<p>I think you did a fantastic thing… and maybe have a career in college counseling or life coaching! </p>
<p>If you want to go above and beyond, I might send an email labeled “final steps” and have the steps be something like “Making your choice” and “back up plans” and fill it with conventional and personal wisdom about choosing a college, including the financial piece … and point out that even at this stage some students and their families decide that the available options are too costly (so they don’t feel alone if they need to decide that) and, if so, some possible options are – enrolling in community college and transferring, looking for instate schools with rolling admissions, asking for deferred admission and working for a year… etc.</p>
<p>I think that the idea was a good one, but without knowing the family, or the kid well, the OP likely overstepped her bounds in suggesting a path(s) that were not right for this student. They were probably fine for someone the OP actually knew, like the niece, but not a stranger. </p>
<p>At this point though, what’s done is done, and the best thing to do is give the girl some links to resources that might further explain her options. If money is a likely issue or if she’s the first gen to go to college, there are many places she could tap for information, and for free. I’d also like to point out the despite repeated references to the NPC here, that EVERY SINGLE site I have seen says that it may not be accurate, depending on the individual and their family. That should have been made clear to them upfront. So it’s entirely possible that this kid and her parents DID run it and was misled by the information they got. I hope they find a good solution.</p>
<p>Silversas - In the last email I sent her (last week), I included a link to google doc of scholarships that I put together for her and my niece and encouraged her to keep applying. I also mentioned that now there will be some hard choices. I said that my niece was already preparing to eliminate one of the colleges from her list based on the fin aid package they sent. I told her we had set hard maximums for loans and annual costs (including books, travel, tuition, etc.). If a college exceeded those, we were going to have to take it off the list. I then said, if none of the colleges met our needs, my niece would need to switch gears and consider and consider a plan that started with community college. At this point, I don’t think this will be necessary for my niece but I did want her to understand this wasn’t anything to feel shame over – and to see how other families were processing. (Of course, I’m sure if she shared that email with my niece, my niece is now freaking out.) I’m unclear on how deferred admission works and whether that is ever a good idea for financial reasons.</p>
<p>higgins2013 – I am almost positive that FAFSA and, when relevant, CSS Profiles were completed for all the schools. I put together an email in January with all the relevant dates regarding financial apps and she said she printed it out for her parents. She also told me that they had sent in the forms. Of course, I can only go by what she says. They reside in Mass. She has UMass-Amherst on the list, and has been accepted, but it’s not exactly “cheap.” She hasn’t heard back with the fin aid package from that one.</p>
<p>nellieh - If she is sharing what I’m writing with her parents, I think another email from me – even a handoff email – may be too intrusive/pushy. I’m going to let it go. If they have questions/concerns, they can reach out to me or my sister. </p>
<p>If the student ends up at community college that’s night the end of the world either. I am a community college prof, and I recently sent kids onto Sarah Lawrence and Columbia, one with money, one without.</p>
<p>I shepherded my two into their top picks, and now it’s all paid for, so good outcomes, and there are still some things I should have done differently. This is a complicated process.</p>
<p>As for arrogance, OP, I know you meant to be kind. It’s okay if you enjoyed the process and felt empowered. I can’t see that you did harm because the parents weren’t on the ball.</p>
<p>If state u is too expensive, then probably community college was the only option anyway. They certainly weren’t going to find large merit awards without doing more research than it seems like they were willing to do.</p>
<p>You did a wonderful thing helping out. The parents and child were both fine with it. Now it’s up to them to pick a school based on affordability and other factors.</p>
<p>No way should you feel any remorse for helping. Great job!</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing your experience. My D’13 has a one year younger friend, and she and her Mom have asked me to help them a bit on the friend’s college search, since they have watched as my D has had good results. We might take the friend with us when D revisits some of her accepted colleges as she makes her decision now. </p>
<p>I cautiously raised the finances issue, and suggested that the Mom check out the NPC for a few schools, but this inspires me to try to be a bit more blunt before doing much further to help. But it also makes me wonder if I how involved I should get at all. I imagine that the default situation would be for the friend to apply to several of the instate schools, and her stats make TCNJ a match and Rutgers a safety, so I’m not worried about a bad outcome for her. But I’m not sure whether or not it is a good idea to expose her to some more expensive private schools, given that I don’t know how affordable they would be to the family.</p>
<p>I’ll chime in with a “me too” with all the others who are commending you on the help you’ve offered. You can’t judge yourself by the standard of saving someone – all you could do you did, giving her information, support, and structure in the college application process. You couldn’t do more, and doing less because you couldn’t do more, would have been a net loss. </p>
<p>But, this might be the time to step back, to give her the information, but not advice when you can’t know the details of their decision making and choices. Answer questions, when you can, but don’t do too much.</p>
<p>sacchi - depending on the family’s financial situation (particularly if what might be considered middle class) private colleges that meet need might be a better fit than public. In our case, when we ran the NPC on about 50 schools - D’s initial list - we found our state flagship to be more expensive than many of the private colleges she was considering, in a few cases significantly more. Don’t discount any school because of the sticker price, if they are known to meet need.</p>
<p>I completely, 100% agree with this. You did a good deed by helping this girl. It is now time to bow out. If she asks for more help, and you want to provide it, great. But it would be extremely inappropriate to go mucking around in someone else’s finances without their express invitation and consent.</p>
<p>“Just sharing to run the Net Price Calculators was an excellent piece of advice” - So true.</p>
<p>The other advise has been really helpful to them too. If finances are a roadblock and the students attends CC, she’s lot better prepared for transfer application someday because of your kindness.</p>
<p>I don’t offer much advice to others anymore. Only close family members. The few times I did try to help someone, the result was not good. They didn’t listen to me, just selected what they wanted to hear and know out of what I did say, but it still made me feel badly with the results.</p>
<p>WOW Kelbee…you are one of those, “pay it forward” kind of people to be admired! You may never know how you positively influenced this young person, but she is blessed to have you, whether she realizes it or not. I wish you could have helped me!!! :)</p>
<p>Kelbee,
Don’t beat yourself up. You did a great thing! You have given her options.
As you say, if you didn’t get involved, it might have been cc for her. Now with her acceptances, she can still pick cc, or other choices as well, and the family can decide which works best with their finances.<br>
Yay!!</p>
<p>“no good deed…” as they say. You were well intended, but you dod too much. Here’s my suggestion now.(Similar to Steve in post 3)
Give copies of docs directly to the parents. Explain you’ve done all you can do to help, that now they need to complete the forms with their personal financial info, and naturally, that is private so you can do no more.
That explanation to them will serve a multi purposes- it will show that you are done, it is now up to them to finish, and they will be sure to know what is going on, just in case the student hasn’t really been keeping them apprised as claimed.</p>
<p>I don’t understand how the OP can be criticized for supposedly “doing too much.” The girl had no list and no clue. Now she has a list that includes some likely financial safeties and at least 6 acceptances to choose from. If she has to make choices among her acceptances based on finances, well, so do the vast majority of aspiring college students.</p>
<p>I fail to see how this is in ANY way detrimental.</p>
<p>here are the factors I see when I said “did too much”. First, if Consolation is referring to my comment, it is not criticizing the OP, it is agreeing with the Op. The Op feels too much was done. After that,(in no particular order), the OP is not in the biz of counseling or guiding students, has taken the student’s word that she is keeping parents abreast of all planning, is not related to student, the OP feels student may now have some hopes that are unrealistic, leading to disappointment and possibly blame.
A similar course of action could have been merely to provide a list of the sources to the student or parent rather than Op actually having done work at those sources.</p>
<p>I was thinking along those same lines. Just the NPC alone could have caused some problems without a really clear explanation-some require registration, detailed income information (which some parents might not want to provide to an unknown source), others are too vague and none that I’ve seen take into account anomalies that would affect the real price a family pays. I’m pretty savvy and they get ME in a knot-I can only imagine a first-time college family trying one out using third-hand information from a stranger. And that was just a fraction of the advice the OP passed on to the KID, hoping the parents would figure it all out based on the KID’S ability to do so.</p>
<p>I think the red flag was that she could not do it on her own. I know things are more complicated now, but plenty of kids do all this on their own. And consider, too, that her parents are capable of helping, just unwilling. In the future, I would take more of a backseat and not help so much. But honestly, you do not need to feel guilty. You cannot fix everyone’s lives. And I think it sounds like there are family issues and everything else going on there too.</p>