<p>Both my inlaws and my husband are adamant that a niece/grandkid, graduated from the same school that youngest just graduated from.
She has a four year degree in dental hygiene that earned at a local community college which has 2 or 3 universities with a campus presence.
My daughter attended Western, which has never had a dental hygiene program, as opposed to Eastern, which does.
I suspect she actually attended Eastern & I am not very good at making noncommittal noises when grandma says that D’s cousin graduated from the same school.
But as she isnt actually present to correct or confirm, I just have to resist being right.
Its really frustrating.</p>
<p>Anyone else have a similar story of having to bite your tongue?</p>
<p>I constantly have to restrain myself now when I hear people boasting about getting “scholarships” at Harvard etc as if they’re merit scholarships. “She got a full ride to Yale!” Yeah okay well that just tells me she had financial need.</p>
<p>My cousin did all of his coursework but never finished his master’s thesis decades ago. It doesn’t count- almost having the degree means he only has the bachelors. He was a smothered only child of a widow.</p>
<p>Years ago I talked to a proud grandma whose grandaughter was a college student- at the local technical college, not a four year or CC/junior college as exist in other states. Where I grew up a HS classmate told me he “only” had a bachelor’s degree when I ran into him years after HS. Blue collar town versus state flagship one attitudes. </p>
<p>I understood where the classmate was coming from- we’d been in Honors classes together in HS. I didn’t say anything to this stranger about how unimpressed I was. My aunt used to say her son, younger than me, was going to be a doctor. I am one. Always kept quiet about how cousin never got a job, left his mother or finished having his mother type his thesis (yes, she was a secretary and was typing it). I sympathized with the classmate about how life happens.</p>
<p>I didn’t bite my tongue when cardiologist H would state only internal medicine doctors were real physicians. Hey- an anesthesiologist has the same degree- and mine was a US MD, not an MBBS from another country. He would do it to get/tease me sometimes years ago. We’re still married.</p>
<p>Someone from Ohio told me that Ohio University was a private school. When I corrected him, he asked me how I knew it was when he was from Ohio and I’d never been there. I just responded that I figured it was like Indiana University and that he was probably right…</p>
<p>On the plus side, I work in tourism and frequently get guests from all over the world. Most people are amazed when I can tell them something about the college on their clothing (even got a tip from someone who was astonished I knew anything about Canisuis College when I’d never been to Buffalo).</p>
<p>People just talk, let them enjoy the moment in their lives, nobody cares what they say, don’t you think about your own whatever while they are blabbing about this and that? Apparently, iIt is entertaining for them, no reason to pay much attention…it is not like you ar at the doc’s office, and how many of these talks you need to disregard - unfortunately very many, the talks that you paid for…</p>
<p>Though, you know, I’ll tell you, I did smile and nod once, at my father’s funeral many, many years ago when my cousin who attended mistook where I was going to school. He assumed I was continuing graduate studies at my undergraduate college when I was just taking random courses at a local university that was NOT my old school, and I was NOT in a degree program there, NOT a grad program, not even taking graduate level classes, just a bunch of business classes. </p>
<p>He was the only person I did not correct when anything was said or asked about what I was doing then. I just let ti go. He apparently told his whole family and a private investigator who was gathering info on my brothers and myself for my half brother who was searching for our father some years later. More than 35 years later, all of this came to light when we sibling all got together including said half brother who gave us a copy of the PD report. </p>
<p>My cousin had died since. But it was funny, how that misperception that I let go was so widely and officially reported.</p>
<p>“I constantly have to restrain myself now when I hear people boasting about getting “scholarships” at Harvard etc as if they’re merit scholarships. “She got a full ride to Yale!” Yeah okay well that just tells me she had financial need.”</p>
<p>rebeccar: Why begrudge anyone’s success at getting into Harvard, Yale etc.? If they were accepted into an Ivy League school and received a need-based grant, then more than likely they were also accepted at non-Ivy league schools that offered them full or partial scholarships. Someone in their household had done their homework.</p>
<p>I understand your reluctance to consider need-based grants as scholarships, but for many students it is a golden opportunity to take advantage of a program unavailable to their parents or grandparents. They aren’t given the grants only because their family income is below a certain figure, they are given the grants because they earned a spot in the class.and because their college wanted them.</p>
<p>You didn’t mention “how unimpressed you were” that he “only” had a bachelor’s degree? Did I understand that correctly? Well, how big of you.</p>
<p>A nurse in the break room one day said she could never go to my nursing alma mater to bridge her ADN to a BSN because it was a private school with outrageous tuition. I told her she was mistaken. She insisted it was private, even after I told her I went to that school and paid less tuition than my other alma mater (state flagship) cost at the same time. She still insisted she knew better, so what the hey. Her loss, no skin off my nose.</p>
<p>Tony
She’s not begrudging them anything. But anyone who receives financial aid at HYP knows full well that it is all “need-based”. Your “aid” at those schools is there because you applied for it, and because the financial aid committee judged that your family couldn’t afford the sticker price. In most cases, I think the parents would be very aware of this.</p>
<p>How this gets transmuted into “a full-ride” type situation has never been clear to me. I guess the parents or the kids aren’t that interested in explaining that if you are admitted, those universities will make it possible for you to attend financially. If something is begrudged, its the inability to correct this misperception. </p>
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<p>Actually they are given the discounts because their family income is deemed inadequate to pay full price. It’s true that you have to be worthy of admission to get the grant, but the difference between you and the full pay student at those schools is purely your family income. (And I note this as someone who benefited from that financial aid at a school like that.)</p>
<p>Perhaps its a small point, but its in the same realm as the full athletic scholarship at HYP…which if course does not exist because there are no athletic scholarships. </p>
<p>In any case, there are “different worlds” out there. The people on this board are part of a separate one, where people know more about what they are talking about and doing…usually. :)</p>
<p>I don’t correct unless the context the info is given can give the wrong idea. To tell a bunch of junior parents that merit money or athletic scholarships are available at ivies, for instance can send them down the wrong road. It might be appropriate to say that there aren’t any; that one has to get financial aid which can be more generous than at most schools. I almost always let things go if they aren’t important unless the info is particular to my situation, most of the time. </p>
<p>Private schools can have tuitions less than some publics and the same the other way around. My friend’s son is in some animator’s program at a state school. The tuition for the state school is very reasonable, downright inexpensive,but that is a private program within the pubic school with an enormous surcharge. When my friend was just mulling over the huge tuition bill that was coming up, someone made a snarky remark of how that family could easily pay for that, having no idea what the particular situation was. </p>
<p>Perhaps the ‘reluctance’ is because someone then turns and asks, " treemaven, what scholarship did Kiddo receive?" They ask because Kiddo’s academic record is outstanding and of the sort that gets lots of merit scholarships. And the school asks because they include a listing of all the scholarships each student is offered in their academic awards bulletin.</p>
<p>We truthfully say ’ None’, but refrain from raining on other’s parade of Ivy scholarship and don’t include the caveat that we don’t qualify for financial based scholarships and they don’t give athletic ones. So everyone looks sad and understanding that Kiddo didn’t merit a ‘scholarship’ despite her stellar academic record and being a recruited athlete even though Johnny received a “Full Scholarship” to the same Ivy. </p>
<p>Petty? Maybe. We don’t begrudge Johnny his scholarship–there or at any of the other 32 (yes, 32) schools he applied and was accepted, but Kiddo applied to one school, early decision, was accepted, but her lack of ‘scholarship’ award suggests her academic merit was wanting after all ( ‘just another athlete taking someone else’s spot!’ As several people were reported to say about her admission to her dream school. )</p>
<p>So, it really is more about how the lack of understanding regarding the nature of the scholarship threshold requirements and how that reflects on those who have the merit level, but who were blessed with a comfortable upbringing. We paid full ticket (not that it was easy) and are grateful we had that ability, but yes, it does rankle abit that most don ‘t realize her lack of scholarship offer was no reflection on HER—just a reflection on her parents’ financial state. </p>
<p>Cptofthehouse, Ive had a similar experience.
When oldest was in elementary school, I was taking courses at the local community college, hoping to transfer to a four year. A few assumed I was in graduate school. They also assumed upon hearing that H worked at Boeing, that he was an engineer, instead of < gasp> a machinist.</p>
<p>Since the elementary school was both very (although she received aid) pricey and required IQ testing for admission, I imagine it was difficult to wrap their head around the idea that two uneducated blue collar parents could raise a special snowflake too.</p>
<p>My cousin and her husband struggle financially but both come from families where some siblings and members are upper income. She works at a “name” company, but not in a high salaried position,and her DH who is prominent among some EC activities really makes very little at his business. Their son was quite the achiever in high school and also in college, and also went to all sort of programs that involved some extended family donations and financial aid. He’s currently at college on a full tuition scholarship AND still gets a bit of need based money, So he qualifies for both merit and need. But no one needs to have to know all of that when in a discussion. </p>
<p>She was put in an uncomfortable position once, maybe more than that, when a college know it all wanted to probe exactly what her son was getting and how because she caught my cousin mentioning scholarship and then something about financial aid. This person pushed to a point of rudeness. her point being you can’t get both, which is not true as this young man does. IMO, if it is clear someone doesn’t want to give more info, even if you think something doesn’t add up, it’s better to just leave it. There are often exceptional circumstances. </p>
<p>I have a friend whose kids got full PELL and state need grants when their father made over a half million a year and was known to be wealthy. My friend would not discuss it because though all was legit, it made for some really outraged folks. But she let it slip out hat her kids got some grant or other, and some college know it all had to correct her and say it was not possible. Umm. Well, it was. As they were getting that grant. Know it alls often do not know it all.</p>
<p>That does sound sketchy though, to be getting a Pell grant which is intended for low income students, although i
if her parents were divorced and her mother was low income she would qualify.
But it makes her dad sound like a dick, which is probably why they were divorced.</p>
<p>I consider myself to be a " know it all", :o but only because I researched the heck out of the college search, and learned things like there are schools that meet full need, but no merit awards, you can’t move to California and get instate tuition after freshman year, ( generally) and there is a limit to how many years you can receive Stafford loans. My kids are older than most of my friends kids, so I had already been through it, but i quickly found that folks just want to find out for themselves.</p>
<p>There are some of us who get annoyed when we hear people say stuff that just isn’t right. Usually, there’s no point in correcting them–but it might make us feel better to come here and say something about it.</p>
<p>At Thanksgiving, an older relative kept insisting (with certainty) that Oberlin College went out of business. Huh, maybe you’re thinking of Antioch College in Ohio, which did shut down? Nope, it’s Oberlin! I read about it!</p>