Harvard didn’t give enough financial aid? How much were they expecting? I wonder if they made a mistake filling out the FAFSA or Profile.
With the parents occupations they obviously make too much for any significant FA. The question of why they don’t have more saved with those kinds of salaries is certainly germane, but we have no idea what their situation is. We know there is at least 1 other sibling in college. There could have been others, or there could be high medical bills, or elder care, or tons of other things.
NVM.
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Ronald Sr., is an engineer who works as a manager at the Federal Aviation Administration and his mother, Sandra, works in management at FedEx headquarters.>>>>>
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I could imagine that they might not get ANY FA let alone some. Engineering management position and corporate HQ management? This was always just an exercise. No way do smart parents with a kid already in college not understand how this works, it is just a nice story to tell at a party. Many parents who earn too much money won’t even apply, the rest might apply looking at it is a lottery, this family maybe liked the publicity.
@Alfonsia, but not trying for big merit money at the schools I listed? (Throw in USC, UVa, and maybe UMiami as well, BTW). Unless he really loves 'Bama, not trying for the full-tuition scholarships at Emory, USC, and Wake (as well as a bunch of LACs) doesn’t make too much sense.
“there must have been plenty of schools with merit for a URM with an SAT of 2260? No?”
Yes, if you apply. Apparently he did not. Not good counseling here IMHO.
Right, PT, it makes no sense to me either, it is so all or nothing, like a pre planned event.
@PurpleTitan You’re absolutely right. USC draws a lot of NMFs from our area. And the others are spot on too.
Or even, if going for the cream of the crop, why not apply to Duke as they have a very few select full-ride scholarships. Incredibly rigorous competition, but if he just ran the board in the college game, he would have been a contender.
@picapole, well, Vandy, WashU, JHU, and NYU evidently didn’t give him much if anything either, so while he may have had a shot at the big Duke scholarships, it seems less likely than from the schools I listed. Granted, of those 4 schools listed above, getting a big scholarship is very difficult from the first 3 (arguably more difficult than getting in to HYPSM; certainly, far fewer kids receive full-tuition scholarships from Duke/Rice/JHU/CMU/ND/Vandy/WashU than get in to even one of HYPSM each year). And NYU, being in NYC and drawing from all over, will get an extremely diverse student body even if they do nothing, so being A-A likely got him no bonus points there.
However, he could have had a decent shot at getting big merit money from ND (which isn’t exactly the most racially diverse school in this country), but he didn’t apply there.
Oh yeah, he could have tried for the big UNC scholarships as well.
I think I’d rather be in a den of lions than the target of the Monday morning quarterbacking of parents on College Confidential.
@rosered55 Sorry, I can’t agree. It’s not Monday morning quarterbacking because that implies you didn’t do anything to help the team all week long before the game. I see a lot of regulars here being super patient explaining the realities of college funding over and over.
What I do think is harsh is that those parents had this kid apply to so many great schools and then turn them all down because they were unaffordable, when it should have been no surprise had they done their homework first.
And for the record, I’ve read some good things about University of Alabama. But it was his only financial viable option. And that’s really too bad.
Why did he apply to all those schools if he was just gonna go to Alabama?
Given his stats, I am sure he will go to med school. Some of the more “prestigous” schools mentioned above have scholarships that only cover tuition. Maybe he wanted tuition, room and board. I am shocked at the scorn and outrage here. If he has a great gpa, and a great MCAT scores he will have no problem going to a great medical school, which he will enter DEBT FREE! Given his tenacity, I am sure he will have great opportunities at Alabama. Really, some of you act like his world is going to end by going to Bama. I know folks accepted to the ivies, that instead went to HBCUs( oh the horror), then went to ivies for grad school( MBAs and Med School). This young man will be fine.
For those folks who say his parents shouldve saved more, really??? Now your are privy to his family’s finances?
My husband and I got married young, and had all of our kids in our twenties. So during our 20s and 30’s, there wasnt much too save. We make what would be considered nice salaries now, but it means that we didnt have big 529s for our kids. Many folks dont reach prime earning years until their 40s, so there wasnt a whole lot to save. Its nice he had to forethought to know that his package would change once his sibling graduated next year. I say Kudos to this young man! Yes, there were other schools that may have given him money, but if past is prologue, he is destined to be successful wherever he attends school.
I have been told by a doctor that, for premed, it is a good idea to go to the easiest school possible because of the focus on gpa in medical school admissions. Perhaps that also factored into the decision.
Okay, so it seems he applied to a bunch of reaches and high matches and one safety. Not everybody does things “perfectly” (in other words, how the CC Monday morning quarterbacks - yes I’m stealing that phrase - deem fit.) Heck, at least he was sensible about his safety and didn’t choose Cornell or Stanford for that.
A full ride is nothing to sneeze at. There’s no guarantee that he would have gotten enough merit money at the other colleges suggested anyway.
Maybe he really liked U of A and thought it was the best cultural fit?
My kids were in a similar situation-- NMF’s, but income too high for great need-based aid. I can relate to this decison. Weighing the difference between paying 20-25K per year vs. 0, that full ride looks awfully attractive. Also, just because a family has a high income/good jobs in recent years doesn’t mean that they have had those same jobs/income since the kid was born. They might’ve been paying off their own college debt or had lower level jobs for many years, and only recently got promoted/increased their income. This explains why they might have little if anything saved for college. In our family’s case, we looked at the numbers ahead of time and weren’t interested in Ivy league schools. (H is an Ivy grad who grew up in Memphis. It wasn’t a great fit for him and he never encouraged our kids to apply. Kids had no interest.) I’m sure Mr. Nelson could’ve gotten a full ride at a lot of schools. Bama is a fine school. I’m sure he’ll do well there. Congrats to him. It is a reasonable, practical decision that he and his parents are all happy about.
Why are people referring to this as a Full Ride? Bama does not give out a $0 COA scholarship, do they?
The Elite Scholarship is about as close as you get, but it is still not $0, right? And I don’t think he got the Elite.
^^^ Perhaps he is stacking scholarships?
Alabama scholarships:
http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/elite.html (Academic Elite)
http://scholarships.ua.edu/nationalscholars/ (National Merit)
It is not clear whether there is any partial stacking (up to the cost of attendance) allowed with these if a student gets both, or gets one plus some other scholarship.
Yes, students can receive enough stacking scholarships to attend UA full-ride. We have a child doing exactly that.
Our ds did not face the decision that this young man did b/c he didn’t apply to that list of schools, but his decision was similar in other respects. He was accepted to great schools, applied for the handful of high dollar scholarships at those schools and didn’t win them, and with the scholarships they did award him, the differential left them outside of our budget. (Our ds was fully aware during the application process that if he didn’t win those scholarships then the likelihood of them offering affordable packages was low.)
Our ds didn’t apply for Fellows, but CBH. I can’t speak about Fellows, but CBH is an amazing opportunity and my ds has absolutely zero regrets about walking away from higher ranked schools for UA. He loves UA and CBH is what pulled him toward UA. I would assume that the Fellows experience is similar and getting into Fellows is what made this young man make the decision he did, just like CBH made our ds make the decision he did.
I’m sure this young man’s experience at UA will be as fabulous as our son’s. Roll Tide!! 