<p>“If given your child’s stats and your family finances there are no clearly dead-on admissions safeties that are also dead-on affordable, then it can be best to apply broadly and then see what happens.”</p>
<p>^^This describes our situation perfectly.^^</p>
<p>Back in 06 son applied to 12 schools in the top 50 ranked schools. For the most part merit money increased as the school went down in ranking. We did not barter once the offers came in.</p>
<p>I don’t mind saying "we’ as he is part of the family and college costs affect everyone in the family. He ended up chooing a full ride with extra money and benefits. He did not HAVE to work if he didn’t want to. Was fully independent at age 17 except for health insurance and was very proud of himself.</p>
<p>The issue that concerns me a bit … none of my business I know, but the OP did ask for input … is how the S/D decided the the 21 schools were appropriate to his/her educational goals. EMK4 tried to coax the answer from the OP, without success. It’s unsettling to read that the student will decide what kind of school s/he wants once the FA awards arrive.</p>
<p>I don’t understand, NewHope. Affordability is key. One could find the greatest most wonderful fit, but if you can’t pay for it it doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>Some people decide to paint a room beige, head off to home depot, spend half an hour looking at the paint samples, buy a couple of gallons and are finished by Sunday evening. </p>
<p>Some people buy three small cans of beige shades, paint sample swatches on the walls, look at them in changing lights over the course of a week, pick a shade the next Saturday, and are finished by Sunday evening. </p>
<p>Some people pick up a color wheel at the specialty paint store, consult with a decorator, consult all their friends, narrow it down to ten shades, paint samples of them on the walls, narrow the choices down to five after a week, but then are stymied by the minute differences in the remaining five choices. They paint larger swatches of the five choices, which they, their families and the most patient of their friends compare for weeks. (I have one friend who has had the same swatches on a wall for six months.) after much agonizing, they pick a shade, hire a painter, then change their minds midway through the job because it looks too dark. Eventually the painter finishes.</p>
<p>All three people end up with rooms they are happy with. Other people’s decision making processes are a mystery to us all though, so to the person who can pick a beige in half an hour, the person who needs six months to choose the same paint seems to be a bit crazy.</p>
<p>EastCoas, very well put! I hadn’t thought of it that way but it sets out the decision process perfectly.</p>
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<p>Maybe not. I suspect #3 person will spend some time second guessing themself as to whether they made the right choice.</p>
<p>Too many options (real or perceived) leads to unhappiness.</p>
<p>redpoint - I like EastCoastCrazy’s explanation. But since you asked, I’ll explain the logic of why the OP’s approach makes me uneasy.</p>
<p>Affordability is key, right? Then go to Community College. Oh, Community College doesn’t work for the student? Um, why is that?</p>
<p>“Affordability will be the first cut. The rest will be compared on quality of their physics programs, cost, feel, and factors he hasn’t sorted out yet (small school v. large, driveable distance or not).”</p>
<p>All these preferences will need to be worked out between April 1st and May 1st. If the OP’s S/D is able to get them all worked out in just 30 days, it leaves me wondering why it hasn’t been done yet. Stated another way, if the student decides that driving distance is a deal-breaker, then why apply to distant schools? If it turns out that he hates the feel of small rural schools, why did he apply to those sorts of schools?</p>
<p>lol, eastcoastcrazy, #3 pretty much describes us with our 2-toned beige room ;). And we are happy with it, it just took a long time to find the shade that matched what we were envisioning. </p>
<p>OP might be a drive-by, but after managing S’s 6 applications last fall, I think 21 would be a nightmare.</p>
<p>NewHope33 - it is entirely possible that for this student small/large, near/far, drive/walk/bus/plane really don’t matter. Some kids are like that. He and his parents may have decided to wait until the offers are on the table, and then see if there really is anything to choose from at that point. There may be one clear winner based on the aid package alone.</p>
<p>Anyone who wants a quick way to analyze their offers should look at [FinAid</a> | Calculators | Award Letter Comparison Tool](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Award Letter Requirements - Finaid) There also is a more detailed version that includes some of the big/small, near/far kinds of issues [FinAid</a> | Calculators | Advanced Award Letter Comparison Tool](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid)</p>
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Affordability can mean different things to different people. To us, it meant ballpark $25K per year. Not $55K per year, or $40K per year. It also did not mean that we had to resort to the Community College/Transfer option. Since we didn’t know for sure what kind of merit aid S might get (he was lopsided), we had a range of schools in the applications.
S had received all of his acceptances and merit aid offers well before April 1. He had 5 months to sort out the other factors. Why would OP only have 30 days? </p>
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<p>I agree that some of these things could have been sorted out earlier, but perhaps they are allowing for the possibility that the best merit aid will be from several distant schools, of which they will then decide whether the driving distance outweighs the value of the offer. If I had a kid get a full ride in Kalamazoo, I would be able to pay for plane tix.</p>
<p>I am more troubled by the inconsistency of OP’s posts, which have referred to D, S, and first person in the course of 17 postings.</p>
<p>“it is entirely possible that for this student small/large, near/far, drive/walk/bus/plane really don’t matter.”</p>
<p>^^ Then perhaps what makes me uneasy is that this extraordinary circumstance wasn’t mentioned.</p>
<p>I have to say I am impressed you child has the time and took the effort to apply to 21 schools. Just getting the 7 applications (she withdrew application from Duke after interview due to a major change) my D did was stressful enough while juggling school and EC’s. Kudos to for a complete college search.</p>
<p>Keep us posted on the final decision!</p>
<p>It is hard to delete schools from the application list when you A) don’t know which schools will accept you and B) you don’t know how much FA will be offered. DD dropped some schools she really liked from her list just to get the number down. She really liked UCLA, NYU, Brown, UVA, but just had to cut the number down. Who knows whether she would have gotten into one of those and gotten enough FA to make it happen. She also cut the lottery schools down. How many lottery tickets should one buy really?</p>
<p>“I am more troubled by the inconsistency of OP’s posts …”</p>
<p>Me too. Still, I think responses to the OP will be valuable for those still trying to formulate a college search. “Unlimited time devoted to applications and but no time for deciding what’s wanted in a college” is not an approach I’d recommend to a friend. It might work for the OP’s S/D, but it’s not something to be recommended for most students.</p>
<p>21 is too many. Better to put the budget together, then go shopping for schools. In my opinion shows a lack of research and focus.</p>
<p>I see the OP posted in the UofM thread, yet above says the first “cut” after acceptances will be about finances. If UofM is a home state school great, but if the OP is out of state UofM is not known to be generous with out of state and says on it’s website that it doesn’t meet need for out of state or internationals so if financese were the FIRST consideration in my opinion 21 collegesis just simple lack of research…</p>
<p>I applied to over 20 schools too. I don’t really regret it. I want the most possible options when April rolls around, and I don’t want to regret not applying somewhere.</p>
<p>In my opinion shows a lack of research and focus.</p>
<p>I know that in some cases where EFC is high, but student is hoping for merit aid, that may warrant applying to more schools than otherwise would be advised.</p>
<p>Which might explain this attitude.
*After he had his essays written, it was always, “why not there, too?” *
For most families spending $1000+ on applications ( not to mention on visits & revisits) isn’t feasible- but if the only aid you are looking for is merit, it makes more sense.</p>
<p>However- if applying to schools who are more competitive and who don’t award merit, it may be difficult to convince a large number of schools, that you really have their school as your first or even top 5 choice.</p>
<p>Schools want to offer a seat to students who want to attend- so the spraying buckshot & hope you hit something approach may be less than successful.</p>
<p>Visiting schools can help to weed out a great many- something that is done much easier before the application process, than after acceptance.</p>
<p>If money is a problem, then limiting visits to those you are accepted to, could save money if you don’t take into account travel costs which may increase with short notice.</p>
<p>But if the student is strong enough to be competitive, he may very well qualify for admission along with a strong aid package at quite a few comparable schools, and if he hasn’t developed a strong hierarchy of criteria beforehand, he could be making a choice just to make one.</p>
<p>( then we may see them in the transfer thread next year)</p>
<p>I agree with Sylvan8798 that the inconsistency of the OP’s posts are troubling. I don’t understand what someone’s motivations could be to lie on CC (and there’s a lie here somewhere, unless it’s possible to be both parent and child simultaneously!). Maybe it’ll bother me less after I’ve spent more time on CC, but it kinda creeps me out. </p>
<p>That said, I’m still here because I agree with NewHope33 that the conversation could be instructive for others who ask similar questions in good faith.</p>
<p>When I started the search for schools for my D, I presented her with a list of around 30 schools that seemed to me worthy of consideration based on what I knew she wanted. I’d have visited all 30 if she’d wanted to (anyway, I’d have tried; I do love a road trip!). But my D was keen to make the list more manageable. In the end, we visited 16 schools, with “visited” referring to any number of ways we experienced a school. Some were drive-bys (because D concluded, based on the location and setting, that there was NO WAY she’d spend four years there). In some cases, we went to a special visit day. She has done some overnights. </p>
<p>One of my D’s principles is that she would not apply to any school she would not be thrilled to attend.</p>
<p>She applied to three schools EA and has been accepted by all of them; in the two cases where merit information came with her acceptance, we have been pretty happy with the result. She has also applied to three state schools where the applications required essentially no work (those were also carefully chosen). Based on the EA results, she decided there was no need to complete applications for three other schools that remained in contention, because she knew she wouldn’t choose any of those schools over the schools to which she’d been accepted, and it was highly unlikely she’d get a financial package from any of those schools that was more tempting than the ones she has in hand. Could she have mustered the energy to complete three more applications? Sure. But 10 more? 12 more? 15 more? No way with her course load. Now, we are in the situation where the early results were favorable and we are neither expecting nor counting on much, if any, need-based aid after merit is applied. I can see spreading the net a bit wider when finances are likely to be problematic.</p>
<p>OP, here. I apologize for the inconsistency in my posts, I’m relatively new to CC, and was worried that my son’s identity could be determined by college admissions officers viewing their own college sites (my user name could identify my child, along with prospective major, state of origin, etc.) so I sometimes referred to him as my “D.” Too paranoid, I guess. Again, my apologies to the CC family. - j</p>