Great Schafer Interview (Topher Scott confirmed as 2nd Assistant)

[1160espn.com]

First link on the page.

Talks about recruiting schedules, where scoring will come from (never had a top 30 ushl scoring come in, this year we have 2 top 10), Ferlin "fell in love with Cornell after seeing us at the Florida tournament," that Topher is the 2nd assistant, Financial Aid and that "8 of 10 of our new recruits couldn't have afforded to come to Cornell under the old financial aid rules."

Agree, great interview! Coach Schafer sounded very excited in talking about what he called his best recruiting class in all his Cornell years.

Great, thanks!

Schafer himself has improved tremendously over the years as a speaker for both the program specifically and Cornell in general. He's always been sincere and funny, but he would not have made such cogent and organized responses even a few years ago.

This was a pleasure to listen to; thanks for posting it.

CAS
Coach Schafer sounded very excited in talking about what he called his best recruiting class in all his Cornell years.

He's *really* high on them. "It wasn't so bad the last few years, but this is just a different level of talent."

The 8 out of 10 quote was stunning. It makes you wonder (a little) who we missed out on in 2007 through 2010. But hopefully the gap has been closed now.

Trotsky
The 8 out of 10 quote was stunning. It makes you wonder (a little) who we missed out on in 2007 through 2010. But hopefully the gap has been closed now.

There's a part of the interview where Schafer says something very close to "If our fans and boosters found out the players we missed on because they couldn't afford to come to Cornell under the old financial aid rules, they would go ballistic."

He seemed confident that the type of recruit represented by this incoming class is the New World Order. The early look at the next two years looks really promising, I guess we'll have to see what happens with the same financial aid policies and two new recruiters.

Interesting comment also on Brekke leaving because he thought Cornell could no longer compete at that financial disadvantage.

I enjoyed the discussion of the age of various players. Cornell had a lot of older players about 10 years ago (e.g. Denis Ladouceur). I hadn't really been paying attention to the ages of late since I'm no longer putting together rosters but I think it's a god sign that the team is one of the youngest in the league, as Schafer mentions. An old team can be good but there's probably more uncertainty as a rule because you have to be looking for diamonds in the rough as opposed to blue chippers.

Since I obviously haven't been paying attention can anyone point me to a story or press release about the new financial aid policies?

No link but essentially Cornell will now match any financial aid offers from other Ivys as well as make Cornell free for families earning less than 75k.

The latter is great but the former... It actually makes me a little bit angry because in my mind that is absolutely a financial aid policy based on merit as opposed to need. AKA If you can get into Princeton you will be getting more financial aid than if you can't (or don't apply).

The former is great too. Matching awards of other Ivies helps some students and disadvantages no one. It is additive to Cornell's financial aid budget.
Please remember to sign your gift checks to Cornell.

It absolutely disadvantages. I'm assuming that Cornell has a fixed amount of money to spread around. By adding a merit based component they are decreasing the amount of general money pool for use in other things (Such as keeping the actual tuition costs, or to improve financial aid across all people, not just the ones that got into Princeton).

Plus, need and no merit based financial aid has been an Ivy tenet for years. I feel Cornell is betraying itself.

If we want to compete for the best [students and athletes], I believe it is necessary. We are just trying to compete on an equal financial playing field.

CAS
If we want to compete for the best [students and athletes], I believe it is necessary. We are just trying to compete on an equal financial playing field.

Kent Austin said it was the main reason they were able to bring in such a strong recruiting class in football as well, not losing kids to the financial packages offered by HYP.

It was also interesting that Coach Schafer offered some very high praise for Athletic Director Andy Noel.

min
It was also interesting that Coach Schafer offered some very high praise for Athletic Director Andy Noel.

Not that surprising. While eLF is a nexus of Andy Noel hate, the athletic department has done very well under him.

KeithK
Since I obviously haven't been paying attention can anyone point me to a story or press release about the new financial aid policies?

Cornell Chronicle
Financial aid initiative web page
Appealing your financial aid decision web page
CAAAN bulletin
How is this possible?

kaelistus
No link but essentially Cornell will now match any financial aid offers from other Ivys

CAS
If we want to compete for the best [students and athletes], I believe it is necessary. We are just trying to compete on an equal financial playing field.

I disagree on many points.

First: It seems that there would only be a handful of student non-athletes that apply into HYP that turn them down to go to Cornell in the first place. I'm an engineer for example, so HYP would do nothing for me. I guess nowadays I would have to apply to HYP so I could can get my merit scholarship. Bizarre.

Second: Yes I'm sure it affects athletics. And I don't care. If I supported merit scholarships I'd be cheering for Duke, Kentucky, and Michigan. But I don't. I'd rather be weaker in athletics.

Third: The we meet or beat any prices phenomenon has never worked in retail. So why bother to do it here. (Actually this is kind of the same as point 1. Oh well)

Four: You seem to believe that this actually puts Cornell on equal financial playing field. It doesn't. It picks a handful of people and puts them on equal playing field, raising the cost for everyone else. Money is finite.

I do believe this enhancement in financial aid, which is designed to match [not beat] other Ivies, is essentially alumni funded. Again, it is incremental to the existing aid budget. It is not hurting ANY other aid recipients. It is already helping athletics [read the comments of Coach Schafer and Coach Austin], which I and many others do care about. It also helps Cornell enroll a superior academic class. It gives us the best chance to win, for both students and athletes.

kaelistus
It picks a handful of people and puts them on equal playing field, raising the cost for everyone else. Money is finite.

If that's the test for whether to enact this policy, if its purpose is to attract sought-after athletes who then help Cornell win more games which then spurs greater revenue and alumni giving, the policy might pay for itself or even turn a profit for the university. Money may be finite, but it isn't zero sum.

CAS
I do believe this enhancement in financial aid, which is designed to match [not beat] other Ivies, is essentially alumni funded. Again, it is incremental to the existing aid budget. It is not hurting ANY other aid recipients.

\

This statement is only true if, and only if, the alumni would give money to support this policy and not a general financial aid policy. I find that unlikely. (The opposite is more likely)



As for being zero sum. That's true. A for profit athletic department can work. It's the basis for Duke, Michigan, et al. I personally like the traditional Ivy policy of solely need-based admissions that up to now had been the modus operandi. In fact, a counter argument to that is that people like me* are less willing to donate to Cornell if they implement merit-based financial aid. I've always liked the fact that, at least openly, everyone who got into Cornell got the same financial aid and athletes don't get more of a free ride.

* Full disclosure: I have been known to give money to the school but I'm not rich and I'm sure my donation is too small to be missed.

kaelistus
I personally like the traditional Ivy policy of solely need-based admissions that up to now had been the modus operandi.

So do I, hence "if."

Cornell exists to train poets and dairy farmers. Everything else it does is either a luxury, a fad, or a way to pay the bills.

kaelistus

CAS
I do believe this enhancement in financial aid, which is designed to match [not beat] other Ivies, is essentially alumni funded. Again, it is incremental to the existing aid budget. It is not hurting ANY other aid recipients.

\

This statement is only true if, and only if, the alumni would give money to support this policy and not a general financial aid policy. I find that unlikely. (The opposite is more likely)



As for being zero sum. That's true. A for profit athletic department can work. It's the basis for Duke, Michigan, et al. I personally like the traditional Ivy policy of solely need-based admissions that up to now had been the modus operandi. In fact, a counter argument to that is that people like me* are less willing to donate to Cornell if they implement merit-based financial aid. I've always liked the fact that, at least openly, everyone who got into Cornell got the same financial aid and athletes don't get more of a free ride.

* Full disclosure: I have been known to give money to the school but I'm not rich and I'm sure my donation is too small to be missed.

From the previously mentioned link "How it this possible?", provided by David Harding:

To fund the initiative, Cornell is reallocating funds, increasing its endowment payout, and seeking new scholarship gifts for domestic and international students. An additional $125 million for scholarships has been added to the campaign goal.

As you can see this is an additional amount of money for this program. They have been actively pursuing Alumni support for this. They use the argument that this is needed to compete, and they are getting extra money. I haven't looked for a link, but I believe that Athletics is being asked to do fundraising to pay for the extra money that the U provides.

Finally, what makes you think athletes are being treated differently than other students. All students are eligible. Some athletes may be more inclined to use it; they may be more inclined to turn HYP down than other students, who don't have another reason to prefer CU as athletes might. If so, that's not a bad thing.

Really when you look back to what the Ivys did before the government stepped in, it's not much different. Then all the schools got together and offered the same aid package to all commonly accepted students. They could have actually reduced the package then, since they knew no other Ivy would give more. Now the students get the best package that's offered. Whichever school offers the most is matched.

This is a much better program than before. The students get the best, the U is able to raise more money for scholarships, and we get students to come here (in many different fields) that wouldn't have before. I don't think any students lose by this.

The matching policy applies to ALL students. Athletes "don't get more of a free ride." The match applies as well to those also admitted to MIT, which is not known for its athletic success. Cornell exists to train poets and dairy farmers. And to develop a successful hockey program that all current students, staff, townies, and alums can support. I wouldn't minimize the benefits of a successsful athletic program to the overall health of the university.

CAS
The matching policy applies to ALL students.

Bullshit. It applies to all students who get into HYP. It does not apply to all students. That's like saying Kentucky has a scholarship policy that applies to ALL students. All you have to do is dunk under pressure.

There's two points here that follow the other and I can't see how anyone can argue against them:

1- This is a merit based scholarship.
2- Merit based scholarships run counter to Cornell's (and the Ivy league) long held traditions.

Think it is you who are mistaken kaelistus. There already exist some merit based scholarships at Cornell [Cornell Commitment scholarships] and other Ivies. I also have no problem with Cornell alumni funding superior financial aid for a relatively small number of students who are most valuable to the university. We're trying to attract the best kids in the country, some who are also considering Harvard and MIT.

A quick google search turned up no hits for merit scholarships at Ivy schools. Some links to the first page of results.

[answers.yahoo.com]
[talk.collegeconfidential.com]

Maybe I was wrong and Cornell isn't the school I thought it was... When I was there it was drilled to me that Cornell does not give out any merit based scholarships. Once you got in you are equal. Maybe things changed. In which case, I guess that saves me a couple hundred bucks a year.

And now that I look at the list of universities that Cornell matches - the fact that Duke is there, which is notorious for giving insane financial aid packages to athletes only, makes me even more sad.

Update.. I hadn't seen this but it looks like others agree with me:

[cornellreviewonline.com]

A little weird because I'm as crazy liberal as they come.

Jim Hyla
From the previously mentioned link "How it this possible?", provided by David Harding:

To fund the initiative, Cornell is reallocating funds, increasing its endowment payout [emphasis JTW's], and seeking new scholarship gifts for domestic and international students. An additional $125 million for scholarships has been added to the campaign goal.

As you can see this is an additional amount of money for this program. They have been actively pursuing Alumni support for this. They use the argument that this is needed to compete, and they are getting extra money. I haven't looked for a link, but I believe that Athletics is being asked to do fundraising to pay for the extra money that the U provides.

From that quote, it seems both things are true: "reallocating funds" means that money that might have funded some other part of the University's activities (among which is presumably general financial aid) will be used for this initiative. Likewise, dipping into the endowment means less return will be available to fund everything in the future. The fundraising explanation indicates that the whole cost of the initiative won't be borne by the rest of the budget. But reallocating funds and spending endowments tells me the net cost is not zero.

BTW, my personal experience echos kaelistus's impression that Cornell didn't use to give merit scholarships. After my freshman financial aid offer had come in the mail, I received a small merit scholarship from the State of New York, and my Cornell grant was reduced by exactly that amount.

Trotsky
Schafer himself has improved tremendously over the years as a speaker for both the program specifically and Cornell in general. He's always been sincere and funny, but he would not have made such cogent and organized responses even a few years ago. This was a pleasure to listen to; thanks for posting it.

Speaking of the importance of being well-spoken to represent your school, new Harvard lax coach Chris Wojcik was the graduation speaker at our HS (he's an alum) and he was not, unfortunately, a polished presence. Wojcik had a pretty good message to tell - "there's more to life than working for Goldman Sachs so, what the heck, follow your dream, maybe one day you'll be a Harvard coach [once the Cornell guy moves to Maryland]" - but Wojcik's best medium must be small groups.

I'm not suggesting there is a lot of such aid, but I refer you to the description of the Cornell Commitment program [which is beyond my computer skills to post]. I think these, and other programs offered elsewhere, provide benefits such as research support accounts and need-based loan replacement. A friend at Columbia had a fellowship in the sciences which offered similar benefits. Technically they may not be considered merit aid, but they are programs which award a subset of the freshman class with special benefits.

kaelistus
Maybe I was wrong and Cornell isn't the school I thought it was... When I was there it was drilled to me that Cornell does not give out any merit based scholarships. Once you got in you are equal. Maybe things changed. In which case, I guess that saves me a couple hundred bucks a year.

Cornell National Scholars, one of the Cornell Commitment programs, has been around since 1944. All of the programs are based in part on academic merit.

kaelistus
Once you got in you are equal.

IMO the egalitarian part about the Ivy admissions process is not the discounted pricetag but the need-blind approach: the Ivies don't take into account your ability to pay when deciding whether to admit you or not. That they then commit to reducing the cost to a level based on some sliding scale is dubiously useful (mostly because for reasons previously stated on some other thread I think the financial aid system is a scam), but less important than not admitting someone because their parents don't make enough money, like Brown did until sometime in the mid-90's.

You might then argue that talk is cheap because admitting someone costs nothing, and you'd probably be right. But need-blind still feels like the "right" thing to me, because at least it gives the prospective student the opportunity to figure out a way to pay for it even if the school doesn't discount the cost sufficiently.

Ultimately, I think there are two potential endgames to the financial aid war, because the current path is unsustainable, resulting in something approximating a square wave separating those who don't pay from those who pay full freight for multiple students. (1) The Ivies figure out a way to cut costs and raise recurring non-tuition revenue sufficiently to cover the full cost of undergraduate education for everyone, or at least cut the full-freight price to something remotely reasonable even for a middle-class family; or (2) they admit that higher education is a business and that their goal is price discrimination to extract the maximum that each admitted student's family can pay. I simply don't think they can straddle the line forever.

It seems to me that the important thing to preserve is need blind admissions. Applicants are assessed without regard for how much they can pay and are guaranteed enough aid that they can attend if admitted (though that guarantee may include a potentially large debt component). I think the new policy still preserves this.

It's in Cornell's best interest to recruit the "best" student body it can (however best is defined). It seems reasonable to pursue this with merit based aid. Once you have need blind admission and need based aid in place I can only see a couple of good reasons to oppose merit aid. One is if you think merit aid will drain funding from need based aid. It seems like the University still has a strong commitment to need based aid, since the package matching is an increase in funding coming from donations and endowment. Two is if you think merit aid will be granted for reasons that run counter to the universities mission (for example, giveaways to guys who have great slap shots). I won't dismiss this concern out of hand, but I will say that the package matching policy isn't well suited to the kind of "corrupt" practices that one might oppose on principle.

Edit: Fixed some poor grammar.

David Harding

KeithK
Since I obviously haven't been paying attention can anyone point me to a story or press release about the new financial aid policies?

Cornell Chronicle
Financial aid initiative web page
Appealing your financial aid decision web page
CAAAN bulletin
How is this possible?

A belated thanks for the links!

Bravo KeithK. I completely agree.

KeithK
Two is if you think merit aid will be granted for reasons that run counter to the universities mission (for example, giveaways to guys who have great slap shots). I won't dismiss this concern out of hand, but I will say that the package matching policy isn't well suited to the kind of "corrupt" practices that one might oppose on principle.

Could you elaborate on this? Are you saying since it's a perk for applicants already offered admission under non-merit criteria it can't be misused to exempt unqualified applicants from "legitimate" (i.e., academic) criteria?

billhoward

Trotsky
Schafer himself has improved tremendously over the years as a speaker for both the program specifically and Cornell in general. He's always been sincere and funny, but he would not have made such cogent and organized responses even a few years ago. This was a pleasure to listen to; thanks for posting it.

Speaking of the importance of being well-spoken to represent your school, new Harvard lax coach Chris Wojcik was the graduation speaker at our HS (he's an alum) and he was not, unfortunately, a polished presence. Wojcik had a pretty good message to tell - "there's more to life than working for Goldman Sachs so, what the heck, follow your dream, maybe one day you'll be a Harvard coach [once the Cornell guy moves to Maryland]" - but Wojcik's best medium must be small groups.

As Dale Carnegie would say, nobody is a born public speaker, it's a skill that must be developed. It has become rare for people to get any public speaking practice as part of their normal education. Very few people, particularly from an academic background, seek explicit tutoring in the skill. Since the vast majority of non-sociopaths have a natural fear of public speaking bordering on abject terror, inexperienced speakers tend to be as bad as student drivers, and then improve commensurate with their experience. I don't know why we would expect anything else.

kaelistus
And now that I look at the list of universities that Cornell matches - the fact that Duke is there, which is notorious for giving insane financial aid packages to athletes only, makes me even more sad.

Stanford is the only school where I have teaching experience, although a good friend of mine had a similar experience at Duke: I would risk charges of slandering the institution to state that talented athletes are admitted to those places, despite the reputation to the contrary, with no regard to their academic preparation. It may be that they had double secret IQ scores north of Max Planck, but the actual level of academic attainment, and interest, of many of the student athletes I tutored at Stanford was zero (and likewise with my friend at Duke).

Look, I know many athletes here who might have gone somewhere else without the level of aid they received. Sure they got in partially because of their athletics talents, but once they're in they deserve the same chance at aid as everyone else. And a lot of these people would have gone elsewhere because they couldn't afford to otherwise. As a result they're getting a better education. And I know as many athletes who walked on when they came here, but came here because of financial aid. And finally, there are plenty of athletes that are paying full freight to come here. Something like that would never happen at a lot of those other schools. I think we shouldn't confuse the merit based system of getting in (which yes does involve athletic skill, as well as artistic talent, or leadership, or academic talent) with the need based aid. Even if you're a talented hockey player, you're not going to get much (if any) aid if your family makes $150-200K. Even if they're matching HYP, they wouldn't give that much aid to those people. More generous aid isn't a bad thing. Some of my good friends at school, who happen to be good athletes, are only there because of the increases. If the consequence of increased aid is that more people can go to Cornell I'm all for it. It's not like all the aid is being funneled into athletic scholarships. Seriously where's the problem?
*I forgot to state that the people who are getting their aid packages from HYP matched wouldn't be receiving that aid in the first place if it wasn't need based. So it's really just letting someone else define need*

At Cornell, recruited athletes graduate at the equivalent rate of the overall student population [92-93%].

Trotsky

billhoward

Trotsky
Schafer himself has improved tremendously over the years as a speaker for both the program specifically and Cornell in general. He's always been sincere and funny, but he would not have made such cogent and organized responses even a few years ago. This was a pleasure to listen to; thanks for posting it.

Speaking of the importance of being well-spoken to represent your school, new Harvard lax coach Chris Wojcik was the graduation speaker at our HS (he's an alum) and he was not, unfortunately, a polished presence. Wojcik had a pretty good message to tell - "there's more to life than working for Goldman Sachs so, what the heck, follow your dream, maybe one day you'll be a Harvard coach [once the Cornell guy moves to Maryland]" - but Wojcik's best medium must be small groups.

As Dale Carnegie would say, nobody is a born public speaker, it's a skill that must be developed. It has become rare for people to get any public speaking practice as part of their normal education. Very few people, particularly from an academic background, seek explicit tutoring in the skill. Since the vast majority of non-sociopaths have a natural fear of public speaking bordering on abject terror, inexperienced speakers tend to be as bad as student drivers, and then improve commensurate with their experience. I don't know why we would expect anything else.

I don't know how it is anywhere else, but my daughters had far more experience giving presentations in school (1990's) than I did (1950's-1960's).

does letting players in at reduced rates really cause any money to change hands? at schools that give scholies you have to allocate the money for the scholie into the budget from someplace in the athletic dept.. at a school like cornell does it really matter or is it all funny accouting anyway.. its not like the cost for adding 200 athletes really changes the bottom line for the school. in reality it costs zero to the school . its not like we have to add more professors or it adds incremental costs to the school, other than perhaps food. if a class has 20 or 25 kids it really doesnt cost more to teach. its not like the costs of the school are being covered by the tuition/fees at 100% of the going rate.

upprdeck
does letting players in at reduced rates really cause any money to change hands? at schools that give scholies you have to allocate the money for the scholie into the budget from someplace in the athletic dept.. at a school like cornell does it really matter or is it all funny accouting anyway.. its not like the cost for adding 200 athletes really changes the bottom line for the school. in reality it costs zero to the school . its not like we have to add more professors or it adds incremental costs to the school, other than perhaps food. if a class has 20 or 25 kids it really doesnt cost more to teach. its not like the costs of the school are being covered by the tuition/fees at 100% of the going rate.

Comment 1: The "does it really matter" argument works for schools like Virginia Tech. I lived in Blacksburg, VA the year that Marcus Vick was Quarterback for VA Tech's football team, and it really didn't feel like anybody cared about how the football team lived in town, or integrated in the academic community as long as they won and were #3 or better in the nation. Their coach made something north of $4 Million. So, whoopie, they got to jump up and down every few Saturdays in the fall as the team ran out for ESPN. I mean, who cares, right?

Comment 2: I, and I'm assuming some more Cornellians, would take your argument a lot more seriously if you capitalized and punctuated properly, especially given the topic. Look, I try not to be a pedantic a-hole on this forum. Everybody makes a mistake here and there, but I just counted 17 typographical mistakes in your post in a quick 1-minute scan. Arguing for "scholies" (whatever that means) isn't going to win you many fans here.

Trotsky
As Dale Carnegie would say, nobody is a born public speaker, it's a skill that must be developed. ... I don't know why we would expect anything else.

... and can be developed. The weekend before, at our nephew's graduation from a small Christian HS, the commencement speaker was a spellbinding orator (other than his message that the grads now entered a world hostile to their beliefs and so, keep the faith, baby) but so were the half-dozen seniors who spoke. Fabulously poised except for one senior whose speech was off-the-wall-stream-of-consciousness but it's okay, he's headed to Carnegie-Mellon as an engineer. It may be their HS prepares them well for the most important mission in their lives, to be well-spoken and convince others to adopt their brand of Jesus.

Maybe Harvard's freshman seminar requirement to take a Life Skills course steers too many into Personal Finance: Offshore Banking.

billhoward
Maybe Harvard's freshman seminar requirement to take a Life Skills course steers too many into Personal Finance: Offshore Banking.

"Motivational speaking to inspire your chauffeur to bury a hooker."

Failing to plan is planning to fail.

jtwcornell91

Jim Hyla
From the previously mentioned link "How it this possible?", provided by David Harding:

To fund the initiative, Cornell is reallocating funds, increasing its endowment payout [emphasis JTW's], and seeking new scholarship gifts for domestic and international students. An additional $125 million for scholarships has been added to the campaign goal.

As you can see this is an additional amount of money for this program. They have been actively pursuing Alumni support for this. They use the argument that this is needed to compete, and they are getting extra money. I haven't looked for a link, but I believe that Athletics is being asked to do fundraising to pay for the extra money that the U provides.

From that quote, it seems both things are true: "reallocating funds" means that money that might have funded some other part of the University's activities (among which is presumably general financial aid) will be used for this initiative. Likewise, dipping into the endowment means less return will be available to fund everything in the future. The fundraising explanation indicates that the whole cost of the initiative won't be borne by the rest of the budget. But reallocating funds and spending endowments tells me the net cost is not zero.

BTW, my personal experience echos kaelistus's impression that Cornell didn't use to give merit scholarships. After my freshman financial aid offer had come in the mail, I received a small merit scholarship from the State of New York, and my Cornell grant was reduced by exactly that amount.

"Merit" scholarships have a long history at Cornell. When the NY legislature approved formation of the university (not yet named "Cornell) as the state's land grant institution, Andy White added an amendment that would create a state-funded scholarship giving free tuition at Cornell to the top public school graduates in each of the state's congressional districts. Since the public schools at the time were largely the province of working-class kids, this was a "merit-on-top-of-need" system.

This system was modified over the years, but it's still in place. In the mid-sixties (when I went to Cornell) NY State had, in increasing difficulty of winning, a "Scholar Incentive Award," "Regents Scholarship," and "Senatorial Scholarship at Cornell University," with the latter being awarded to the two (public?) high school graduates with the highest scores on regents exams in each district. The amounts of each need-based and ranged from a minimum of $100 (Scholar Incentive with high income) to $800 or so (Senatorial). Since someone who won the Cornell scholarship also must have won the other two, the total package equaled full tuition, which was about $1,800 back then, for someone from a poor family.

This was still in the day of the Ivy "cartel," so the other Ivies might have matched the package. But having the state pick up the tab, the what was still the most populous state in the country, gave Cornell a considerable advantage.

Today the NY-funded scholarship specifically for Cornell is only a couple of thousand dollars. So I suppose it's up to Cornell to find other ways to allow smart poor kids to afford the Rolls Royce price tag. Still, I'm very proud to hear Shaffer say Cornell's demographics more closely reflects those of the entire country than any other Ivy. And as a hockey fan, I'm glad he says this is actually an advantage in recruiting.

Sometime even we Cornell grads don't appreciate the ideals and contribution of "America's first university."

RichH
Look, I try not to be a pedantic a-hole on this forum.

What??? You're not even TRYING???

Actually, I fully agree. With both points.

CAS
At Cornell, recruited athletes graduate at the equivalent rate of the overall student population [92-93%].

I'm not sure how this is relevant to the discussion at all. The question is simply why does a person who gets into Harvard deserve more financial aid than a person who doesn't bother to apply?

But umm, while I was there almost all of the Hockey team was in the, reputed to be very easy, ARME major. So I'm pretty sure graduation rate doesn't say the full story.

kaelistus

CAS
At Cornell, recruited athletes graduate at the equivalent rate of the overall student population [92-93%].

I'm not sure how this is relevant to the discussion at all. The question is simply why does a person who gets into Harvard deserve more financial aid than a person who doesn't bother to apply?

It's not a question of merit at all. I understand your characterization of it as such, but it's really just about increasing the probability that accepted students will matriculate. If HYP are giving more aid and we don't match then we are going to matriculate a lower caliber student for financial reasons. The whole idea of need blind admissions is to take finances out of the equation. The matching policy furthers this ambition.

KeithK

kaelistus

CAS
At Cornell, recruited athletes graduate at the equivalent rate of the overall student population [92-93%].

I'm not sure how this is relevant to the discussion at all. The question is simply why does a person who gets into Harvard deserve more financial aid than a person who doesn't bother to apply?

It's not a question of merit at all. I understand your characterization of it as such, but it's really just about increasing the probability that accepted students will matriculate. If HYP are giving more aid and we don't match then we are going to matriculate a lower caliber student for financial reasons. The whole idea of need blind admissions is to take finances out of the equation. The matching policy furthers this ambition.

And, as has been said before, the matching policy was something all the Ivys did, before the government ruled it illegal. As Keith said, it's about need blind admissions. Many colleges will adjust your aid if another school gives you more.