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Post by gks on Apr 19, 2019 7:16:54 GMT -5
gas, I undrstand your concern, but HC is not going to stop offering scholarships and financial aid packages to all applicants - which your post seems to imply. For a small percentage the ability to contribute to the college coffers could play a roll, but, as with most things, it is not an "all or nothing choice." Also, I remember hearing that my widowed mother (who supported my grandparents and one great grandparent in addition to me) could "afford' HC with no financial help from the Cross. Even then the school's decisions were sometimes strange. I understand that this does not mean the end of financial aid. I just feel that for an academic institution finances should not play a roll. On the reverse I do understand that colleges (and prep and private high schools as well) want the maximum amount of full pay students. Makes business sense. I just think in days of escalating college costs this sends the wrong message. Middle class families will see this and think that HC won't help them (even if opposite is true). My child is starting the college process now. She is very smart but in no way am I rich. If I see a school uses finances as a factor in admission I'm moving on. |
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Post by rgs318 on Apr 19, 2019 7:40:43 GMT -5
Understandable, but would you move on before you even find out how the new situation would impact your child? My sons got through college and graduated without debt. Second mortgages and two working parents can be a great combinaton for such situations. Neither son got any money from their colleges. One was a varsity swimmer. HC wanted him as a swimmer, but he was rejected because (as I was told) his SAT scores were 10 points too low. He went to Fairfield and enjoyed a Jesuit education. HC made a decision based on an incorrect decision ("We don't want to bring in students who do not have a good chance to graduate because of academic shortcomings.") He did graduate college with honors. If the admissions office had ability to afford the college as a factor, perhaps he would have been able to be a Crusader.
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Post by gks on Apr 19, 2019 7:51:49 GMT -5
Understandable, but would you move on before you even find out how the new situation would impact your child? My sons got through college and graduated without debt. Second mortgages and two working parts can be a great combinaton for such situations. Neither son got any money from their colleges. One was a varsity swimmer. HC wanted him as a swimmer, but he was rejected because (as I was told) his SAT scores were 10 points too low. He went to Fairfield and enjoyed a Jesuit education. HC made a decision based on an incorrect decision ("We don't want to bring in students who do not have a good chance to graduate because of academic shortcomings.") He did graduate college with honors. If the admissions office had ability to afford the college as a factor, perhaps he would have been able to be a Crusader. 10 points on a SAT is an "academic shortcoming"? No wonder coaches can't succeed at Holy Cross if they have to deal with that bulls##t from admissions. There are just too many stories out there to defend the admissions department. Anyways...for my family finances are a large factor. I am of the belief that you can get a great education at most colleges out there. So if one college is stingier with money than another I'll pass. Holy Cross' loss was Fairfield's gain. |
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on Apr 19, 2019 8:08:01 GMT -5
I don't read this as HC becoming stingier with money than it has been. Perhaps HC will offer each student precisely what it would have offered previously, but will slightly alter its acceptance factors. Let's say HC is going to accept 2,000 students--it could accept the top 1,800 without any regard to financial resources and then, for the last 200, make that a factor. In that way, every student could be offered same $$ as before, but the mix of full-pay versus need $$ could be slightly altered.
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Post by Tom on Apr 19, 2019 8:16:24 GMT -5
.
I understand that once the door has been opened, things can change. However, in practice, this isn't that huge. Taking the school at its word, the top 96 percent of admitted students were considered need blind. Then they went to the next tier of applicants and need was considered in that final 4 percent of admitted students. I suppose the school could have put that last group on a waiting list and stayed need blind. But as I have recently learned, in the few years it is actually used, isn't need blind and doesn't guarantee full need either. No one would have known and the policy could have stayed in tact
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Post by Tom on Apr 19, 2019 8:22:34 GMT -5
I don't read this as HC becoming stingier with money than it has been. Perhaps HC will offer each student precisely what it would have offered previously, but will slightly alter its acceptance factors. Let's say HC is going to accept 2,000 students--it could accept the top 1,800 without any regard to financial resources and then, for the last 200, make that a factor. In that way, every student could be offered same $$ as before, but the mix of full-pay versus need $$ could be slightly altered. I didn't see this when I started posting. This is exactly what happened this year, although your hypothetical numbers are more drastic than the school claims happened this year |
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Post by alum on Apr 19, 2019 8:23:30 GMT -5
A couple of thoughts:
1. The College has not been need blind as to admission off of the waiting list for some time.
2. Although many colleges, including HC, have been need blind, they often deal with it through admissions recruiting. An effort to attract international students is often an effort to find full pay kids. Recruiting more at prep schools often generates the same.
As I have posted before, the choice in the current campaign to deemphasize adding funds to the endowment as opposed to other initiatives impacts financial aid.
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Post by hcpride on Apr 19, 2019 8:27:10 GMT -5
I don't read this as HC becoming stingier with money than it has been. Perhaps HC will offer each student precisely what it would have offered previously, but will slightly alter its acceptance factors. Let's say HC is going to accept 2,000 students--it could accept the top 1,800 without any regard to financial resources and then, for the last 200, make that a factor. In that way, every student could be offered same $$ as before, but the mix of full-pay versus need $$ could be slightly altered. I think this is precisely what was done with this most recent admitted class (albeit with a much-higher number than your 200): "This year, the college still admitted 2,300 students using the traditional need blind approach, according to school spokesman John Hill. But for a final pool of 800 applicants, Holy Cross did consider their ability to pay to attend when determining who to accept." www.telegram.com/news/20190417/facing-rising-demand-from-students-holy-cross-scales-back-need-blind-admissions-policyNo doubt this was done as a money-saver (as admissions at HC candidly admit.) On a slightly different topic, we are at 75% for ED acceptances, which BTW tend to skew wealthier (even controlling for our wacky percentage of athletes within the ED pool). So, combining a large number of kids coming in ED with an RD that is now 'need aware' one could have some concerns. |
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Post by HC16 on Apr 19, 2019 8:33:49 GMT -5
I don't read this as HC becoming stingier with money than it has been. Perhaps HC will offer each student precisely what it would have offered previously, but will slightly alter its acceptance factors. Let's say HC is going to accept 2,000 students--it could accept the top 1,800 without any regard to financial resources and then, for the last 200, make that a factor. In that way, every student could be offered same $$ as before, but the mix of full-pay versus need $$ could be slightly altered. This lines up with what I've heard. One thing I've heard since before I graduated is that the costs of need based financial aid are escalating while we simultaneously lose full pay students to schools like Providence who offer them merit aid. As a result, the financial aid office gets squeezed from both ends and raising tuition can only go so far before making the problem worse. If I had to guess, the school decided making need a limited factor for the last few kids admitted was preferable to reducing financial aid for admitted students. Gks, if your daughter does decide to apply to HC, one option available to potentially supplement whatever package the college offers is the Holy Cross Club of Greater Worcester scholarship for residents of Worcester County. It's a four year scholarship awarded to a couple members of each incoming class. |
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Post by hcpride on Apr 19, 2019 8:52:26 GMT -5
This lines up with what I've heard. One thing I've heard since before I graduated is that the costs of need based financial aid are escalating while we simultaneously lose full pay students to schools like Providence who offer them merit aid. As a result, the financial aid office gets squeezed from both ends and raising tuition can only go so far before making the problem worse. If I had to guess, the school decided making need a limited factor for the last few kids admitted was preferable to reducing financial aid for admitted students. That might explain why we have been quietly offering 10K in merit aid to our top academic applicants the last two years or so. (While it might seem a little drop in the 70K+ tuition bucket it might have some effect landing some accepted kids at the margins. Perhaps a move to 'need aware' might be financing this.) |
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Post by hcpride on Apr 19, 2019 8:56:57 GMT -5
A couple of thoughts: 1. The College has not been need blind as to admission off of the waiting list for some time. 2. Although many colleges, including HC, have been need blind, they often deal with it through admissions recruiting. An effort to attract international students is often an effort to find full pay kids. Recruiting more at prep schools often generates the same. As I have posted before, the choice in the current campaign to deemphasize adding funds to the endowment as opposed to other initiatives impacts financial aid. Agreed I'd add HC's 'diving deeply into the ED pool' as a way to finesse "need blind" Last year we accepted 345 students ED. |
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Post by Tom on Apr 19, 2019 9:55:20 GMT -5
I don't read this as HC becoming stingier with money than it has been. Perhaps HC will offer each student precisely what it would have offered previously, but will slightly alter its acceptance factors. Let's say HC is going to accept 2,000 students--it could accept the top 1,800 without any regard to financial resources and then, for the last 200, make that a factor. In that way, every student could be offered same $$ as before, but the mix of full-pay versus need $$ could be slightly altered. I think this is precisely what was done with this most recent admitted class (albeit with a much-higher number than your 200): "This year, the college still admitted 2,300 students using the traditional need blind approach, according to school spokesman John Hill. But for a final pool of 800 applicants, Holy Cross did consider their ability to pay to attend when determining who to accept." www.telegram.com/news/20190417/facing-rising-demand-from-students-holy-cross-scales-back-need-blind-admissions-policyNo doubt this was done as a money-saver (as admissions at HC candidly admit.) On a slightly different topic, we are at 75% for ED acceptances, which BTW tend to skew wealthier (even controlling for our wacky percentage of athletes within the ED pool). So, combining a large number of kids coming in ED with an RD that is now 'need aware' one could have some concerns. Actually much lower than the 200. Per the Telegram article, they let in 2300 kids utilizing need blind. Then they took the next best 800 applicants that didn't make the first cut and re-evaluated them, but adding need into the process. Of that pool of 800, 90 more kids were chosen. In KY's hypothetical, the bottom 10 percent of the class was not evaluated need-blind, when the school is claiming only the bottom 4 percent were evaluated need blind |
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Post by Tom on Apr 19, 2019 9:58:23 GMT -5
Understandable, but would you move on before you even find out how the new situation would impact your child? My sons got through college and graduated without debt. Second mortgages and two working parts can be a great combinaton for such situations. Neither son got any money from their colleges. One was a varsity swimmer. HC wanted him as a swimmer, but he was rejected because (as I was told) his SAT scores were 10 points too low. He went to Fairfield and enjoyed a Jesuit education. HC made a decision based on an incorrect decision ("We don't want to bring in students who do not have a good chance to graduate because of academic shortcomings.") He did graduate college with honors. If the admissions office had ability to afford the college as a factor, perhaps he would have been able to be a Crusader. Off topic, but perhaps people like your son are the reason the school said the SAT is not a good predictor of success in college |
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Post by rgs318 on Apr 19, 2019 10:01:23 GMT -5
I would agree with that.  |
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Post by longsuffering on Apr 19, 2019 13:20:43 GMT -5
One way to look at this is HC finally got the need blind monkey off it's back, if any phrase including any animal is still acceptable these days. Anecdotally I have learned that HC perhaps wasn't as need blind as some of the more gold plated prestigious colleges in that club - less out of deception and more out of economic reality. Now the college can relax and breathe a little bit without it's resources being strained to keep up a myth that it is on equal financial footing with Harvard etc., when it comes to financial aid. With a little more flexibility, TPTB can allocate resources to best balance the interests of all of Holy Cross' stakeholders. Not an easy task and one that should be debated freely.
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Post by hc87 on Apr 19, 2019 15:53:38 GMT -5
Anecdotally, I know a few HC friends who have sent their offspring elsewhere mainly due to the merit aid offered from those schools and not from HC.
I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of this process having no offspring of my own but it does seem too bad if we are losing out on getting these types of kids to HC.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on Apr 19, 2019 17:00:58 GMT -5
Anecdotally, I know a few HC friends who have sent their offspring elsewhere mainly due to the merit aid offered from those schools and not from HC. I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of this process having no offspring of my own but it does seem too bad if we are losing out on getting these types of kids to HC. No doubt HC admissions looks at this on an ongoing basis. The calculation must take into consideration what it would cost to award merit $$$ to those full pays who would come anyways versus how many others it might attract. Marketers do this all the time when deciding how often and how deep to discount their products.... |
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Post by matunuck on Apr 19, 2019 18:15:12 GMT -5
Of course, left out of the discussion is why schools like HC cost so much in the first place.
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Post by longsuffering on Apr 19, 2019 18:46:56 GMT -5
Of course, left out of the discussion is why schools like HC cost so much in the first place. Good jobs at good wages? A good chunk of HC's budget must be salaries and benefits. Noted in some of the articles about the Stop and Shop strike is the increase in automation such as cashier-less check out. In the months before the strike I noticed Stop and Shop now has cute little robots prowling the store - doing what I don't know. One got a little close to me and I felt like drop kicking it and realized I felt resentment about automation de-personalizing my shopping experience, but robots don't go on strike. How long before automation starts decreasing employee head count on college campuses? |
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Post by hcpride on Apr 20, 2019 5:00:56 GMT -5
Anecdotally, I know a few HC friends who have sent their offspring elsewhere mainly due to the merit aid offered from those schools and not from HC. I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of this process having no offspring of my own but it does seem too bad if we are losing out on getting these types of kids to HC. No doubt HC admissions looks at this on an ongoing basis. The calculation must take into consideration what it would cost to award merit $$$ to those full pays who would come anyways versus how many others it might attract. Marketers do this all the time when deciding how often and how deep to discount their products.... Anecdotally, it seems 34 and above (think 1510 and above for SAT) are offered 10K academic merit aid (a gross generality, of course). HC COULD ignore the ED folks (they are coming anyway). The 35/36 RD kids who very well may be in at BC/GU/ND are probably not swayed by 10K — so that is money offered but not spent. The 34 kid may also be in at PC/ Fordham and may get a bit of academic merit aid from one or the other and may (or may not) be swayed by 10K academic merit aid. (Not sure full-payer status is a significant concern since they’d still be on the hook for 60k...partial payers would also pay 10k less to HC...the goal is to get the strongest academic students we accept to enroll at HC - clearly we recognized an issue that needed addressing ...who knows if 10k does more than a bit of nibbling at the margins...and BTW these are the sort of kids who submit scores so that is not an issue) |
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Post by Chu Chu on Apr 20, 2019 11:56:12 GMT -5
Of course, left out of the discussion is why schools like HC cost so much in the first place. Well, a 1/10 student teacher ratio, declining Jesuit faculty, athletic scholarships, several multimillion dollar building projects and a meticulously maintained campus all come to mind. |
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Post by longsuffering on Apr 20, 2019 19:31:08 GMT -5
I'll see you all that and raise you upgraded healthy meals catering to multiple food sensitivities at Kimball. That's required these days because kids are getting that at home.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on Apr 20, 2019 23:13:14 GMT -5
One key driver of pricing is competitive set pricing. If your competitors are at $70,000 you can't price your school at $57,000 or many potential applicants will think that is all you are worth. Many will not believe that the other schools are over-priced
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Post by matunuck on May 13, 2019 10:48:57 GMT -5
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Post by purplehaze on May 13, 2019 11:24:28 GMT -5
recommend reading this article - very interesting including that fact that the school did not publicize this policy change. I imagine this move was inevitable and surely HC is giving significant financial aid to most who need it - just a sign of the times and does not diminish the reputation of the school, imo.
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