[DeltAlum]

First, let me say...

1) I support non academic scholarships.
2) I have no problem, per se, with athletic scholarships.

However, I have a real problem with so called "highly selective" schools who claim to give "need only" scholarships.

For one thing, most of them aren't telling the truth. If they're NCAA Divison I schools, they are required to give a certain number of athletic scholarships in order to keep their NCAA status. That's not "need based."

Additionally, "need only" scholarships penalize the type of student that all colleges allegedly want if his/her parent fall into a certain income bracket.

Our son is a case in point. He was a National Merit Scholar, 4.3 weighted GPA, VP of his student body, active in the community, 1730 SAT and 34 ACT, with tons of extra curriculars. He won several national awards in music (and theatre) and presented a math paper for an audience of math professors and students from all over the country. (he was "perfect" in math on both standarized tests)

He was accepted at every college to which he applied.

Northwestern, one of his top choices offered $39, 000 per year in LOANS, with no scholarship money at all. Someone with a much lower GPA who was not nearly as active would have gotten a much better deal because of "need". It was pretty much the same at Yale, University of Cincinnati College Conservatory and the Boston Conservatory.

(Then we got mail from them wondering why he chose to go elsewhere!)

Thankfully, The University of Oklahoma recruits National Merit kids and gave him both academic and talent based scholarships which amount to pretty much a full ride. He didn't even apply there! But when he visited, he really liked it.

The kicker is that while I'm making reasonable money now (although still only about half of what I made before), I was out of work for over a year (corporate merger) and we used up all of our financial reserves and a lot of the college money we had put aside during that period. That didn't make a difference, though.

Finally, I'm not arguing against need based scholarships -- but against the schools who ONLY look at need.

It penalizes the kids who "do it right" in high school.

There should be BOTH.

End of rant.

Edited to mention that our local Delt Alumni Chapter underwrites scholarships for our two local chapters which are given to sophomore members who show leadership potential in their chapters.