<p>Yeah, as a writer I'm going to go ahead and say that the story is about 20% true and 80% invented to make a good article. Nothing wrong with that, because the writer does highlight the dilemma many parents face. It's a tough decision. Because IMHO the story is largely apocryphal many of its internal details don't completely cohere, like issues of parental finances. However, what does ring true is that the assumptions about college are often overturned when junior really starts applying. For many who counted on the UC school current trends have taken that option off the table. Financing college education is the massive trauma of the middle class. The only silly part of the story was the glib position reporter took when writing her book. But that's publishing.</p>
<p><a href="UC">quote</a> Class sizes can be massive, teaching assistants are in charge of many required courses, some professors are more interested in publishing papers than enlightening students, and the school is so big that students must be very disciplined to avoid getting lost in the shuffle.
[/quote]
Not only does she not know much about college financing or how to level-set expectations and end up disappointing her D and herself, but I agree with another poster that she needs to educate herself further about how the UCs and many other large schools operate. The above quote is straight stereotype. With one D1 at UCSD and D2 at UCLA I can say there are some large classes but these are primarily intro classes. Most classes are medium sized and some are small. Virtually all of the classes my D's had (they're both in the engineering schools so this could be a variable but they take plenty of GEs in the L&S schools as well) have been taught by professors - not TAs. There are TAs involved of course, but generally in a lesser role and typically not teaching - just grading papers and lab assistants. Some of the professors are great and some are not regardless of publishing papers and doing research. And as for the 'getting lost in the shuffle' bit, almost any student who can manage to get accepted to these Universities can handle themselves just fine even if they're shy. It's just not that hard to figure out how to sign up for classes and other processes - they don't need someone to hold their hand (not that they would necessarily get that by default at much smaller colleges anyway). These U's know that they have a lot of students and go out of their way to enable students to join small groups (like the UCSD 'College system' modeled after Oxford), clubs, dorm floor activities, etc.</p>
<p>Before bothering to buy/read books such as the one she published I try to read the jacket blurb on the author to find out if they have any 'direct' experience or if the book is only as good as their non-experienced research.</p>
<p>Back in my UC days -- 70% of upper division classes at Berkeley had fewer than 20 people. </p>
<p>I don't know today's stats -- but 2 Cal undergraduates I know both say it's not hard to find small-size classes, especially after your freshman year.</p>
<p>I thought our visit to Berkeley was well worth it. I thought it was not worth it for undergrad out of state, but I'd go there for grad school in a flash. Mathson was willing to listen to my opinions so he didn't apply. (I was more bothered by the housing situation than class sizes or impacted majors.)</p>
<p>
[quote]
... what does ring true is that the assumptions about college are often overturned when junior really starts applying. For many who counted on the UC school current trends have taken that option off the table.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>As I read the article, those were my thoughts exactly! I wondered if this woman knew how hard it is to get into UCLA and UCSD now. She seemed to assume that these were no-brainers for her D, and maybe so, but based on the rejections I've seen from our local (Cal.) h.s., I wouldn't count on it if I were her.</p>
<p>Another reply (64) partly, indirectly, supporting my own. Visits can also be beneficial to long-range planning, not just short-range --to look at a school that might be better as a grad school option than undergrad -- thereby helping to shape more near-term options in the process, through elimination or addition. Not a reason to go out of one's way; just a recognition that there are many reasons/benefits to college visits other than the most obvious one of immediate choice.</p>
<p>I'm not sure I understand your point, epiphany. Some schools may indeed look too large to an 18 year old, and therefore be struck off the list of colleges to apply to, with the idea that four years on, they may be a better fit. But "long-term planning" is unrealistic for a variety of reasons.
1. A 22 year old will be very different from an 18-year old.
2. Majors and career goals will probably change.
3. College performance will dictate the range of programs to which a student should apply.
3. Issues such as core curricula, class sizes or presence of TAs will be irrelevant.
4. Ditto the presence or lack thereof of frats, the overall social scene, and even campus diversity as graduate students will be far less involved in the life of the institution than undergraduates.
5. Students going on to Ph.D. programs will look to work with a particular prof or set of profs.
Students applying to grad schools should visit, but with different aims in mind: talking to potential advisors and current students, checking out the reseources (labs, libraries, etc...).</p>
<p>When I read Kristof's article in our morning paper I had the same misgivings as many of the other posters. Given the parameters of what the parents were willing to spend, looking at some schools that would cost more is one thing, but flying to the east coast and doing a grand tour is another. Yes, I have gone to open houses that I couldn't afford, but not a weeklong binge.</p>
<p>Something else troubles me as well. I am very careful of my child's privacy. Even if her daughter agreed for her college admissions saga to become nationally known, at some point she may regret being showcased in mommy's column. As many of us know, this whole process is fraught with tension anyway, let alone having everyone else along for the ride. I know my daughter got tired of people asking her, "Don't you know where you are going yet?" not understanding that she wouldn't even hear until April from several of her schools. </p>
<p>I agree with Mythmom (I think it was you) who said there is another book in the making. But how do the purchasers of the first book get their money back?????</p>
<p>Acquaintances did the college rounds and then sent D1 to state school 4 miles away. Mom seemed to think just looking at the schools was a gift. She justified the result by saying, "D1 must not have really wanted to go away because she never completed or submitted her FAFSA." Huh? I think this is the parents' responsiblity; I'd be disturbed if D or S knew all these financial details. </p>
<p>It was sad to watch, and the young woman was a bit disoriented. I think the Mom wanted the fun of looking at the schools. </p>
<p>It's a difficult, fraught process. Next to labor, sending them to college has been the most tense and demanding thing about raising them, and in our case the outcomes were more than satisfactory. I can only imagine the emotional bruising when the outcomes are not happy.</p>
<p>Yes, I said it was a book in the making. We writers can be shameless in exploiting those around us for material. The sad thing is that I bet Samantha is used to this. </p>
<p>I found the mom's extolling of the D's prowess in selecting colleges bizarre. It doesn't take much special discernment to come up with a list of the usual suspects or fall in love with Georgetown.</p>
<p>Yes, I think you did misunderstand my point, marite. First of all, I'm not saying make a premature expedition, with long-term needs in mind. I'm saying that visits have unexpected benefits, in that a student may determine the fit of size for the undergrad years more concretely & accurately with an actual visit (for example) -- even if that particular campus will never end up on the final list (because of cost or other factors). For another example, one may be impressed by a particular academic department, but realize that such a priority may not assume as great a level of importance (versus other aspects of the campus experience) until grad school, when the whole issue of fit & priorities will undoubtedly shift & be re-examined. I'm saying that visits can help a student rationalize/justify/feel better about an alternative undergrad school because they broaden or lengthen the reference points. Lots of students feel very different about attending an LAC after visiting one, than just discussing it theoretically on a forum or with friends/relatives. That feeling can go either way. There are many, many examples of how visits in general can reframe one's understanding, perceptions, priorities, options. (And I've read such discussions by students on CC as well as heard them in person.)</p>
<p>I do agree with the general points being made here about fruitless excursions destined to disappoint. However, IF (big if) it were affordable to make the visit to an expensive (probably not affordable) "dream school," I would allow the visit if the idea came from the student & she or he were clear about the financial realities. Dozens of students on CC have visited the theoretical dream school, & come away with minor or major disappointment, which itself is helpful to re-focusing.</p>
<p>I do not agree that an unaffordable school should categorically never even be visited. (If anyone is making that point.)</p>
<p>It could be that the author wasn't quite as certain of what she would be willing to pay as she previously assumed. For a some people it comes down not to what they could afford if they pulled out all the stops but rather, what they're 'willing' to afford. From the context of the author's article it appears to be the latter - she'd always thought $10K/year would be adequate so that's what she mentally budgeted. </p>
<p>I wouldn't be surprised if a similar scenario was applicable to some posters here where they always 'had in mind' that x amount was budgeted for the college education and the kid would go to a less expensive college only to discover later that they 'really' want the more expensive school and then figure out a way to make that happen (loans, refi the house, etc.) despite their pre-conceived budget.</p>
<p>Maybe the private college visits were a bit of testing the waters as to whether they were really going to limit her to the lower cost Uni or not. There's really not enough detail in the article to clearly state why they went on the tour or whether they really couldn't come up with the additional funds if they really wanted to. The article seemed to be more about what they were willing to pay rather than what they really could pay.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>The article seemed to be more about what they were willing to pay rather than what they really could pay.<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Agree with you here, ucsd-ucla-dad. With a house refi, D taking out a normal amount of student loans, D working during the summers, Mom writing another book, Mom & Dad coming up with some more $ from savings or PLUS loans--I'm guessing that paying for Georgetown or any other private college could be made to happen.</p>
<p>The interesting question, should the D be accepted into the "dream" private, is whether what the author once thought of as "financial sanity" will prevail. This tug-o-war is happening all over the US to many families. That's why it is so interesting to me.</p>
<p>I guess the reason why I'm not quite so hard on the mother as some here is that it reminds me a little of what happened when I applied to college back in the late 60s.</p>
<p>I think why the author went off on the big college tour with her daughter while knowing full well that most of those schools didn't fit her budget is sort of what happened to me. My parents allowed me to apply to several colleges while at the same time hoping that I would choose the cheap, conservative school that they had in mind. They had financial constraints and were very also worried about the possibility my going off to a hippie school.</p>
<p>But they allowed me the freedom of applying where I wanted while hoping for the best. In the end, my first choice was what they considered a hippie school, so we had The Talk and they told me that if I wanted to go there I could, but I would have to pay for it all myself -- which I was in no position to do. So I went to the school they had in mind all along. It was disappointing to me but not the end of the world. And at length I could see that basically my parents had the good intentions of allowing me freedom but hoping I had the maturity and good sense to see things their way.</p>
<p>I see a version of that operating here. The author takes her daughter on the Big Tour to allow her the freedom and responsibility of looking at a wide variety of schools while hoping/expecting that she'll choose UCLA in the end, perhaps with a little prodding and financial guidance from Mom. </p>
<p>What the author hadn't counted on was that she herself would fall in love with Georgetown too. It would have been the equivalent of my parents somehow falling in love with the hippie school and wanting it for me too (an impossibility in the case of my parents). So there is the problem. She paid out a little fishing line to her daughter knowing she could reel her back in when needed, but she ended up getting hooked herself.</p>
<p>What was the Hippie school? Just curious.</p>
<p>University of Oregon. In those days Eugene considered itself to be a sort of Berkeley-North.</p>
<p>Nowadays, Eugene has anarchists.</p>
<p>For me there is a different take away message from this article. The assumptions that one makes about college when your child is young and you are saving, may not fit their learning needs well when they are old enough to apply to college. I know that that was true for us.</p>
<p>Because we have an excellent public university, we made the mistake of assuming that we could count on saving for in state tuition. But by senior year it was obvious to us that large classes at a large university would be a terrible fit for S.</p>
<p>Fortunately, we found a workable alternative. But there are many teens out there who don't have the collective knowledge of this community, who end up feeling caught between a college that is a poor fit for them and a mountain of debt.</p>
<p>Our experience was that our high school college counselor was knowledgeable in many areas--but she knew little about finding a financial fit outside of the public university system.</p>
<p>As a parent, I don't see how it is fair to the kids to tour schools or encourage them to apply to schools that you have no intention of paying for. If as a parent you wish to only pay a certain amount, or only pay for schools that support your values, that's well within your right to do so, but you DO owe it to your kid to say up front "no how no way will I pay more than X/pay anything toward that hippie school you like so much, so know now that although you can apply wherever you want, I am telling you up front that you will not get any money from me unless conditions A, B, C are met."</p>
<p>Flying across the country to tour a school is in my mind a strong implication of support if a kid gets admitted. It would be a lot more fair to just say "that school will most likely be outside our budget. If you apply, you should know that your cost of attendance will be around X less what dad and I can contribute. That means debt of over $100K when you graduate."</p>
<p>I wouldn't waste money and time on a trip for a school that I didn't have a very good idea was affordable.</p>
<p>Again, I myself never said, 'Fly across the country' (specifically for one school). However, if my child was at or near a location to see an affordable/more affordable school, & requested merely to visit another (while knowing the limitations of the family finances) I would never be so controlling as to refuse a secondary visit -- for all the reasons I mentioned in 2 previous posts. What is perhaps received as 'a strong indication of support' by someone in one family will not necessarily be interpreted identically within the context of another family. A chacun son gout.</p>
<p>epiphany: Isn't it annoying that we don't have accents? Or am I being obsessive?</p>
<p>I agree with you, especially in this case where I think the Mom will eventually pay. And visiting the schools had one wonderful effect, at least for Samantha. Mom fell in love with the school, too, so it will become her project to pay for it too. For those wishing to stick to a stricter budget or having to stick to a stricter budget, this is not a good outcome as taxguy as so eloquently pointed out.</p>