Why don't most of the top LACs offer substantial merit scholarships?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Amherst, Williams, Bowdoin, Pomona, Wellesley, Middlebury, Colby, Haverford, Vassar, Carleton, Barnard, Hamilton, and Colgate are just some of the best known examples of LACs that have essentially no merit aid, outside of maybe 1 or 2 $2000 national merit scholarship awards a year from alumni restricted funds.

These schools have some of the highest endowments per students of any institution, making it easily attainable to finance a merit scholarship opportunity covering minimum 20K a year and up to a full ride. The first five schools above all have over 1 million dollar per student. Given that they tend to lose cross admits to top universities, why not offer merit aid to attract the best and brightest to their schools? Several universities already do this to lure in HYPMS level candidates: Duke, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, WashU, Emory, and UVA.

They don't give merit aid because it would disproportionally go to Asian Americans, and that's the group they are fighting hard to contain anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is addressed in todays Daily podcast.

^^^ this.

I found it off putting, especially as they really downplayed how state govs have gutted contributions to their state schools as well as eliminating scholarships to their in-state students attending either state private/public institutions.

That is not a main driver of cost increases. It has had some effect.

[Anonymous]

“You should put your kid through school. If you can afford it, why should someone else be paying your kid's way? The entitlement of those seeking out the best merit deals is so high on this board.‘

+2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amherst, Williams, Bowdoin, Pomona, Wellesley, Middlebury, Colby, Haverford, Vassar, Carleton, Barnard, Hamilton, and Colgate are just some of the best known examples of LACs that have essentially no merit aid, outside of maybe 1 or 2 $2000 national merit scholarship awards a year from alumni restricted funds.

These schools have some of the highest endowments per students of any institution, making it easily attainable to finance a merit scholarship opportunity covering minimum 20K a year and up to a full ride. The first five schools above all have over 1 million dollar per student. Given that they tend to lose cross admits to top universities, why not offer merit aid to attract the best and brightest to their schools? Several universities already do this to lure in HYPMS level candidates: Duke, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, WashU, Emory, and UVA.

They have no trouble attracting the best and the brightest.

They do. Their regular decision yield is dismal. I believe the highest is like 35%. Most are in the 15-25% range. Top universities tend to start at 30% and peak at 80%+.

Their SAT averages aren't as high as the top universities, nor are the percent of their overall class ranking top 10% in HS.

It's rare for students admitted to both a top LAC and a top university to pick the LAC in my experience. Merit aid could make a worthwhile swing.


Nope. I was on a parent zoom with Colby this evening. Their yield last year was 58% not "in the 15-25%." 85% of enrolled freshmen were cum laude (top 10%) at their high schools. My daughter had a 1530, an unweighted 4.0, and the kind of interesting and unusal leadership opps that schools like. Colby was her first choice and she applied nowhere else.

Colby College should have a high yield as Colby offers two rounds of binding ED admissions.

Not certain of the numbers, but many believe that a large portion of each class is admitted ED at Colby College. This increases the school's yield rate.

[Anonymous]

Who cares? They obviously think that they are getting good students, and don't feel the need to compete with the other schools. There are enough capable, qualified, "top" students to fill dozens of colleges; they don't need to chase the same students as every other school. And no sane person puts that much weight on "yield" and USNWR rankings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who cares? They obviously think that they are getting good students, and don't feel the need to compete with the other schools. There are enough capable, qualified, "top" students to fill dozens of colleges; they don't need to chase the same students as every other school. And no sane person puts that much weight on "yield" and USNWR rankings.

You have just insulted admission officers and presidents of almost every top 100 LAC and top 100 National University in the nation--especially those at Colby College and other LACs which offer two rounds of ED admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who cares? They obviously think that they are getting good students, and don't feel the need to compete with the other schools. There are enough capable, qualified, "top" students to fill dozens of colleges; they don't need to chase the same students as every other school. And no sane person puts that much weight on "yield" and USNWR rankings.

Your post reveal a lack of understanding and a lack of knowledge about highly selective college admissions. A lot of time, effort, and money is spent by individual schools in an effort to predict yield.

LACs that offer multiple ED rounds typically do so in order to increase yield rates and because they cannot compete with other schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amherst, Williams, Bowdoin, Pomona, Wellesley, Middlebury, Colby, Haverford, Vassar, Carleton, Barnard, Hamilton, and Colgate are just some of the best known examples of LACs that have essentially no merit aid, outside of maybe 1 or 2 $2000 national merit scholarship awards a year from alumni restricted funds.

These schools have some of the highest endowments per students of any institution, making it easily attainable to finance a merit scholarship opportunity covering minimum 20K a year and up to a full ride. The first five schools above all have over 1 million dollar per student. Given that they tend to lose cross admits to top universities, why not offer merit aid to attract the best and brightest to their schools? Several universities already do this to lure in HYPMS level candidates: Duke, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, WashU, Emory, and UVA.

They don't give merit aid because it would disproportionally go to Asian Americans, and that's the group they are fighting hard to contain anyway.

Not really--liberal arts colleges tend to struggle to enroll Asian Americans because they tend to be drawn to larger universities that have more international name recognition--so Asian Americans are accepted at a higher rate than similarly elite universities.
https://www.collegetransitions.com/blog/asian-bias-college-admission/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who cares? They obviously think that they are getting good students, and don't feel the need to compete with the other schools. There are enough capable, qualified, "top" students to fill dozens of colleges; they don't need to chase the same students as every other school. And no sane person puts that much weight on "yield" and USNWR rankings.

Your post reveal a lack of understanding and a lack of knowledge about highly selective college admissions. A lot of time, effort, and money is spent by individual schools in an effort to predict yield.

LACs that offer multiple ED rounds typically do so in order to increase yield rates and because they cannot compete with other schools.

The main (but not only) reason that predicting yeild is important to schools is not to game the rankings. They need to know how many applicants to admit to fill their class without over-enrolling, which is a logistical nightmare. PP seemed to have plenty of knowledge about college admissions and a reasonable frame of reference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who cares? They obviously think that they are getting good students, and don't feel the need to compete with the other schools. There are enough capable, qualified, "top" students to fill dozens of colleges; they don't need to chase the same students as every other school. And no sane person puts that much weight on "yield" and USNWR rankings.

Your post reveal a lack of understanding and a lack of knowledge about highly selective college admissions. A lot of time, effort, and money is spent by individual schools in an effort to predict yield.

LACs that offer multiple ED rounds typically do so in order to increase yield rates and because they cannot compete with other schools.

The main (but not only) reason that predicting yeild is important to schools is not to game the rankings. They need to know how many applicants to admit to fill their class without over-enrolling, which is a logistical nightmare. PP seemed to have plenty of knowledge about college admissions and a reasonable frame of reference.

+1 Yield is important, but not so much for status as managing enrollment which is far more critical to the operation of the school. LACs care about their mission, their alumni base and about managing their operations year to year. To the extent that these things are impacted by rankings and whatnot , they care about those too. But they are playing a far longer game.

[Anonymous]

We were happy to allow Grinnell to “buy” our daughter. She turned down Carleton and Williams & Mary for a generous merit aid award even though our income at the time was in the high six figures and we easily could have afforded any college she wanted. It helped that she preferred Grinnell anyway. Man, what a bargain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amherst, Williams, Bowdoin, Pomona, Wellesley, Middlebury, Colby, Haverford, Vassar, Carleton, Barnard, Hamilton, and Colgate are just some of the best known examples of LACs that have essentially no merit aid, outside of maybe 1 or 2 $2000 national merit scholarship awards a year from alumni restricted funds.

These schools have some of the highest endowments per students of any institution, making it easily attainable to finance a merit scholarship opportunity covering minimum 20K a year and up to a full ride. The first five schools above all have over 1 million dollar per student. Given that they tend to lose cross admits to top universities, why not offer merit aid to attract the best and brightest to their schools? Several universities already do this to lure in HYPMS level candidates: Duke, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, WashU, Emory, and UVA.

They don't give merit aid because it would disproportionally go to Asian Americans, and that's the group they are fighting hard to contain anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were happy to allow Grinnell to “buy” our daughter. She turned down Carleton and Williams & Mary for a generous merit aid award even though our income at the time was in the high six figures and we easily could have afforded any college she wanted. It helped that she preferred Grinnell anyway. Man, what a bargain.

Is the political climate there tolerant? I always lump it in with Oberlin but perhaps I’m wrong.
My child is interested in Grinnell. Child has some reservations about the isolation factor. Is there a shuttle to campus from the airport? Is the closest major medical centre in Des Moines?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were happy to allow Grinnell to “buy” our daughter. She turned down Carleton and Williams & Mary for a generous merit aid award even though our income at the time was in the high six figures and we easily could have afforded any college she wanted. It helped that she preferred Grinnell anyway. Man, what a bargain.

Grinnell is a great school--and has an unusually large endowment and unusually undesirable location (distance-wise from large concentrations of qualified students that is--plenty of LACs have rural/small town locations) so they offer more merit aid than other similarly strong LACs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amherst, Williams, Bowdoin, Pomona, Wellesley, Middlebury, Colby, Haverford, Vassar, Carleton, Barnard, Hamilton, and Colgate are just some of the best known examples of LACs that have essentially no merit aid, outside of maybe 1 or 2 $2000 national merit scholarship awards a year from alumni restricted funds.

These schools have some of the highest endowments per students of any institution, making it easily attainable to finance a merit scholarship opportunity covering minimum 20K a year and up to a full ride. The first five schools above all have over 1 million dollar per student. Given that they tend to lose cross admits to top universities, why not offer merit aid to attract the best and brightest to their schools? Several universities already do this to lure in HYPMS level candidates: Duke, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, WashU, Emory, and UVA.

They don't give merit aid because it would disproportionally go to Asian Americans, and that's the group they are fighting hard to contain anyway.

-1. Asian Americans don't apply to LACs in large numbers like they do larger universities.