Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about 3.7 weighted, 6 APs/rest honors, school sports as ECs at nationally top 5 highschool but not good enough to play in college, 1500 SAT?

Is this at the end of Jr. year or projected GPA/AP load at the end of Sr. year?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate threads like this. The idea that “full pay” makes a lot of difference is both elitist and wrong. Most schools that take ability to pay into account only do it at the margins and most decent schools don’t do it at all. So, no, you can’t buy your kid’s way into college just buy showing you can pay the tuition.

So naïve. There are a small number of need-blind schools (most of which have both gargantuan endowments and "high rankings") where "full pay" truly doesn't matter. Every other school will take a student who will pay $60K in tuition over an equivalent student who will pay $20K or $40K. The vast majority will take a moderately weaker $60K candidate over a moderately stronger $40K candidate or a meaningfully weaker $60K candidate over a meaningfully stronger $20K candidate. Admission officers hate that, of course, but the schools need to keep their lights on. No margin, no mission.

My DS got into Tulane 2 years ago; full pay and while he showed demonstrated interest, his grades were just OK, I am sure being full pay helped tremendously but he’s doing great. It is an amazing school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate threads like this. The idea that “full pay” makes a lot of difference is both elitist and wrong. Most schools that take ability to pay into account only do it at the margins and most decent schools don’t do it at all. So, no, you can’t buy your kid’s way into college just buy showing you can pay the tuition.

So naïve. There are a small number of need-blind schools (most of which have both gargantuan endowments and "high rankings") where "full pay" truly doesn't matter. Every other school will take a student who will pay $60K in tuition over an equivalent student who will pay $20K or $40K. The vast majority will take a moderately weaker $60K candidate over a moderately stronger $40K candidate or a meaningfully weaker $60K candidate over a meaningfully stronger $20K candidate. Admission officers hate that, of course, but the schools need to keep their lights on. No margin, no mission.

How do the schools necessarily know whether you're willing to be full pay or not? Take Dayton, for example, which was mentioned on this thread. There is no question on the application whether you will be "full pay," obviously. Just because you don't qualify for aid based on FAFSA, and many, many people don't, does not mean that you will be willing to pay $60K for Dayton.

Applicants who don’t fill out the FAFSA and zip code analysis.

A lot of schools encourage "everyone" to fill out the FAFSA, though, and give some money just for completing it.

Sure. But the question was how schools know, and the answer is that they know when people don’t fill out the FAFSA. People don’t fill it out if they don’t need it, no matter what the schools say about encouraging people to fill it out.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tufts

Weighted 3.7 at Tufts would be under their 50% mark. Would be interested to know what hooks your kid had!

A 3.7 at my DC’s school are the kids applying to Ivies. Big3 private. I wouldn’t assume this was a public school kid.

Anonymous wrote:Last year but:
- American University
- Chatham University, 20K merit scholarship
- Gettysburg College
- Allegheny College
- Connecticut College
- Washington & Jefferson, 7K merit
- Wilkes University
- Flagler College
- Juniata College
- Temple University
- University of Cincinnati
- Bryn Mawr College

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:3.74 weighted, 28 ACT, accepted at UDayton with 101k merit aid over 4 years.

So, not full-pay

Anonymous wrote:How about 3.7 weighted, 6 APs/rest honors, school sports as ECs at nationally top 5 highschool but not good enough to play in college, 1500 SAT?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm assuming everyone is talking about GPA (3.7 weighted) at the end of Jr. year, right?

You can't assume weighted because most private schools don't weight. (They don't even give a real GPA but you can figure it out)

Also - for people who applied last year - I's assume they are speaking of GPA by the end of 1st semester Senior year.

Well, I was asking the OP to clarify their question. The "3.7 weighted" quoted in the OP.. is it at the end of Junior year, after sem 1 of senior year or end of senior year? I know different schools do things differently but this thread was started by OP with a specific question and I was just asking them to clarify.

Oh yeah - I know why you asked and I didn't intend to throw shade. I was just saying you can't really make those assumptions you listed. Hope people clarify for you. In addition to your questions, people should also clarify if they are coming from one of the top private schools (where a 3.7 is usually not in the elite category but could try - and definitely strong for T20 range)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate threads like this. The idea that “full pay” makes a lot of difference is both elitist and wrong. Most schools that take ability to pay into account only do it at the margins and most decent schools don’t do it at all. So, no, you can’t buy your kid’s way into college just buy showing you can pay the tuition.

So naïve. There are a small number of need-blind schools (most of which have both gargantuan endowments and "high rankings") where "full pay" truly doesn't matter. Every other school will take a student who will pay $60K in tuition over an equivalent student who will pay $20K or $40K. The vast majority will take a moderately weaker $60K candidate over a moderately stronger $40K candidate or a meaningfully weaker $60K candidate over a meaningfully stronger $20K candidate. Admission officers hate that, of course, but the schools need to keep their lights on. No margin, no mission.

How do the schools necessarily know whether you're willing to be full pay or not? Take Dayton, for example, which was mentioned on this thread. There is no question on the application whether you will be "full pay," obviously. Just because you don't qualify for aid based on FAFSA, and many, many people don't, does not mean that you will be willing to pay $60K for Dayton.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate threads like this. The idea that “full pay” makes a lot of difference is both elitist and wrong. Most schools that take ability to pay into account only do it at the margins and most decent schools don’t do it at all. So, no, you can’t buy your kid’s way into college just buy showing you can pay the tuition.

So naïve. There are a small number of need-blind schools (most of which have both gargantuan endowments and "high rankings") where "full pay" truly doesn't matter. Every other school will take a student who will pay $60K in tuition over an equivalent student who will pay $20K or $40K. The vast majority will take a moderately weaker $60K candidate over a moderately stronger $40K candidate or a meaningfully weaker $60K candidate over a meaningfully stronger $20K candidate. Admission officers hate that, of course, but the schools need to keep their lights on. No margin, no mission.

How do the schools necessarily know whether you're willing to be full pay or not? Take Dayton, for example, which was mentioned on this thread. There is no question on the application whether you will be "full pay," obviously. Just because you don't qualify for aid based on FAFSA, and many, many people don't, does not mean that you will be willing to pay $60K for Dayton.

Applicants who don’t fill out the FAFSA and zip code analysis.

A lot of schools encourage "everyone" to fill out the FAFSA, though, and give some money just for completing it.

Sure. But the question was how schools know, and the answer is that they know when people don’t fill out the FAFSA. People don’t fill it out if they don’t need it, no matter what the schools say about encouraging people to fill it out.

This is not true, as many people fill it out bc schools will say, "We'll give you X off of tuition just for filling out the FAFSA."

Why do they want you to fill it out so badly if you are not applying and won’t qualify? Are they using the info for development purposes? Selling it? Not doubting they push because I’ve seen it. I just don’t understand their motivation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate threads like this. The idea that “full pay” makes a lot of difference is both elitist and wrong. Most schools that take ability to pay into account only do it at the margins and most decent schools don’t do it at all. So, no, you can’t buy your kid’s way into college just buy showing you can pay the tuition.

So naïve. There are a small number of need-blind schools (most of which have both gargantuan endowments and "high rankings") where "full pay" truly doesn't matter. Every other school will take a student who will pay $60K in tuition over an equivalent student who will pay $20K or $40K. The vast majority will take a moderately weaker $60K candidate over a moderately stronger $40K candidate or a meaningfully weaker $60K candidate over a meaningfully stronger $20K candidate. Admission officers hate that, of course, but the schools need to keep their lights on. No margin, no mission.

Anonymous wrote:

Thanks does anyone know about gds? How grade related or not it is - and whether 3.7 is top 10% give or take?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm assuming everyone is talking about GPA (3.7 weighted) at the end of Jr. year, right?

You can't assume weighted because most private schools don't weight. (They don't even give a real GPA but you can figure it out)

Also - for people who applied last year - I's assume they are speaking of GPA by the end of 1st semester Senior year.

Well, I was asking the OP to clarify their question. The "3.7 weighted" quoted in the OP.. is it at the end of Junior year, after sem 1 of senior year or end of senior year? I know different schools do things differently but this thread was started by OP with a specific question and I was just asking them to clarify.