Top Dollar for Top Students

By Ellie McGrath

Competing colleges offer aid to seniors without need

They are, suddenly, the new celebrities of high schools across the country: students with spectacular college-board scores and report cards full of A's. This spring many leading colleges are pursuing the star seniors as never before, offering scholarships based on achievement, talent and promise rather than on financial need. Says Thomas Bertrand, secretary of Atlanta's Emory University: "Top students are recruited these days in the same way football players are." Declares Dartmouth Financial Aid Director Harland Hoisington: "You have people bidding now."

About 900 U.S. schools are offering merit scholarships this year, compared with 420 in 1977. The rising demand is the result of a declining supply. Between 1972 and 1982, the number of students with high scores (650 points or more out of a possible 800) on the Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SATs) plummeted by 45% in verbal skills and 23% in math, although the number of those taking the exams dropped by only 3%. In a time of limited resources, many institutions believe that future success depends upon attracting not just ordinary students but the finest. Admits Helen Horowitz, a public relations official at New York University, which is handing out 55 new merit scholarships of $2,000 this year: "Part of the aim is that talented students will help make N.Y.U. attractive to others in the years to come."

Many merit awards are bringing an aura of free-market competition to colleges:

> Students who qualify as finalists in the National Merit Scholarship competitions can get full tuition ($4,600) from Trinity University in San Antonio for four years if they maintain a 3.25 average. When it started the program in 1980, Trinity attracted only 19 of the nation's 13,500 National Merit finalists, who are chosen by rigorous exams. This fall the school expects to enroll between 45 and 55 finalists.

> Three years ago, Emory University allotted about $10,000 for merit scholarships; this year it will spend $265,000 on such awards. Emory feels that the program has helped generate a 15% increase in university applicants.

> For the first time, Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., is offering 15 merit scholarships of $4,000 to top high school achievers. Says David Gould, dean of admissions: "It's a very competitive market, and we hope to maintain our position."

The idea of offering money to students who do not really need it bothers many educators. Says William Ihlanfeldt, dean of admissions at Northwestern University, which has no such awards: "To give money to students who can already afford to come to your school is a waste of money." Most of the schools that have decided to award merit scholarships say they are helping needy students as much as before. Some officials nonetheless fear that in time the disadvantaged will not get enough aid. Says Dan Hall, dean of admissions at the University of Chicago: "Society really misses something when an elite consortium of schools attempts to buy the brightest students."

Among the schools most concerned about the ethics of need vs. merit is a group of 23 prestigious colleges in the Northeast, including the eight members of the Ivy League. These colleges require their scholarship winners to show financial need, and the schools' representatives meet once a year to standardize aid packages offered to the same students. Two top-ranked women's colleges, Smith and Mount Holyoke, recently broke ranks by announcing that they would award 30 prizes of $300 and $400, respectively, to then" choice applicants. Says Mount Holyoke President Elizabeth Kennan: "Our No. 1 priority will be to fund all needy students. These prizes are intended to reward excellence."

Although such awards are small potatoes, some colleges in the group of 23 have criticized Smith and Mount Holyoke for breaking a need-only tradition. With their costs soaring to more than $12,000 a year, Ivy League schools are uneasily aware of the lures of lavish merit scholarships and are emphasizing that they will provide enough aid to cover the demonstrated requirements of any student who is accepted.

In practice, there sometimes seems to be a fine line between need and merit. Harvard Admissions Dean L. Fred Jewett 1 admits that if a desirable student 1 reports a substantially higher offer from another college, his office will "reassess" and perhaps up the original cash offer. Harvard has no plans to change its basic tactics. Says Jewett: "We feel that merit awards are not where limited resources should go." But Jewett adds: "If more and more students opted not to come, the university would certainly have to look hard at the policy."

With the costs of higher education rising, many upper-income families find the scholarship money hard to resist. Chicago Latin School Senior Charles Edelman, whose father is a tax attorney, has been accepted by Yale, Brown and Amherst, but is leaning toward the University of Michigan. Says Edelman: "Michigan has called, written and offered me two scholarships. They are making it look very attractive." Panda Chen, daughter of an engineer in Piedmont, Calif, has a 3.95 grade-point average and has received scholarships from five schools. She will accept $7,000 in tuition from Mills College in nearby Oakland.

Applying with perfect 800 SAT scores, Eric Engels of Springfield, Va., whose father is an engineer, was offered a four-year scholarship to the University of Virginia worth $4,900 his first year, as well as awards from Duke, Chicago, and Washington University in St. Louis. Says he: "I was approached by some of the Ivy League schools, but they don't offer a specific financial academic scholarship." Engels' choice: Virginia. "I picked the better deal is what it came down to," he says. "It's about time they gave the same attention and money to scholars that they do to athletes." --By Ellie McGrath. Reported by Paul Barrett/Boston and Dorothy Ferenbaugh/New York

With reporting by Paul Barrett/Boston, Dorothy Ferenbaugh/New York This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.