<p>curm, I’m looking forward to a whole new series (hundreds of posts) from you on getting into medical school ;)</p>
<p>In Italy, my d. tells me, one goes to the university of one’s region. Are the schools in some regions better than others? Of course. Are some subjects better taught in some regions than others? Of course. Doesn’t matter, though. One still goes to the regional university.</p>
<p>I just want to add a note on the financial aid issue. </p>
<p>A while back there was a note of envy expressed at Katwkitten’s -0- EFC. (Meanwhile, I’m sure Kat would be happy to trade places any time with the poster with the $2 million) But the point I want to make is that Kat’s 2 oldest children happened to both be very smart and talented, and also somewhat lucky. Lucky not only in the fact that they got into good schools, but lucky in the sense that they didn’t get injured in high school and sidelined in their sport, or have any of the other bad things that sometimes happens to even very talented kids to take them off of the top tier track. And I know Kat has some other kids – maybe one of her younger kids is happy and charming and caring but just doesn’t happen to be brilliant, perhaps a solid, well-rounded B+ student. In that case, the -0- EFC is not going to be met with scholarships and grants. The B+ student is probably going to end up taking a lot of loans, relying heavily on work - and choosing to attend an in-state public where overall costs are lower. </p>
<p>So the point is, the 0 EFC is only a college money magnet for the extremely high achieving kids. Whereas money in the bank can be spent equally on all children. Anyone who things that 0 EFC is some sort of equalizer simply is living in a fantasy world, where the good fairy always comes along to turn our pumpkins into coaches.</p>
<p>Jack, great post about UNC, by the way. I got the Pogue there and I’m up for the Robertson at the end of the month. Indeed, it is quite nice when the top school IS the one that gives the top scholarship. 
I couldn’t be any happier with how UNC has treated me and almost actively “recruited” me with phone calls from Farmer himself, students, and being a finalist for 2 major scholarships. Parents of any juniors/sophomores who are at the top of their game…UNC-CH is GREAT!!!</p>
<p>“So the point is, the 0 EFC is only a college money magnet for the extremely high achieving kids. Whereas money in the bank can be spent equally on all children. Anyone who things that 0 EFC is some sort of equalizer simply is living in a fantasy world, where the good fairy always comes along to turn our pumpkins into coaches.”</p>
<p>We are close to that category - with my wife’s illness this year, our EFC will likely be under $5k (how much under we’ll just have to see.) My younger d. the gymnast is a solid, highly motivated, and very interesting student and person, but we have the good fortune of living in a state where her safety - Western Washington University - is actually a very good school that would meet most of her needs, and the flagship, U. Washington, not quite a safety, but close, would meet all of them. We’d still have to figure out how to pay for it if she ends up going that route, but we are pretty good with pumpkins, and, for us, it will all work out.</p>
<p>For many in our shoes, it won’t.</p>
<p>“But Hanna, as we have already learned the bottom 3/4 at an Ivy is not any better stats wise than the top 3/4 at Vandy. There is not the 500 to 5000 that you think, is there? LOL. That everyone should be able to see.”</p>
<p>But stats are only part of the admissions story, and apparently Vandy feels the same way, because they’re paying through the nose to try and lure kids away from HYP with merit money. If the kids who get into HYP really aren’t any more valuable to a campus than the kids who don’t, then you should be remarking on Vandy’s foolish waste of money. Do you think it’s a foolish waste of money?</p>
<p>“Hanna: How do you know those 5,000 folks are all your peers?”</p>
<p>From living and working with them for years. No one could meet them all, but I kept meeting samples of them in different contexts and they kept blowing my mind in countless different ways. The consistency of talent and passion in my class – though it was applied to more interests and fields than I could count – was remarkable. I didn’t like all of them. I wouldn’t say that all of them are crazy smart. But overall, it was very different from my experience in most other settings before and since.</p>
<p>“If so, how do you think that makes them feel–having the less talented you in a class with them?”</p>
<p>What do you mean, IF? I can tell you right now that I wasn’t the best in my class at ANYTHING, including any academic subject. Name something I’m good at, and I could reel off a bunch of my classmates who were more talented at it than I could ever be. I had to work very hard just to keep up in almost everything I did.</p>
<p>But to answer the question, if you assume that there’s one gradient of smarts (a big jump), someone had to be the smartest kid who was born in America in 1977, and that kid was going to be surrounded by less-smart kids his whole life unless he avoided other kids altogether. Based on the people I knew who were academic superstars – true geniuses – one felt that he had a few academic peers (largely grad students) and hung out with the rest of us socially, and the others felt the same way I did, which is that they were surrounded by people with amazing skills and talents they didn’t have, even though they were #1 at theoretical physics or whatever. </p>
<p>Ultimately, those geniuses had to decide for themselves whether they thought Harvard had done a good job of providing them with classmates or whether another (smaller?) school could do better. I can only choose what’s best for me, and I LOVED being a small fish in that amazing pond.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>:eek: Please, Dear Lord, Allah, Heavenly Father, Vishnu, Third Rabbit On the Left, Mother God, Being to be Named Later. I am already holding over 10 months beyond my promised departure time . I humbly pray you smote me down if I am still here when my D is a junior. Just take me out. Thanks, your humble curmudgeon</p>
<p>third rabbit on the left…hahahahahahahahha</p>
<p>we won’t need to take you out…this thread should do it for awhile:)</p>
<p>hanna, don’t fool yourself. Vandy and the like are getting (paying for) the TOP kids from Harvard. Not bottom kids. 
Think about it. They don’t have to pay for them.</p>
<p>
I don’t know much about re-incarnation stuff but maybe I could come back as a lurker. ;)</p>
<p>Here’s a question.</p>
<p>What do you all think are the top 10-20 schools that get the HYPS-qualified students with merit money?</p>
<p>Where we are it would be Cal or UCLA, I believe. So this isn’t exactly what schools give the best merit $$$. It’s what schools get the most HYPS. Don’t know if it’s the same list.</p>
<p>Mini:</p>
<p>And some of the Italian universities are truly crappy. I know several academics who could not wait to leave Italy because Italian universities not only were dreadful in the areas they were interested in, but were apparently dens of corruption.</p>
<p>“hanna, don’t fool yourself.”</p>
<p>Harvard admits a little over 2050 kids a year. About 200 kids a year turn it down to take full rides and thus end up out of the HYPSetc. loop. How do you know where those kids were ranked in the eyes of Harvard admissions or (if this is what you mean) where they would have finished up in the Harvard class?</p>
<p>“What do you all think are the top 10-20 schools that get the HYPS students with merit money?”</p>
<p>In the limited sample I know about, they are all over the map. Many are at state flagships.</p>
<p>Thank you Calmom-</p>
<p>I had said something to that affect albeit much less effectively a few posts back.</p>
<p>The 2 kiddos I was referring to were kiddos #3 and #4. Kiddo #1 was the B+ student in high school that you spoke of. She knew it and knew money would be scarce- merit especially. Back then we were in CA and in our district as I think it is in all CA if a high school student concurrently enrolls in the local community college tuition is waived and books are provided at no cost.</p>
<p>She took the bus and attended to satelite (sp?) campuses and completed 54 units with a 3.9 GPA. We all decided as a family that we could no longer afford CA and moved the whole family (me, 5 kiddos, 3 dogs, 2 cats and a bunny) to the other side of the country. (think Grapes of Wrath!) Still driving that same broken down ole’ truck 260,000 miles later.</p>
<p>That was my merit scholarship to the kids. Affordable in-state tuition for under-grad and grad school at some of the best schools around. It worked for her. She completed her BS in her most desired major (in-state uni), animal science and now onto vet school. With no loans. Not one penny. She was able to get a nice departmental scholarship (undergrad) and she resided in one of the research units of the vet school. Her research work (10 hours per week) in exchange for room/board and a very special letter of rec for vet school! </p>
<p>Because our state’s vet school is very picky about its pre-reqs (68 specific pre-reqs, no subs) she had some interesting classes for those prereqs. Grads of Duke, Meredith, Davidson, Yale… the list was large, all still needed some of those specific classes to even apply to the vet school. So she was a happy camper fulfilling those while getting her BS. Also all her CC units transfered in, so she did okay there as well.</p>
<p>But Calmom is right her grades would not have warranted any top or even decent merit aid. Her SATs were high but the schools she was looking for her specific degree it would not have made a difference. There are very few schools that have an in-house horse breeding program run by one of the trainers of Scrappy T. She has delivered many foals and been a witness to the success of a true horse whisperer. I don’t think she would have had these experiences at either of her two siblings schools. </p>
<p>The other sibs are another novel.</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>hanna, we are talking stats on this thread, at least at times we are. And statistically “on average” those getting the top merit awards at great schools are those in the upper parts of even Harvard’s pool (again speaking of their statistics as reported). Very few full rides to Vandy with a 1450.</p>
<p>I know that several sets of scholarship recipients average in the 1500’s with great EC’s etc as most of those scholarships are not just based on academics, though some are. The process of selection is very competitive. Maybe 1 out of 50 qualified kids at best? Some far worse than that. </p>
<p>Many , many Harvard kids would be stragglers in the big merit wars whether you chose to believe so or not. It’s for the big dogs only. At D’s school several kids with elite admissions were left at the gate.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I am starting a fund for accomplished students with financially challenged parents. Just send $US1000 to this bank account in Indonesia. . . </p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Someone told me yesterday that I would be better off with several short posts than one impossibly long one, so that’s what I am doing. (But now I see this post is really long anyway… oh well) </p>
<p>This post addresses the issue of EFC & financial aid – Kirmum raised a question that was legitimate, but showed a misunderstanding of the financial aid system which I think many who do not have to deal with it share.</p>
<p>First of all, none of the elite colleges promises to provide full aid to meet any family’s EFC. </p>
<p>EFC (“Expected Family Contribution”) is a figure calculated using a federal form called a FAFSA, kind of like a tax form, that is used to establish eligibility for those programs which are funded by the federal government. (Subsidized loans, Pell grants, work-study, etc.). That is ALL it is – it does not entitle the student to receie ANYTHING beyond that, Pell grants are very small – I think the highest a student could get is around $4000 or so. Maybe a little more, but the point is that it doesn’t make a dent in private college tuition. I think that the Pell grant program really was created more with the second-tier state colleges, like California CSU’s in mind – because that’s actually the level where the vast majority of low-income people actually get their college degrees. A Pell grant would be enough to allow a commuter student to attend a CSU. </p>
<p>When colleges like HYP say that they meet “full need”, they mean need AS THEY DEFINE IT – not need as defined by the FAFSA. They can define it however they want – and they take into consideration a lot of factors that are not considered in the FAFSA. Sometimes that works out to the benefit of the applicant – such as when Harvard announces free tuition if family income is $60K or less. But very often it works out differently.</p>
<p>There are two huge problems that most working-class families face when applying to colleges. One is that there is no way to ascertain what the college-defined need will be in advance. No matter what the family thinks it is, there is no mechanism by which they can submit all their financials to the college before applying and get an answer – they have to wait until after the kid has been admitted to find out.</p>
<p>The other that if the family financial situation is at all complicated, it becomes very difficult to anticipate how the college will view things. If the student’s parents are married, wage earners and renters with no other income and no major medical expenses… its fairly easy. But most people’s lives are more complicated. Some of the issues that throw the process into the realm of mystery are:
- home equity
- divorced parents, & income of noncustodial parent
- stepparent income
- one or more parents (and/or stepparents) are self-employed
- “paper” income – such as “income” from the K-2 Partnership return that was not actually distributed to the partners
- unusual one-time income, such as a small inheritance or capital gain
- siblings in college</p>
<p>Unusual expenses, such as high medical bills, private school tuition, or the need to support an elderly relative also throw the process into disarray, because colleges may or may not consider those. </p>
<p>That is why those of us who rely on financial aid cannot predict or count on any particular amount of money from an elite school. My daughter qualifies for a Pell grant this year – but only because her brother was under age 24 and in college – and even with that, her college wanted us to pay about $10K more than the EFC. I ended up paying about $12K in direct expenses for her to attend Barnard; it probably would have cost me around $9K for her to attend an in-state U. It probably is costing my son around $15K, including living expenses, to attend a CSU where he is not eligible for financial aid because of his own earnings from full tiime employment the previous year. He’s paying that on his own.</p>
<p>Next year is an entirely different story, and Barnard will not tell us what the calculation is until July. My son turns 24, so even though he is still in college, it no longer reduces my daughter’s EFC and she no long qualfies for a Pell Grant; her EFC is around $8000. If I’m lucky, Barnard will still want about $10K more, and I will have to pay about $18K. But I don’t know what information my ex-husband is providing to the school – he is self-employed, and the system is set up to allow him to submit documentation of his income to the college in confidence, so I won’t be able to find out what he told the college or how it is calculated in our aid. Also,this year the college asked for information about the balance in my retirement accounts – something they didn’t ask last year – so I don’t know how that will figure in. In any case, I could just as easily be faced with a bill for $28K as $18K… or I could get lucky and find that Barnard only wants $15K or so. </p>
<p>It’s a crap shoot. </p>
<p>I am not posting this to elicit sympathy. I’m grateful that my daughter has the opportunity to attend Barnard on these terms, and I am also very, very grateful that both of my kids are willing to work hard to earn the money to contribute substantially to their own educations. </p>
<p>I just want to help make sure that others understand the uncertainties involved with need-based financial aid. One of the issues we parents face when sending in the first year’s deposit at the elite college is that we may not be able to pay for the second year, or the third. Which brings another question: is the elite worth it, if it ends up being only for a year or two, and the ultimate degree comes from another college entirely for financial reasons? When you put it that way… the prestige doesn’t matter … because it isn’t there.</p>
<p>“hanna, we are talking stats on this thread, at least at times we are.”</p>
<p>Well, I guess my post isn’t one of those times. I thought the thread was about big scholarships vs. HYPetc., not just one angle of the question.</p>
<p>Most of the time, I’ve met scholarship recipients at events for students admitted to Harvard who haven’t made up their minds. I don’t get to see their applications, but I have not thought that they stood out as a group vs. the other Harvard admits; we had serious talks about their interests and goals, they had the same range of qualities I saw in the other kids. IMHO, the most outstanding kids we’ve lost during my years of recruiting went to Stanford and Yale.</p>
<p>“whether you chose to believe so or not.”</p>
<p>It isn’t necessary to suggest that I’m refusing to accept reality. If you want to make that suggestion, you should provide statistics, because right now it’s anecdote vs. anecdote, and I wouldn’t make that implication about another poster unless I had hard numbers.</p>
<p>At any rate, my point still holds even if you have statistics showing that the full rides at Vandy go to kids who were in the top 10% of the Harvard admit pool. The fact is that Vanderbilt feels that it needs to provide a discount to attract these kids, and that it’s worth taking a big financial loss to get them, while HYP do not. Thus, if it’s elitist to focus on the milieu of kids and what the kids bring to the campus, then the merit-aid campuses are far worse offenders than HYP; they’re actually putting a price tag on those kids and declaring them better than the rest.</p>
<p>I provided you with statistics, the hard numbers. Maybe they are just too hard. LOL. @ The bottom 1/2 -3/4ths of Harvard’s class fits with the top 1/2-3/4ths of Vandy’s. (Edit: we’ll make it easier to prove.;))What more stats do you need to show you that statistically they share lots of students (not all. I didn’t say all.) with similar statistical profiles?</p>
<p>Kat, thanks for sharing the info about your eldest daughter. In addition to showing the path of a kid who didn’t have the “stats” or the inclination for Ivies, I think it also is a great example of a kid who is obviously extremely capable. A pre-vet curriculum is virtually identical to a pre-med – same basic coursework, same degree of difficulty – and it is actually harder to get into vet school than into med school. (Perhaps as a function of the fact that there are less vet schools, hence fewer available spots – but the point is that it is still an extremely selective process – and one in which an undergrad degree from the state’s ag school may be more useful than an elite).</p>