Submission by Onward
The events described in the below letter occurred recently. It was written by me shortly after the original phone call to the school, but I decided not to send it. Even if I did send it, it wouldn’t do me, or my family, any good at this point. Besides, it could serve as an impetus in improving this college’s public relations and this is something I don’t wish to do. Therefore, I will only share it here on TBP in order to “purge” my negative feelings. I feel better already.
______________________________________
(DATE REDACTED).
(REDACTED).
Director of Admissions
University of (REDACTED).
Dear (REDACTED),
Please allow me to tell you a tale of a Midwestern family struggling to find the right college for an amazing daughter.
Through the years, my wife and I have raised remarkable children. We had to work hard to provide for our family and have never once depended upon any governmental assistance of any kind.
My daughter is a junior in high school. She currently maintains a 4.0 GPA. She obtained a 34 on the ACT as a sophomore. Moreover, she is a very accomplished individual involved in part time work, extracurricular school activities and currently holds positions of leadership in both her school and within our community.
Because of her accomplishments, it is our desire to find the best college in her chosen major. We are also considering Ivy League schools at this time.
However, after some initial research, we were very seriously considering the University of (REDACTED). I will admit to some initial reservations because your school is known as one of the most liberal university conclaves in the Midwest. However, your college seemed to meet several of our desired criteria and we thought we would explore our options there.
In fact, we were actually scheduled to attend your honors program seminar on (DATE REDACTED).
Because we would be traveling from out of state, we did have some questions. Therefore, we called and spoke to (REDACTED) in your Office of Admissions on (DATE REDACTED). During the phone call (REDACTED) was very rude. Her answers were mostly monosyllabic and she was not very friendly or helpful to say the least.
We mentioned our upcoming visit and inquired regarding setting up a “one on one” visit with an admissions counselor. We were told this was not possible. When we mentioned we were coming from out of state, we were told that made no difference because a lot of students apply from out of state.
We then asked if we could meet with someone from within the department of our daughter’s prospective major, we were told we would need to contact the department directly. When we asked for the contact information, we were told to check the university’s website. When we asked about specific times for tours and admissions, we were told: “I can’t help you with that”.
At this point we were becoming very frustrated. We then inquired regarding any available scholarships that might be offered from your college. We were told we can apply for these separately. We asked if there were any available merit-based scholarships offered based upon ACT or SAT scores, etc. We were told your university offers scholarships based ONLY upon financial need and NONE for academic achievement and that we needed to speak with the Financial Aid department.
So, we hung up the phone and stared at each other in disbelief. We could not believe how we were treated during this call. Please understand this has not been our first “rodeo”. We have been through this process before. We have experienced many college visits and have made many other phone inquiries on behalf of our college bound children in the past and not once, can we ever recall a worse deal than your university offers, nor the manner by which the information was provided.
I am sorry, but approximately $140,000 is a lot of money to pay over four years to a school whose admissions people are rude and will not offer our daughter any merit based scholarships, but instead, only offer aid to those who never worked as hard as we have and to whom our tax dollars most likely already support. Everything our family has earned has come from hard work. Yet, your college would rather cater to welfare families and obviously, the very wealthy. The families “in the middle” be damned. It appears the University of (REDACTED) places its priorities on economic and educational redistribution while offering zero incentives to students who, through much discipline and effort, have obtained stellar educational accomplishments.
So, we are moving on. We are glad to remove your college from our list and good luck in attracting exceptional students in the future. Not that you seem to care.
Signed,
(REDACTED)
(A parent who would never, ever, ever send their amazing daughter to your school.)
Good for these parents. If only more people would wake up and realize what has happened to our “higher” institutional education system.
Have you considered sending your daughter to a university outside of the country? …. apparently there are some excellent institutions that are considerably less expensive … I have read articles about them, since all my children have gone through the process some years ago ( we are in Canada) I didn’t take note of the particular countries but I’m sure there is information out there ….$140,000 is insane, absolutely insane…… also note with the strong U.S. dollar the tuition in other countries would be that much more of a bargain….. Good Luck!!
Bravo Onward!
Sounds like that rude lady did you a favour. Anyways I’m sure you will find a good school. There is one in my town. A great place. Only problem is that it is in Canada. I can guarantee you that that would not happen at Saint Francis Xavier in Antigonish Nova Scotia. Good luck all the same. I’m sure though that your daughter is going to find the perfect place.
Lovely letter. Good for you!!!
I’m going to offer one GUESS as to what might be going on. That school has absolutely no problem filling its annual admissions goals. In fact, there are probably many many more applicants than admission spots. So, naturally there is NO NEED to give the type of support you expect. You’re just another number. There are plenty more suckers out there. Next!
You said it was a liberal college? Yeah … that POS lady did you and your child a HUUUGE favor.
Best Wishes on your search.
P.S. Don’t consider ANY college in Noo Fucken Joisey.
You could have claimed that she is American Indian or whatever they are called today just like future president Elizabeth “Dolores Umbridge” Warren. That would have gotten a free ride, extra credit in classes and a meeting with the dean.
Sounds like Univ. of Michigan – Ann Arbor (the main campus). That’s just how they treat people. A close relative with a 36 ACT and 1600 SAT (seriously, perfect scores on each under the scoring at the time), who was Valedictorian of a well known prestigious high school, got that treatment. They are arrogant and have no trouble filling their class ranks.
I suppose U of Wisconsin is my second guess, but I didn’t think they were so arrogant. U of Chicago would be another guess but its tuition is much higher than stated here.
There are some excellent and cheap colleges in Canada and the UK that might be worth looking into. Also worth looking at Northwestern University, which has much more scholarship money available than the two state schools listed above.
I’m counseling my son to attend school out of the country.
Where and when are still up the air at this moment. We have a fairly soft plan to travel to Europe next year and spend a month touring several schools in two different countries. Could possibly open that up to three if other suitable schools are found.
We will see what happens.
Bottom line is that American schools – with certain exceptions in the STEM subjects – are just shit. Indoctrination programs for the young for the purposes of creating an army of mush-headed, over-entitled leftist shitbags and useful idiots…
But isn’t this what’s wrong with the whole Damn country ? Every body wants special treatment for every reason under the sun.Why should your daughter receive set aside scholarships . Because she is supposedly smart. The whole country is full of smart sons and daughters. Remember nothing is free. Set aside scholarships cost us taxpayers plenty of money.
I’m sick and tired of dead beats especially middle class ones.
In 1950 – 1960 college was the key to success – it was a much smaller world, and the college offerings were serious courses of study.
Now college is an extension of HS remedial education. The administrations folded, during the Viet Nam war, and now nut job liberals run the asylum.
The administration realized that they could make money issuing pieces of paper called diplomas. Didn’t matter if there was anything behind them.
Many of the degrees have no economic worth. Doesn’t matter – because our economy has crashed and this is the only ‘easy’ way people think they will be able to maintain a middle class standard of living.
Much of college is now morally / intellectually / financially bankrupt.
Thank god they gave you a hard time. It may have saved you from throwing your money away.
Reach your daughter to block and tackle and get her a football scholarship .
Don’t mess with the girls sports…unless she likes the ladies
Not my world of education……. I attended 6 universities over the span of 25 years as a “traveling man” and never encountered such a terrible admissions situation as described. At the age of 43, I dragged all the applicable credits into one pile, built a house in the woods of Idaho, got our fixed expenses down to $50 a month and spent two years finishing up the first degree.
Every school I wanted to go do welcomed me with open arms and was impressed that at such advancing age, I’d just keep whacking away at it.
Two Universities I attended gave me a free ride (not monitor – but for credit) because they said it was so unusual to see someone like me come along..
My Florida college SAT was 98% which may have helped a little bit – but for goodness sake, that was back in senior high school. But you use what you have too to get what you want..
I just glad I’m self-educating these times.
MA
David the fucking moron spouts shit, and gets 2 people to buy in. David, you ignorant cunt, you really ought to do a bit of research before you run off at the mouth.
Re Indians – they do not get “free rides” any place, save for one or two specific Indian colleges. They do tend to get some preferential treatment, but a dumb Indian is not getting into Harvard. They will likely be eligible for maximum financial aid, though, given the average income of Native Americans. A lot of it will be loans, like for any other student.
Re this university, I will go out on a limb and call the school University of Chicago. Very few schools only offer financial need money, and no academic scholarships. The Ivy League schools do this, and the U of Chicago, too, I think.
Students can get a range of scholarships not affiliated with the school itself – just have to look around to find what scholarships are on offer – Rotary, etc. offer scholarships to local kids that excel.
Muck – you typed “self-educating” above in the last sentence. I suspect you meant “self-medicating”. 🙂
Thank you all of you for commenting. I appreciate your input, perspectives, encouragement and advice above. Even you bb, although I am more of the opinion that achievement should be rewarded as opposed to being discouraged in any way. Most schools, public and private, offer incentives to higher caliber students because it is in their best financial interests to do so.
Sometimes the benefits can be up to one-third of their “suggested retail” tuition. And, thankfully, there are so many choices out there.
In the words of Ben Affleck, “are we negotiating?”
Feed the passion and educate as required. Will sell my University of Chicago diploma for cheap. (MBA, low mileage)
I’m sympathetic to Onward’s struggle. But I’m sure Onward realizes that all the Ivies could fill their entire entering classes several times over with kids with 34/35/36 on their ACTs. There is no scarcity value attached to the daughter.
The Ivies and the more prestigious state flagships don’t care about the Onward daughter because her family are hard-working, “non-hooked”, non-legacy, non-minority smart folks looking for fair treatment.
No administrators or diversity Deans will get promoted for helping the Onward family and no quotas will be filled for admitting the Onward daughter.
Elite universities cater to very wealthy people (the top), athletes and minorities (the poorer the better). Middle class whites are at the absolute end of the line.
Captain Willard is absolutely correct. I know it for a fact.
“American Indian or whatever they are called today just like future president Elizabeth “Dolores Umbridge” Warren”
Yeah, right. The only skins getting a free ride at college are the ones driving the team bus to road games; a free BUS ride.
Nosebleeds like Liz Warren and some NA Studies professors get what they get from family connections. None of them even have a CDIB.
Onward ,bless your heart . One of us is / are confused . You just said your daughter should be rewarded for achievements but don’t seem to realize in the same breath you’re asking that the school give her a free stuff.What about all the other parents who will like wise ask for free stuff just because your kid got freebies . They will swear up and down their child is the next Einstein.
From there it’s class , race ,sex ,age including criminals who want free shit.Understand?For every reason under the sun..Every one chooses to forget someone else is paying for this through taxes.
I hope you do find her a good school.
Ed – there you go, redeeming yourself.
As a CIB card carrying Injun, I can say for a fact that Indians do not get free rides.
Here is what they get: they get preferential treatment, some, in admissions, but to get into Harvard, etc., will still require they be excellent students. Otherwise, they get zero in scholarships, other than the types that any student could search out for themselves. Because they are generally poor, they will get a lot of financial aid – including lots of student loans.
The other thing Indians get is free, albeit it very poorly funded, healthcare. They are therefore exempt from Obamacare regs.
Otherwise, not many bennies flow to Indians that are not available to the community at large.
On a general note, by memory the Ivies turn down the vast majority of valedictorians that apply. I think their acceptance rate is something like 10% or thereabouts these days.
If any segment of the population has room to complain it is the Asian Americans, who are vastly under-represented at the Ivies given their extreme dominance at high school. If it were entirely color-blind, then the Ivies student bodies would be very highly Asian American, even more so than currently.
What Captain Wilard said was my experience as well.
This was 5-6 years ago, but we found smaller private colleges to at least pretend to be interested in my kids, and they offered really decent scholarship packages.
I have a friend whose son has made a part-time job out of applying for as many small scholarships as he can find. He has gotten enough of them that he’s paying his way through UVA.
My experiences on a scholarship committee confirmed that students must have a high 4.0+ GPA (due to lots of advanced placement classes), many extracurriculars, and multiple leadership or creative achievements in order to be competitive for merit scholarships. Great kids with 4.0 GPAs are a dime a dozen these days. Blame it on grade inflation.
I think this guy should reconsider and beg the school a second chance. It probably has safe zones and PC cops to protect kids’ self-esteem.
Send the fucking letter. Self-sacrifice without a purpose is masturbation.
Admin, I told you how I applied and got deep sixed at Harvey Mudd Men’s College.
Pete Duarte had some choice words for the admissions folks. I think ‘rayciss’ was just the intro. That was then and I had forgotten until you brought up that group of Hispanic students at Claremont, one of the 5 Claremont Colleges including HM.
Old Pete could make LLPOH blush.
Dartmouth College provides a free ride if you can prove at least 1/8 Native American ancestry. Has to do with the original college charter from back in the 1700’s. Still have to be academically acceptable, i.e. good grades in HS.
Crap….your kid will make more money as a plumber or a mechanic and be pretty much debt free. I know a bunch of kids 50K in debt and can’t find a decent job after graduation …because of a crappy degree .
I hear ‘ ya Buck. There are so many ways to make money without a college degree. Dealing in precious metals. Trading classic cars. Trade skills as you have mentioned. Selling unique stuff on Craigslist or eBay. Building up a base on YouTube. The options are limitless. But sometimes, you have to let the kids figure it out without ‘clipping their wings” in any way. Truth is, they want to figure it out themselves. In the meantime, I don’t worry too much about the $$. I am solid.
It’s all just “monopoly money” at this point anyway. On another note it is interesting to see how these old threads still pop up sometimes. Thank you for posting your thoughts this evening. Have a good night….