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Private & Independent Schools
That’s a good approach. In most schools financial aid is as opaque as the dark side of the moon. |
Which school is that? I have 4 kids and we've been members of 4 communities through the years. I can allocate my donations at all those schools. I didn't realize there are schools that don't have that option for the donors. Which are these? I know most of the schools discussed on this forum have that as an option. You can also request to know the allocation of money. Also the report published every year. Some schools publish their annual report to the public, some don't. |
You only see the high level numbers in the annual report, like how much money went to each category and FA is a category, up there with new building, new playground, updated tech room, etc. People here want to see inside individual's personal finances to understand if they feel they are worthy of a portion of the aid the school allocates. Here's the thing - if you are on the receiving end just be grateful. If you are on the giving end and don't agree with the practices, just click the boxes you want to donate to and leave that one unchecked. Personally, I let the school decide. And, yes, I read the finance report every year for all the schools. I still donate to the schools my kids graduated from. For the takers (or wannabe takers) - if you're not in the community, don't complain about the community. If you're in the community voice your opinion, either literally or with your wallet/feet. |
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Ask co-pilot "in Sidwell's annual report how much money is allocated to financial aid"
The response is that $9.27M with and average grant of $36k/family. So, Sidwell's info is public. They also state that 25% of the student body receives support. When we were there this seemed about the same. We didn't recieve aid but knew some families that did. I think this info is actually widely available, if you ask or do the most basic Google search. If you want to know each families financial situations, I think you will not learn that because it's private info for only the committee that decides. |
For financial aid in us schools you donate to a fund and you CANNOT request that financial aid is allocate for low income families. This is decided arbitrarily by the school. |
They don’t bring diversity. Be real. |
No, it’s not more well rounded. |
That is absolutely false. You can allocate at every school we've donated to. Clearly you have no experience with this. |
For you, they don't count as diversity. The only real thing is that your opinion doesn't matter to the decision makers or power holders. |
You're right having a school with 95% extremely wealthy kids and 5% low income kids is so much better than 60% MC and 40% UMC/UC. Or, you can just send your kid to a MC suburban school that has 60% MC kids and 40% UMC/UC kids (or whatever your alternative is) and not worry about what other people do with their money. The second option is better for you, we don't want you in the community, as evidenced by your rejection letter. |
Really? Can I say, please give my 1000 dollar donation to the Asian single mother than earns less than 150k. Obviously that does happen. Firs there is fundraising, and the school give away the money to well off families for random reasons. |
And yours matter a lot…. |
You can absolutely do this. It would be a pain in the @ss for your school to administer this if it were a $1000 donation. Make it a $10K and watch your school rush to make it happen. I don’t know what school you’re referring to that’s giving FA for random reasons. Our school uses an independent company to gather, validate, and assess the FA applications based on criteria the school established. Each application is assigned a grade. The clear No’s are removed and the committee review the Maybes and make their decision. |
What your are saying for practical purposes does not work. I understand if you donate 10 million dollars. But for humble parents like I that can only donate 5k, that doesn’t work. Ok. Forget about it. Middle class families with financial aid can still go to Europe. |
You can’t request what kind of people receive the FA unless you donate to a scholarship or something specifies that - like a fund specifically for financial aid for the children of faculty and staff. Many schools (Landon, Sidwell, etc) have moved to a catch all fund that includes financial aid - from a traditional annual fund which was to cover the difference between tuition dollars collected and the actual cost of educating each student. The Landon Fund can basically use your money for whatever they want - now including financial aid which I assume both benefits them bc people don’t know what they don’t know, and hinders them if a donor doesn’t want to donate to FA. So then they don’t donate to the Landon Fund because it includes FA now. |