Summary
Admission and Financial Aid Committee Meeting
April 2, 2004
Sumner filled the Committee in on the current status of the application
for admission pool mentioning that it was bigger this year, better academically,
more ethnically diverse, more financially prosperous, applying to more colleges
and from further away. Letters of admission and financial aid/scholarships
were mailed by March 24 in order to meet the goal of applicant receipt by
April 1. He also said that a few more students were admitted this year because
of an anticipated dip in the number of admitted students who accept the
College offer of admission. May 1 remains the standard National Candidates
Reply date by which admitted students must let colleges know where they
will enroll for the following fall term.
The discussion
of the College's Tuition Exchange and Tuition Remission programs continued
and some follow-up information is now available:
1) This year we have 15 children of Grinnell College professors and staff attending other ACM (Associated Colleges of the Midwest) colleges and 5 at GLCA colleges (Great Lakes Colleges Association) with tuition benefits.
2) We have 46 students in total currently enrolled with either GLCA-TE, ACM-TE or Grinnell College TR scholarships/benefits.
3) The GLCA paid GC $53,000.00 last year to help compensate for our participation in the TE program. In recent years GC has received payments form the GLCA in amounts of $54,000.00, $47,000.00 and $17,000.00.
4) GC has paid more money to the GLCA than we have received in some recent years depending on the ratio of incoming and outgoing students. The money paid to the GLCA is not charged to the GC financial aid budget since it cannot be tied to a specific individual.
5) Likewise payments received from the GLCA are not paid into the GC aid budget for the same reason.
Sumner reported
that because of the increase in the applicant pool and the increased academic
quality of the pool, some College coaches fear a big dip in the number and
athletic quality of their entering recruits. In an effort to learn more
about this possible problem Sumner has initiated new research on athletic
recruiting at the College, met very regularly with both individual coaches
and athletic dept. leadership, proposed many new ideas to the coaches, and
encouraged a discussion of the admission practices at GC known as Promise
of Contribution and Focused Excellence. The idea of FE was approved by the
Committee during the 1998-99 academic year and took effect during the admission
cycle for the class that entered the College in 2000. To help launch the
discuss Sumner talked with Professor Paul Munyon who served on the Committee
at the time of FE's creation, as did Dean Swartz and Vice President Crady,
current Committee members. Sumner reported that Professor Munyon made 3
key points in their conversation:
1) When a coach gives a student-athlete applicant a specific POC rating then that number should flow directly through the admission and financial aid/scholarship process.
2) FE is not intended to drive admission decisions.
3) The top POC rating of 9 is intended to be used very seldom.
Among the veteran members of the Committee there seemed to be agreement that this was in fact the case. Sumner said that he will share his new research after it is completed over the next several weeks.
The Committee
meeting was adjourned at approximately 1:20 PM.
--Jim Sumner