<p>OK. I’ll play. Cluelessdad, is this, or is this not, clear enough for you?</p>
<p>From the University of Washington financial aid website:</p>
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<p>^^ Nice, fallen. Quite a gentleman. I’ll keep my comments to the merits.</p>
<p>Yes, I want them to disclose in a similar manner to what Lafayette does – not so hard, is it?</p>
<p>Yes, Greta, UWash gets my seal of approval :)</p>
<p>cluelessdad, I just went to Lafayette’s site and I think their language is considerably more vague than Scripps’. So if Scripps were to make things clearer for you, they’d make them more confusing for me. The poor guys can’t win.</p>
<p>However, I will grant you that the Smith site is an exception (the only one I’ve found so far, including all nine of the colleges my son has applied to). It really appears to be impossible to figure out what their policy is from the information they provide on the site. They give information about merit and need-based aid as if there were never any interaction between the two–as if all merit recipients were full-pay, and no need-based recipients ever qualified for merit. </p>
<p>So yes, I agree Smith needs to fix this.</p>
<p>I have to say, that after reading all of these posts, I have to agree with clueless. I’m an average parent and this is my first child in college. My assumption was that merit scholarships are given to entice a student to go to a school and are kept separate from financial aid (merit vs need). That would be a real motivator for a student to work hard to help pay for his college, by keeping his grades up and getting these awards.</p>
<p>I agree that they should first go to help cover loans and work study, but if there is anything above that, they should reduce the EFC. Otherwise, how can it be considered a reward for hard work?</p>
<p>I am now sort of seeing the error of my ways (although can’t say that I totally agree with the way “merit” scholarships are applied), but still have problems reconciling that my child will not be able to go to the school of his choice because we cannot afford to pay 30% of our yearly GROSS income to send him, where there will be others who will get excellent financial aid packages because their income is below ours, although not that significantly. He’s worked hard and has perfect grades and did everything he could, except be born in a wealthy family.</p>
<p>nightchef-I’m all alone in this process. My parents aren’t helping me at all, so I’ve been trying to navigate all the nuances of Financial aid, admissions, ACT and all that ON TOP OF trying to actually keep my grades up for all these fantastic schools and all my ECs…</p>
<p>I tried to be dilligent and read all the financial aid policies, but seriously, some of them are worded a bit tricky, especially when you’re 16 or 17(when I started this process)</p>
<p>I’m not trying to pin blame, I just know that it’s a really hard process to figure out, especially when no one is being extremely upfront</p>
<p>nightchef, appreciate your takes. I suppose the devil is always in the details, but I thought this from Lafayette’s website was more clear to me than Scripps that EFC wouldn’t reduce:</p>
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<p>(My emphasis)</p>
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Maybe I am really being dense, but what would be above that? Merit scholarships first go to cover tuition, of course. Then the rest is calculated from that reduced point, with the merit scholarship already having been accounted for. Are you asking them to pay your child to go to school there?</p>
<p>Again, if he gets a merit scholarship he needs less loans. Either as part of the school’s FA package or from somewhere else. Why do you think that HIS hard work should reduce YOUR obligation to pay? His hard work got the merit scholarship. What you are saying seems greedy to me. With a few exceptions, many of these schools are not really rolling in dough. Running a good university is expensive.</p>
<p>rocket6louise, I’m sorry if anything I’ve said has come across as a criticism of you–that certainly wasn’t my intention. As I said earlier, I’ve missed things too in this process, and it could come back to bite us. It’s hard to see everything and process everything; we’re dealing with a mountain of data. All I’ve been objecting to is the suggestion that the colleges are being deceptive or manipulative when in fact, for the most part, they do put the correct information out there.</p>
<p>nightchef-ok. I agree that I don’t think colleges are being deceptive. I just think that this should be more clearly stated…that’s all</p>
<p>fallenchemist-what about kids who earn merit scholarships who have parents unwilling to pay and will be bearing their own EFC(like myself)…it doesn’t seem fair that they worked for a merit scholarship to cover this difference, then have it essentially taken away</p>
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<p>That’s how merit aid works for high-EFC parents.</p>
<p>fallen, you may wish to consider that Rocket is in fact a merit finalist at a fantastic college yet would have made some different application choices given more information. </p>
<p>I find ideological positions tend to melt in the face of real world experience. I hope you will reconsider the harshness of your point of view.</p>
<p>Rock on Rocket!</p>
<p>
Well, that’s what I was hoping would happen to your position over the course of this thread…;)</p>
<p>^^ Well said! How do I do a laughing face?</p>
<p>I actually have learned a ton about how FA actually works.</p>
<p>Type : , then D, with no space between (I would have just said “Colon D” but that’s too short to be an acceptable post).</p>
<p>me too cluelessdad! like I said, I wish this was a year ago…</p>
<p>I really think a bunch of posters on CC should write a book on college admission…not the crap ones written by adcoms…but by parents and students…it would be a best seller</p>
<p>:D</p>
<p>Rocket, I was referring to you :D</p>
<p>Now get a few of your buddies from CC together and do that book – college paid for, with residuals to follow. Seriously …</p>
<p>Thats kind of a cheesy smile face, anything more chucklely?</p>
<p>I entirely sympathize with rocket’s position. However, schools have to assume that parents have an obligation to contribute. I know there are ways to ameliorate the situation for the very small number of cases like hers, but for sure it is not easy.</p>
<p>My position is not harsh at all. We cannot run the world trying to account for every single possible scenario out there. Life is not fair. It wasn’t “fair” for me having to work 2 jobs while an undergrad and paying for 95% of it myself, if you count a 33% scholarship as myself. The rest I paid with the jobs and loans, which I paid after getting out. That’s life. I knew the rules and knew my Dad could only pay a small fraction. I asked a lot of questions. I really am sorry that it is harder for others, but we all learn the hard way sometimes. Blaming the schools for not being perfect is not the answer.</p>
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<p>Most merit awards are need-blind. the assumption throughout this discussion, largely, is that the student earned the merit award and the calculations proceed after taking the award off the tuition price. You comment is not pertinent to the discussion being had here.</p>