I’ve seen this often. When people share their admission into a college, they will say “I got in with an $80,000 scholarship!” It makes the accomplishment seem a hell of a lot bigger than it really is. Lately, I’ve just been wondering why so many students are doing that. Do you do it? Why?
I think a lot of people are very caught up in the excitement of getting a scholarship and just posts what their scholarship letter says. They don’t realize that the scholarship is $20,000 a year or whatever amount per year, or they do simply say it because it seems more impressive. I know that a lot of college scholarship letters are written in the form of $80,000 instead of listing how much money per year also.
It’s not dishonest. 20K a year is a large amount of money
High schools are chief to blame. “Our seniors this year rec’d $1.5M in scholarships! (aren’t we fantastic educators!)”
Regardless of the fact that some of that is need-based financial aid. And the more schools applied= more “scholarship” money. It’s all about trying to look good. Just ignore it
@Jmbakh For a school with a 60k price, 20k really isn’t that much.
There is no right or wrong to report the scholarship amount as per year or total over 4 years. On the FA package, it would just show the current year, while the scholarship award letter may go either way too.
I agree, but I do hate when colleges comingle loans and grants when reporting on financial aid. A loan is not financial aid unless it is subsidized or has some preferential rate. Saying that a loan is financial aid is like saying that a car dealership should be able to treat the auto loans they let their customers take out as being the same as giving the car away for free. One of my daughter’s schools even called their loans an “Award” in the financial aid letter.
Colleges have become businesses, but can’t really blame them…
anyway, ignore it.
Is it possible to look at financial award data, like what portion of it is grant/work study/loan/etc? I think it’spossible
Probably because a lot of schools use that amount in their notifications. When my daughter was awarded a scholarship from one college they were the ones who called it an $80K award. In this case since the total cost to attend this college is $42k per year, a $20K scholarship was pretty darn good. She got awards of $22K at a couple other schools, but because they were schools that cost over $50K, it wasn’t as exciting as the $20K award. However when she told people about it, she didn’t mention the amount - just the name of the award and that they were giving her direct admission to the nursing program.
I would never say to anyone how much scholarship money I got. I don’t even know if I would say it if someone asked. Maybe with some close family members, you might say “Yeah, Judy got the Dean’s scholarship or Presidential scholarship” but blasting the specific amounts seems tacky imo.
I say it in amount per year. I don’t mind telling people how much I got, but I certainly don’t go around yelling it to the world either.
I agree that it’s not something to go around bragging to the world about but I don’t see the problem in sharing it. I certainly don’t get why the OP would be upset about stating total scholarship over four years verses per year. Anyone even slightly aware of college prices knows the cost of colleges and even pricy privates aren’t 80K per year. Unless they assume someone is walking away with 20K in profit or more it’s pretty easy to figure out it’s over the course of four years. It does seem some schools give a merit scholarships to such a large portion of the class the money could be spent on meeting full need or lowering tuition from the start but that’s not relevant
Schools and local newspapers often write articles about scholarship winners, and universities sometimes feature them on websites depending on the level of scholarship. Often it’s no secret. This isn’t like talking about how much salary you earn. I don’t see why anyone should keep quiet about it if they got a scholarship and are excited to share the news with others, especially in a place like CC. It’s a happy moment. Would a football player fail to tell about his winning touchdown on a forum about football where lots of other players are discussing their wins and losses, and congratulating and consoling each other?
I’m not upset about it, I was just wondering why. It is certainly misleading for those who don’t know a lot about colleges. I’ve seen some of those posts on FB, and I’ve seen some replies asking “What college is $80,000 per year?”
I find it a little weird that people are posting on Facebook how much money they got in scholarships anyway, be it per year or over four years. Seems better to just say, like mentioned above, that one received the ‘Presidential Scholarship’ or whatever.
But many high schools do ask for how much scholarship money one was awarded, and use the ‘over four years’ figure for their calculations. Which is a little misleading too.
The funny thing is, some people (and high schools) report the total amount of scholarships received by a student not only reporting the total for 4 years, they even combine all offers from different schools. Obviously, one can only get the deal from one school, not all of them.
Whether the annual amount, or the potential total amount, other than telling friends that my kid got a good scholarship and posting the amount anonymously (I hope) on CC in the thread for that school, I would not tell anyone the amount. It combines the kind of numbers -based boasting about kids, and talk about money, that makes me very uncomfortable.
It hadn’t occurred to me that his high school would know. How will they find out unless he tells them? Thus far they seem totally uninterested in that sort of information but maybe they’ll surprise me.
Honestly, I think some people do it to compensate or explain why they chose a college over another that was higher ranked. Some top students in my class who went to their state schools would always mention the amount of scholarship money they got, presumably to distinguish themselves from more average students who were also accepted but got less. It’s also a way of saying “I’m going here partially cause they’re giving me money, not cause I didn’t get in anywhere better.”