America's 300 Best College Values

What is the most expensive college in CT? (very random I know)

This is good stuff and I wish the College would send a postcard and an email to every sophomore and junior in country who scored 1400 or higher on the PSAT (top 3%) and tell them about it, and about the number of Fulbrights that HC kids get, and the medical school acceptance rates, and the alumni giving rates and everything else that there is to offer.

I have seen two other interesting articles in the last 24 hours. My wife, who works at a different NESCAC, sent me this about Wesleyan and athletics from Slate

slate.com/sports/2017/12/wesleyan-university-football-is-good-business.html

and I saw this from George Will about meritocracy in college admissions in today's Post.

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-merit-based-college-admissions-became-so-unfair/2018/01/10/45a3007e-f569-11e7-b34a-b85626af34ef_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-e%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.9e4ac02286fb

The Kiplinger article provides a recap for each school's "% of students who receive need-based aid" and "percentage of all undergraduates without need who received non-need-based aid". I take the second to mean "merit money" and you can see the schools who use that strategy. Here are the numbers for some schools of interest


School= Need %/Non-Need %

Holy Cross=49%/2% Obviously athletic scholarships must not be included
boston college= 40%/4%
Notre Dame= 48%/9%
Georgetown=37%/0%
Lehigh=38%/8%
colgate= 37%/0%
Lafayette=30%/12%
Bucknell=37%/18%


Two other schools

Saint Louis U (#41 Private U)= 55%/73% My older daughter, HC 2009, applied to SLU and I learned that it had an established sliding scale where, e.g. "Get a 3.6 HS GPA and a 28 ACT and get $X"

Tulane(#47 Private U)= 34%/58% My younger daughter graduated from Tulane and received $$ off based on a high ACT as we would not qualify for need aid

There are a number of schools in the overall Top 50 that exceed 40% in "non-need"

#26 Hillsdale= 51%/92%
#27 Grinnell= 66%/53%
#33 Richmond= 44%/32%
#36 Centre= 55%/91%
#45 Bryn Mawr= 52%/35%
#47 Whitman= 45%/53%
#49 Wheaton (IL)= 53%/46

KY,

If a student who demonstrates need gets an athletic scholarship, coudn't that explain pat if that low number? Or are all athletic scholarships counted as "non-need"?

Nate Pine trumpeting the Kiplinger rating:

Phreek, you seem to be especially good in this area and wonder if you would consider reaching out to Ann to answer 5-10 questions you might pose to her about her philosophy and strategy for attracting high quality students to Holy Cross and be willing to answer publicly, on the record?

This would be similar to the historical interviews breezy has had with Holy Cross coaches.

We have all been just speculating over many years. 

1. I think that Kiplinger values and features non need based aid because its readership includes plenty of people who do not qualify for need based aid. Many of those people are looking for good private schools where they can maybe get $15,000 off of the $66,000 price tag. The college wins, too, because a B+ school might get an A- student. (Based on KY's research above, for liberal arts schools they might want to look at Bucknell, Lafayette, and Bryn Mawr to name a few.)

2. The Ivy advantage is that their "need based aid" (especially at HYP) is better than everyone else's need based aid.

3. Great schools like HC that can compete on price by starting with a sticker price a few thousand less than the competition and then meeting need without loans to separate themselves from the pack. I continue to think that the campaign had insufficient emphasis on raising unrestricted endowment funds to do that.

I may not know much, but I do know a bit about metrics.  Many moons ago, I asked the commander of Shaw AFB how he gauged morale of the fighter wing that was based there. The reply was, 'Sales at the Officers' Club.' If I had an oracle award to hand out, he would have won it.

If I was on the BoT, here are the first five questions I would ask Ann.

1.)  The re-accreditation report cautioned HC that if it persisted in recruiting students from its traditional demographic areas, that the academic quality of the applicants would decline.  This would be the consequence of fewer matriculating high school students in the Northeast.  (Smaller cohort means more competition for the academically qualified.)  Looking at the geographic distribution of enrolling HC students over the period since this report was sent to HC, how has that distribution changed?

2.)  [Assuming the answer to #1 indicates little substantive change.] What strategies did you develop and apply to increase student interest and applications from geographic areas outside of the Northeast?  Why did these strategies not produce an increase in enrollment from students residing in states outside the Northeast?

3.)  Other liberal arts colleges (and private universities) in the Northeast are confronted with a similar demographic challenge  Here is the percentage of in-state students at several, very competitive colleges and universities in Massachusetts: 12 percent Wellesley; 17 percent Amherst;  21 percent Tufts;  22 per\cent Boston College;  24 percent Northeastern;  and 39 percent Holy Cross.  What strategies or approaches have these other institutions used to broaden their geographic diversity, while maintaining or increasing their competitiveness and reputation?  If there are strategies that you considered but have not used at Holy Cross, why were such strategies rejected?

4.)  For the class of 2021, 35.4 percent submitted their SAT score, 23.4 percent submitted class rank, and the percentage of those submitting GPA is indicated as N/A.  HC notes that differences in grading scales for GPA make GPA values unreliable as a set.  With few objective measures being submitted by applicants. why should we not conclude that the HC admissions process has devolved into a subjective exercise?

5.)  Some have suggested that HC's downplaying of standardized tests and other metrics, e.g., class rank, has now created a perception, in the minds of some prospective students and their parents, that the college is becoming less competitive when it comes to admissions.  What would you say to counter such perceptions?    
 .