)?
Texas Tech - $12000 over 4 years
UT D - $20,000 over 4 years
UT A - I would live at home and free with money for books, if on campus 28,000
The full rides I didn’t like except Kansas State but its too far
I applied to Iowa State, SMU because I wanted a semi-reach, U Dallas, Mary Hardin, Abliene Christian, Lubbock Christian, Oklahoma Baptist, and a few others I was pretty serious about attending on the condition of a full ride, but I was thinking Tech , my first choice would cost 40,000 and I didn’t want to spend that much money, and extra 28,000 I got was a surprise. Had you told me I would be only paying for a private bedroom dorm, I don’t think I would have done so much. With a crazy high EFC of 35% of my parent’s post tax income, basically no college savings, I would have gone pretty much anywhere for free.
In reality I got over double what I need to break the record due to the SMU scholarship (which I quickly declined), and a unexpected deal at K state and Tech.
Someone needs to tell the college counseling office at your high school that publicizing and encouraging this kind of “record” is a waste of time for their students. You and your classmates would be better off using those free fee waivers on colleges that you are actually considering.
The fee waivers are college specific, and that’s often the only reason we apply, its free and fast, and seemingly harmless. But I guess its not.
You’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve played the game extremely well and extremely smartly. Everything you’ve done has been perfectly within the rules, and the scholarships you decline should be available to other students. Scholarship funds don’t just evaporate
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I only have a 32 ACT and a 4.4 unweighted from a crappy high school.
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You mean weighted, right?
Texas Tech (wih Honors College I believe) would indeed be an unbelievably good deal, and since it’s your first choice, wow.
I see what you did… you applied to all kinds of “basically open enrollment colleges” that have very very low yield and just want applicants. Since their deadlines haven’t passed yet, the scholarships WILL be redistributed.
I do think your high school shouldn’t publicize the total amount of scholarships, ONLY the % of cost of attendance of the university you chose - for example, 50% tuition paid for, 50% tuition, room&board paid for… Because ultimately a $10,000 scholarship to a $65,000 university isn’t the same as to a $20,000 university. It’s not the amount, but the ratio that’s impressive. This would still highlight each student’s careful college planning by emphasizing scholarships over loans, but it wouldn’t be this contest to accumulate meaningless numbers. By focusing on the college the students chose, the high school would also give credence to the idea there’s such a thing as “value”, which families may differently, and “fit”, which is personal - in your case, for example, a meaningful full tuition scholarship to Texas Tech is worth more than a meaningless full ride to a college you don’t intend to go to.
@Monkeygirl It sounds to me like you are a hard working young lady who has listened and followed the guidance of your school counselor. Now, you are learning from this experience and declining scholarship offers you won’t be using so that they can be offered to others. I think that is all a part of the process. The parents and students on this site have loads of advice and information, and I think it was wise of you to ask for it here. Congratulations on all your scholarship offers! I wish you luck next year.
For all who mentioned that the high school should not publicize scholarship dollars, this is a common practice in Texas schools–both at public and private schools. The districts and private high schools take great pride in announcing how much scholarship dollars their students received. As mentioned before, it is generally a handful of students who bring in the lions share of the offers.
At my son’s high school there is a special awards assembly with a printed program that lists each scholarship received and the amount. My son applied to and was accepted to 13 schools, and received over $750,000 in scholarship offers. We did not do it to break any records we did it because we wanted options and we wanted our son to graduate from college debt free.
@Moneygirl1337, as part of declining offers, my son called each recruiter or each person he worked with during on campus visits or interviews. He thanked them for the opportunity and their time. You can also decline most offers by logging into the University’s portal.
Best of luck at Texas Tech
I am truly puzzled by this practice-why would it matter how much money was awarded to a student for schools they will not be attending?
@doresearch This makes absolutely no sense to me.
Sorry but this is so strange. Don’t you have access to NPC and excel worksheets in Texas? Isn’t a lot of the money from automatic merit scholarship? And like @siliconvalleymom said, Why is it important to know pakages for colleges not be attended? The most prestiguous don’t even offer merit.
The sad thing is you may have taken money away from a kid who truly cannot go to the school and may have to live at home because they didn’t get the money to go or work their axx off at a job while trying to go to school simultaneously. There are people who truly cant afford college. Its really sad people are doing this for no reason other than ego at the expense of other deserving kids.
^ Apparently, a lot of these scholarships were automatic, so any kid with the stats got the same scholarships (but for many of these universities, kids with the stats wouldn’t attend, even with the scholarship - and universities have a pretty good handle on those scholarships’ yield).
So, there wasn’t any harm done there.
The issue is different for competitive scholarships, but OP’s actions are clearly fueled by the high school’s (or state’s) practice to list and announce, not the scholarship amount received to the university students chose to attend (or, better in my view: percentage paid for), but the dollar amount of all scholarships received, including all universities that the student doesn’t intend to attend…
@gearmom Although some of my son’s scholarship offers were automatic based on his stats, the largest scholarship offers were competitive and required either supplemental applications and/or competitive interviews.
As a result of this process, and having many offers to choose from, my son decided not to attend his #1 school, nor even his #2 or #3 school, but selected the best over all offer after weighing all the perks as well as the pros and cons.
I can appreciate that if you are not familiar with this practice that it might not make sense, but it is how things are done here in Texas.
Applying to a lot of scholarships makes sense, and emphasizing scholarships over loans for college attendance is praise-worthy, but why announce money for colleges students won’t go to? Why not announce for the college the student will attend?
@bengalmombengal although you might have a few, like the original poster, who do this just to see how much money they can receive others, like my family, did it out of financial necessity…
As others have said, universities are very familiar with ‘yields’ and make offers based on historical yields. I know that the offers my son turned down ended up gong to other deserving students.