Does applying for Financial Aid hurt chances of Admission at Visitation?

[Anonymous]

For whatever it is worth, we applied for financial aid and got in but no aid. Public school with HSPT score in 99th percentile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For whatever it is worth, we applied for financial aid and got in but no aid. Public school with HSPT score in 99th percentile.

This isn't uncommon.

And that they offered your daughter a spot in the freshman class shows that they thought she could do the work, fit in and make a positive contribution to the class and the school. They restrict the number of acceptances if for no other reason that they don't want to exceed the capacity of the class or school. "Yield" is a big deal for them as there are operational difficulties for missing the final freshman class size on the high or low sides.

This does show that it's not the information on the FA application that is the driver in this process. It's the school who uses this information as a data point in the decision on to whom they offer the $750K of available FA. Your FA "need" is just one of the things they are looking at.

They also have years of experience looking at FA applications and then seeing what people do at different levels of offers of aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The main benefits of FA are that it makes the school appear less elitist and provides socioeconomic diversity. These two points are used in marketing/PR to attract more full pay applicants. It is ultimately about the full pay students at the school, to their benefit.

The FA budget isn't all about helping poor families send their daughters to Visi.

The majority of the FA packages awarded are less than 50% of the $40,000 Tuition. How much socioeconomic diversity are you getting when 2/3rds of the FA recipients still have to come up with $25,000 or 30,000 plus all the associated costs of attending?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For whatever it is worth, we applied for financial aid and got in but no aid. Public school with HSPT score in 99th percentile.

This isn't uncommon.

And that they offered your daughter a spot in the freshman class shows that they thought she could do the work, fit in and make a positive contribution to the class and the school. They restrict the number of acceptances if for no other reason that they don't want to exceed the capacity of the class or school. "Yield" is a big deal for them as there are operational difficulties for missing the final freshman class size on the high or low sides.

This does show that it's not the information on the FA application that is the driver in this process. It's the school who uses this information as a data point in the decision on to whom they offer the $750K of available FA. Your FA "need" is just one of the things they are looking at.

They also have years of experience looking at FA applications and then seeing what people do at different levels of offers of aid.

Does coming from a public school weigh heavily on who gets FA? Seeing this person has a HSPT score in 99th percentile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The main benefits of FA are that it makes the school appear less elitist and provides socioeconomic diversity. These two points are used in marketing/PR to attract more full pay applicants. It is ultimately about the full pay students at the school, to their benefit.

The FA budget isn't all about helping poor families send their daughters to Visi.

The majority of the FA packages awarded are less than 50% of the $40,000 Tuition. How much socioeconomic diversity are you getting when 2/3rds of the FA recipients still have to come up with $25,000 or 30,000 plus all the associated costs of attending?

Good point. It means that a family with multiple kids has a chance for FA..!this could help professionals such as Fed families, professors, and teachers ( so that the whole class isn't comprised of doctor's + Big Law) kids. It is a Catholic School afterall ( yes, independent).

Visi will then ID a few high potential "diversity kids" to offer a few full rides.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For whatever it is worth, we applied for financial aid and got in but no aid. Public school with HSPT score in 99th percentile.

This isn't uncommon.

And that they offered your daughter a spot in the freshman class shows that they thought she could do the work, fit in and make a positive contribution to the class and the school. They restrict the number of acceptances if for no other reason that they don't want to exceed the capacity of the class or school. "Yield" is a big deal for them as there are operational difficulties for missing the final freshman class size on the high or low sides.

This does show that it's not the information on the FA application that is the driver in this process. It's the school who uses this information as a data point in the decision on to whom they offer the $750K of available FA. Your FA "need" is just one of the things they are looking at.

They also have years of experience looking at FA applications and then seeing what people do at different levels of offers of aid.

Does coming from a public school weigh heavily on who gets FA? Seeing this person has a HSPT score in 99th percentile.

It could. The school's decision on who to offer the limited amount of FA to is made against a backdrop of many things they are trying to achieve. One of these is maintaining the pipeline of students from Catholic K-8's over many years. These relationships are important to them.

Or maybe, they found the family's case for FA not compelling. They may have experience with similar cases where the family applied for FA but then paid full price when FA was not offered. Who knows?

[Anonymous]

If all the money that was spent on privates went to the public I am pretty sure America would easily be able to pay for free College and Healthcare for everyone. It sucks that America trades Christian ideals for an infrastructure they resembles the 3rd world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If all the money that was spent on privates went to the public I am pretty sure America would easily be able to pay for free College and Healthcare for everyone. It sucks that America trades Christian ideals for an infrastructure they resembles the 3rd world.

Individuals pay their own money for private school. Public schools would be even more overcrowded without some people going private. Those of us with private school kids still pay taxes for public schools, so your premise is off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The main benefits of FA are that it makes the school appear less elitist and provides socioeconomic diversity. These two points are used in marketing/PR to attract more full pay applicants. It is ultimately about the full pay students at the school, to their benefit.

The FA budget isn't all about helping poor families send their daughters to Visi.

The majority of the FA packages awarded are less than 50% of the $40,000 Tuition. How much socioeconomic diversity are you getting when 2/3rds of the FA recipients still have to come up with $25,000 or 30,000 plus all the associated costs of attending?

Good point. It means that a family with multiple kids has a chance for FA..!this could help professionals such as Fed families, professors, and teachers ( so that the whole class isn't comprised of doctor's + Big Law) kids. It is a Catholic School afterall ( yes, independent).

Visi will then ID a few high potential "diversity kids" to offer a few full rides.

Yes, the net effect is that there is more a mix of families. BUT, that's not the reason they are doing it.

Large families with daughters that are very desirable candidates to Visi are the easiest to understand. especially daughters that are legacies, grads of "feeder" schools, academic "stars", exceptional athletes, etc.

But I have never heard "We don't have enough daughters of government workers or academics." Nor have I ever heard that somehow connected to Catholicism or the Catholic Church.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The main benefits of FA are that it makes the school appear less elitist and provides socioeconomic diversity. These two points are used in marketing/PR to attract more full pay applicants. It is ultimately about the full pay students at the school, to their benefit.

The FA budget isn't all about helping poor families send their daughters to Visi.

The majority of the FA packages awarded are less than 50% of the $40,000 Tuition. How much socioeconomic diversity are you getting when 2/3rds of the FA recipients still have to come up with $25,000 or 30,000 plus all the associated costs of attending?

We call anybody who isn't full pay to be in financial trouble. They are the socioeconomic diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If all the money that was spent on privates went to the public I am pretty sure America would easily be able to pay for free College and Healthcare for everyone. It sucks that America trades Christian ideals for an infrastructure they resembles the 3rd world.

Individuals pay their own money for private school. Public schools would be even more overcrowded without some people going private. Those of us with private school kids still pay taxes for public schools, so your premise is off.

Everyone pays taxes for the public schools. You can choose to go to public but don't. People with no kids, older kids, young kids all pay... you aren't doing anything special. Privates take so few kids it wouldn't make a differnce with public numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If all the money that was spent on privates went to the public I am pretty sure America would easily be able to pay for free College and Healthcare for everyone. It sucks that America trades Christian ideals for an infrastructure they resembles the 3rd world.

Individuals pay their own money for private school. Public schools would be even more overcrowded without some people going private. Those of us with private school kids still pay taxes for public schools, so your premise is off.

Everyone pays taxes for the public schools. You can choose to go to public but don't. People with no kids, older kids, young kids all pay... you aren't doing anything special. Privates take so few kids it wouldn't make a differnce with public numbers.

We want nothing to do with public schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If all the money that was spent on privates went to the public I am pretty sure America would easily be able to pay for free College and Healthcare for everyone. It sucks that America trades Christian ideals for an infrastructure they resembles the 3rd world.

Individuals pay their own money for private school. Public schools would be even more overcrowded without some people going private. Those of us with private school kids still pay taxes for public schools, so your premise is off.

Everyone pays taxes for the public schools. You can choose to go to public but don't. People with no kids, older kids, young kids all pay... you aren't doing anything special. Privates take so few kids it wouldn't make a differnce with public numbers.

There are 19,000 kids attending private schools in Montgomery County of the 160,000 total kids in school. That’s a pretty big number!

[Anonymous]

Socialism for the rich. Workers get cold heartless struggle to eat capitalism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Socialism for the rich. Workers get cold heartless struggle to eat capitalism.

Do you have complaints about public school?