"Doing the Right Thing – and Thriving," an article in the July 3 edition of InsideHigherEd.com, highlighted Hamilton's decision to eliminate merit aid and the subsequent rise in traditional measurements of academic quality in the incoming Hamilton class. In the article, Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Monica Inzer discussed the fact that the college was doing a better job of attracting the kinds of applicants it wanted without merit aid offers.
According to the article, Inzer's greater concern is the problem of growing percentages of the potential student body who need aid to be able to enroll. "It's clear that colleges need to increase their aid budgets for low-income students. Hamilton isn't need-blind, she said, "and to be not admitting somebody because they couldn't pay and to give merit aid to someone else didn't feel right," Inzer said. The article reported that "This year, only 7 percent of decisions were 'need sensitive,' meaning that only students without need were admitted, a percentage that is down from previous years."
Despite the possible downside of eliminating merit aid, Hamilton was successful in recruiting a class with higher academic standing. According to the article, "Admissions experts — especially those who support the use of merit aid — say that if you give up those students whom you are enrolling because of merit aid, traditional measures of academic quality will drop. At Hamilton this year, however, the opposite is true. Average math and verbal SAT scores are up for the class that will enter this fall by 12 points, to 1368. The percentage of students in the top 10 percent of their high school class is up to 78 percent, from 74 percent. While yield (the percentage of admitted applicants who accepted the offer) dropped slightly (to 33 percent from 34 percent), that's modest, especially in a year that so many colleges added to their aid budgets."
According to the article, Inzer's greater concern is the problem of growing percentages of the potential student body who need aid to be able to enroll. "It's clear that colleges need to increase their aid budgets for low-income students. Hamilton isn't need-blind, she said, "and to be not admitting somebody because they couldn't pay and to give merit aid to someone else didn't feel right," Inzer said. The article reported that "This year, only 7 percent of decisions were 'need sensitive,' meaning that only students without need were admitted, a percentage that is down from previous years."
Despite the possible downside of eliminating merit aid, Hamilton was successful in recruiting a class with higher academic standing. According to the article, "Admissions experts — especially those who support the use of merit aid — say that if you give up those students whom you are enrolling because of merit aid, traditional measures of academic quality will drop. At Hamilton this year, however, the opposite is true. Average math and verbal SAT scores are up for the class that will enter this fall by 12 points, to 1368. The percentage of students in the top 10 percent of their high school class is up to 78 percent, from 74 percent. While yield (the percentage of admitted applicants who accepted the offer) dropped slightly (to 33 percent from 34 percent), that's modest, especially in a year that so many colleges added to their aid budgets."
