burnerafter16 said:
i believe that had the scholarship committee known to award a scholarship to someone who is already getting a full ride, they would opt to give it to someone else who doesn't have any and need it more.
There is a flaw in your argument which is they would opt to give it to someone else who doesn't have any and/or needs it more.
1. Traditional colleges offer MERIT scholarships and Financial Aid packets. Two totally different things.
Merit is a recruiting tool based on academic excellence in HS. They do not necessarily go down the list until the pot is empty. They have markers set at a certain cgpa, and many times the academic field of study is a player in the equation. Financial ability to pay has no bearing on this decision.
Financial Aid also has scholarships and grants too, but it is financial based, thus the reason why your parents submitted to FAFSA their 1040 Tax return. It is not tied to your academic ability as much as it is tied to your financial disability.
At DS1 and DD's colleges you were only eligible for merit if you applied to the college by a specific date and had a certain cgpa/SAT/ACT. If the college didn't have enough of those candidates, the money was rolled over to the next yr. They did not compromise their stds for merit.
2. AFROTC scholarships work the exact same way, don't fool yourself, it is MERIT and MERIT only.
Use yourself as an example, depending on when you threw that scholarship back into the AFROTC pool it may have never been used.
The last board was early spring, if you declined in May, AFROTC was not going to go to the alternate that did not receive a scholarship and offer them one. The money would be put back in the pot because after the last board there is no alternate list. They may opt to disperse to AFROTC dets, but you don't ever hear of a cadet getting an AFROTC HQ scholarship in June. You do hear of AFROTC cadets getting one in June, but that came from the DET, not HQ!
AFROTC knows that 100% of scholarships will not be accepted, they expected people like you to decline and take an AFA appointment.
Look at AFROTC 2 yrs ago, for 2 yrs they stopped ISS AFROTC scholarships, only this yr did they start them up again. Reason why? They did not expect the high rate of acceptance for HSSP, and there was no money left. Once they realized that rate they pulled back on the amount of scholarships offered. Stats for these cadets went out the door insane. AFROTC does not superscore, AFA does. In case you have never viewed the stats for AFROTC here they are:
Scholarship Types
Type 1 Type 2 Type 7
SAT 1435 1324 1278
ACT 32.7 30.1 28.6
GPA 3.91 3.79 3.77
I think each and everyone, including the stars that you mentioned, EARNED it!
Morally, I agree with you, but realistically your position that they would offer it to someone with lower cgpa/SAT stats is naive.
Let's be honest. HYPPSM all have BILLION dollar endowments. The interest alone on their endowments could allow every student there to attend FREE for all 4 yrs., but yet there are tons of students at those schools carrying 100K+ in student loans.
You have great ideals, and I credit you for it, but that is not how the world works.
OBTW the final flaw in your argument is should financially affluent families tell their children not to attend the AFA because they can afford them to go to an SMC or MIT and they can do ROTC there, thus, giving up that spot to the financially deserving cadet who can't afford Duke even with a Type 1 AFROTC scholarship?