The June blog post earned so much attention from CBS, The Washington Post, College Confidential, and others that I wanted to feature it here on the new blog as well.
The University of Rochester’s new online Net Price Calculator will help families assemble an individual projection about financial assistance at UR. Mining data from last year reveals some rules of thumb about how the mythical “average” admitted student succeeded in earning a scholarship.
Warnings about interpreting these data:
- UR doesn’t use a final scholarship formula. Committees with many perspectives review each admitted candidate’s documents multiple times.
- Every year is different. These data show what happened this past year and reflect our values.
- A “typical” UR entering student has completed on average 5.5 year-long AP courses or the equivalent, earned on average a 3.8 GPA, and scored in the 90th percentile on tests.
12 steps that mattered for earning merit scholarships in the UR Class of 2015:
Academic excellence:
1. Taking AP, IB, honors, and/or advanced courses (when available at the school) mattered. Rule of thumb: Merit awards increased on average $400 per rigorous course.
2. Grades. Rule of thumb: Each semester academic course “A” grade translated into $62 more in merit. And—ahem—grades other than “A” reduced eligibility.
3. Tests. Rule of thumb: In effect (not by design), UR awarded $115 more in merit on average for every 10 points higher on the SAT, or $425 for each 1 point higher ACT composite. So (for example), a student with three 750s on the SAT on average received $1,725 more in scholarship than a student with three 700s. That’s nice, but note that time and money spent prepping for and taking tests has a limited return-on-investment.
UR’s first commitment is to meet “demonstrated need”:
4. Showing up: Regardless of need, completing the FAFSA correlated on average with $1,700 more in merit aid. Completing both the FAFSA and CSS PROFILE yielded on average $2,500 more in merit aid.
5. We had a “progressive tax” in our merit. On average, each four dollars less in family income increased merit awards one cent. Not much impact per student, but noticeable overall.
Talk to us: The biggest gains in merit competition came from meeting us at the right time:
6. Winners of our High School Awards (Bausch & Lomb, Xerox, George Eastman, and Frederick Douglass/Susan B. Anthony) received on average $300 more in merit aid.
7. Admitted students who had serious conversations with admissions and financial aid counselors earned $3,000 average difference in merit aid. Even before admission, students who scheduled a recommended admissions interview earned on average $250 more in merit.
8. Students who completed all parts of their admission application on time (including midyear requests) earned on average $400 more in merit than those who didn’t.
Out of control: Don’t change your location, your interests, your teachers, or your birthday, but those factors made a difference, reflecting the University’s interest in diversity:
9. Greener pastures: The 62.5% of our students from out of state received on average about $2,000 more merit. Yet New York residents received $2,400 on average in extra need-based aid.
10. Life experience: On average, each extra day of life a student brought to campus earned them an extra 82 cents in merit scholarship. Note: This is interesting, but not a reason by itself to delay college—you’d lose more in lifetime income than you would gain in a UR scholarship.
11. Apples for teacher: A reader rating of “excellent” for an applicant’s letters of recommendation correlated with $1,800 more in merit awards.
12. Dare to be different: On average, the more frequent the major interest, the lower the merit award. The average student received about $1.89 less every time someone else was admitted with the same major interest.