high school girl doesn't get to be valedictorian

[alum]

Munchkin is absolutely correct. Schools want geographic diversity as well as ethnic and socioeconomic diversity. I interview DC area prospectives for my alma mater. These kids' resumes are amazing. My sibling is about to move to the midAtlantic region from the Upper Peninsula. This will make my sib's kid's Dartmouth dream so much more difficult. However, the kids will now have a much vaster choice of AP classes, ECs, etc than at the UP high school. It will just be tougher to stand out amongst the competition in our area.


In terms of merit-based scholarships, look at colleges' 25-75 ranges. If your child has scores that supercede the 75 percentile scores for the SAT/ACT, that is an initial indicator that s/he may be in the running for merit aid at that school. Be aware that not all schools offer merit-based scholarships. Most of the top 20 research unis and the top 10 LACs only offer need-based as they do not need to entice top students with merit $.

That being said, if your family DOES qualify for FA and the aid package at one school is less generous than another in terms of how they meet the COA need, you can show schools best offers from other schools and see if they can match it.

[Senusret I]

^^^When I was choosing between Hampshire College and Georgetown, I really really hoped Hampshire could match Georgetown's aid.

They were virtually identical, except GU had a special grant for DC residents that replaced my need for work-study. Hampshire didn't/couldn't cough up the 5 Gs.... Georgetown it was.

I wouldn't trade it for anything, but I'll always wonder.

ETA: GU didn't really have merit-based aid, but did have these super-secret grants that the needy could use to replace loans and work-study with grants.

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by alum

Munchkin is absolutely correct. Schools want geographic diversity as well as ethnic and socioeconomic diversity. I interview DC area prospectives for my alma mater. These kids' resumes are amazing. My sibling is about to move to the midAtlantic region from the Upper Peninsula. This will make my sib's kid's Dartmouth dream so much more difficult. However, the kids will now have a much vaster choice of AP classes, ECs, etc than at the UP high school. It will just be tougher to stand out amongst the competition in our area.

This is a little off-topic, but when you interview, do you see that certain kids just don't stand out, and you can almost predict what ECs they're going to have, what they major in, etc? I've only been interviewing for a few years now, but I can almost predict which ones are going to get in, and which ones aren't.

Again off-topic...did you find the Alexandra Robbins book to be pretty true of what it's like for kids at top DC schools? It's definitely true of my hometown kids, but nowhere near what it's like for these NYC kids. Scary! Unless I have a lot of money, I don't think I can raise my kids in NYC and expect them to follow in my footsteps.