<p>Let’s try again…</p>
<p>It’s hard to figure out the best program since he is undecided!</p>
<p>PITA I respect your honesty. I think many of us struggle with those feelings from time to time-being aware of them is a good thing and you seem to be working through them.</p>
<p>The important thing is your son seems to have a very good handle on what he wants and how he is going to get there-I will take that over a test score any day.</p>
<p>If you mean your own son is undecided about a major and has broad interests … then do keep in mind that a larger school may offer more opportunities if he changes focus. By “broad interests” I mean that if a kid can’t decide between engineering or computer science, and chooses a school strong in both… that particular kid isn’t likely to decide that he wants to be philosophy major instead. But if you’ve got a kid who likes math, and likes history, and is thinking he might be interested in law school, or maybe anthropology… then a larger university that does not require student to declare a major until their sophomore year might be the best fit in the long run.</p>
<p>I literally spent time looking up specific departments and counting up the number of faculty while my daughter was looking at colleges. Many of the smaller schools were dropped from the list because of the small number of faculty in a particular subject area that I knew my daughter was likely to pursue.</p>
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<p><raises hand=“”> I do this too. I am working really, really hard against it however. Whenever I say D is most likely going to UAlbany I find myself starting to add the schools that she turned down that would appear more prestigious to others. I am doing my best not to do this as I respect the choice she is making (good program for her goals, low COA). I do worry if social fit will suit her, but the academic fit could be fine if she finds her niche in the larger college environment. Time will tell.</raises></p>
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calmom, I’m delighted to say that I completely agree with this.</p>
<p>Needless to say, I agree with the points made by POIH and coolweather. The NM numbers cannot properly be used in the manner intended, due to the distortion of college-sponsored scholarships and regional distortions; These were the points I was trying to make way back in #189 & 183 &186.</p>
<p>I admire the stamina of the posters who have appropriately elaborated on why this is the case.</p>
<p>Pita, if it’s any comfort, you would likely be experiencing buyer’s remorse regardless of where your son ended up choosing. I know parents who have bit the bullet on financing Expensive/Prestigious U who are now in drastically changed financial circumstances. Kiddo has graduated, and is dutifully paying of the kid portion of the loans; one or both parents might be out of work, or now supporting an ill family member, and banks just don’t want to hear “can’t we please push the re-start button and have junior go to instate u?”. Or kid went to dream expensive U but switched majors three times and it took 6 years to graduate. Or highly focused, “pre med since 8th grade” kid is now switching to early childhood education (not to knock it as a profession… but it still doesn’t pay as well as cardiology) and the parents are looking at mountains of loans which will easily surpass the kids first ten years of income working in a Head Start program.</p>
<p>Buyer’s remorse is the name of the game right now. So hat’s off to your son for knowing what he wants, and big hugs to you.</p>
<p>PITAmom, thanks for posting. I think the buyer’s remorse, as blossom called it, is a common theme here on CC, and I am also working through it. My son made his choice and is very happy, that part is true. The fact that I have to keep saying that he is very happy is how I’m trying to rid myself of the feeling that he might have been even happier in the long run at one of the higher ranked schools he didn’t go to. This is my problem, and some day soon I hope that I can release myself from this turmoil and leave these discussions to the rest of you. I’ve started lurking on the graduate school forums, yikes!</p>
<p>@kinderny—I totally relate, too. But I’m learning (slowly) to get over it, as I learn more and more about the exciting opportunities DS will enjoy at the school (Bama) that has offered him a full ride. Turning down UNC is not easy (for me; DS could not care less), but it’s easier when you realize that kids can and do thrive in all sorts of school environments.</p>
<p>A final note- This was what you stated:</p>
<p>“The most scholarships are college sponsored followed by corporations.”</p>
<p>The NMS scholarships are divided into 3 categories:
the 5000 or so college sponsored scholarships followed by the 2365 $2500 one time scholarships, followed by the 1000 Corporate funded scholarships. If you wish to call the 2365 scholarships Corporate scholarships, since that’s where the money came from to underwrite those scholarships, by all means go ahead. What is not known, and never will be, is how many of the scholarships awarded to students at non sponsoring colleges are the 1000 corporate sponsored scholarships or how many are the 2365 one time $2500 scholarships.
And at colleges such as USC, nearly all NMS’s who are offered the one time $2500 scholarships, waive them in order to receive $4000 instead from NMSC over the course of 4 years, since they could not receive both awards . money is money and to choose less $ for the added luster of being one of 2500 awardees wasn’t worth it. that’s what my son and many of his friends did. That doesn’t make their awards any less 'prestigious" than the $2500 awards , nor does it indicate that there are is a smaller cohort of equally smart NMS’s at USC than the NMSC figures indicate.</p>
<p>PITAmom, I think you have absolutely full parental bragging rights. A high-achieving financially responsible forward-thinking boy child? Good heavens, this is top of the line bragging you’ve got here! 
If people ask where he’s going, tell them that he’s made an interesting and unusual choice, and you’re delighted that he’s happy about where he’s going in the fall. </p>
<p>Swerving back to the NM discussion:</p>
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<p>Erin’s Dad, of course there are more NMFs at OU or USC than at Harvard. That’s because OU and USC recruits them and offers them money. I don’t think it’s because Harvard hopefuls who scored well on the PSAT think “the heck with this, Harvard won’t give me any money so I don’t have to bother.” </p>
<p>The path to being a National Merit Scholar involves the same paperwork as being a National Merit Finalist. Fill out a form, (re)write an essay, and have your school send in the package. Easy–voila, another item to add to the Common App list of awards. Intel and Siemens is more impressive, but writing down that you’re a semi-finalist isn’t application padding. It’s not like the slogfest of applying for most scholarships, where you have little chance of winning and just applying doesn’t bring any benefits. </p>
<p>The students filling out this paperwork can’t know at the time that they will attend an Ivy. They can’t know that they will “only” attend an Ivy, unless they come from families which are making building-sized donations to the school and/or are heavily recruited atheletes. The Finalist paperwork is submitted in the early fall, before students apply ED or SCEA. No decisions are out. </p>
<p>I can believe that there are students who will not apply to any school offering an institutional National Merit scholarship. I can believe that there are students who come from enough wealth that they don’t care about getting $2500 from the National Merit organization. I have a hard time believing that those same students won’t be pushed by their schools or their families to complete the (relatively minor) National Merit Finalist paperwork so that the family and/or school can get bragging rights from the NMF designation. I even have a hard time believing that a student who is gunning for the Ivys is going to blithely turn down having another noteworthy award listed on their application. </p>
<p>Conversely, I can imagine that there are schools that don’t care about National Merit and don’t push the kids to complete the paperwork, but those would be the students who most need the money.</p>
<p>You said there are kids you know who didn’t fill out the paperwork because they were going to Ivys. Do those kids fit into one of these categories? Or did they have some other motivation?</p>
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<p>I never said that cohort of NMF is smaller than the 250 at USC. It is 250 at USC but you can’t compare that with
261 Harvard College
224 Yale University
192 Princeton University
142 Stanford University
136 Massachusetts institute
of Technology</p>
<p>That’s because there are hundreds of NMF at HMSPY that are not included in those numbers. </p>
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<p>SlitheyTove, you can’t be more wrong. The number of NMF are not more at OU or USC than at Harvard. The number of NMS are more. The two are not synonyms.</p>
<p>There are hundreds of NMF at HMSPY that would have become NMS if the institutes they attend extend scholarships to NMF like USC and OU does. The large chunk of that “missing 7500 NMF from NMS” attend HMSPY + Ivies + UCB and UCLA.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how to make it more clear but I now fully understand the reasons why “College Board” took out the analogies section from SAT1.</p>
<p>CountingDown, I’m new to CC and was interested to know the name of the flagship you referenced in post #70. Thanks.</p>
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<p>Oh, I assure you that I certainly can be more wrong, spectacularly so. 
I did, however, do quite well on the analogies section. </p>
<p>I WAS wrong in mixing up that the published data were for Scholar, not Finalist. But as stated upthread, we don’t know the number of finalists who matriculate to each school. </p>
<p>I’m still curious to know why a student wouldn’t fill out the paperwork to advance to finalist. Unless there is additional paperwork to advance from finalist to scholar?</p>
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Glad to know that as both DD and I missed the section even though I never took the SAT1, I always liked the section and so did DD. </p>
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<p>There is no paperwork required when transitioning from NMF to NMS and becoming NMS is dependent more on where the NMF student matriculate or which state the student is from or what corporation would like to back the student for whatever reason.</p>
<p>The paperwork is required to move from NMSF to NMF and almost every NMSF does that because of pressure from school. ~94% of NMSF become NMF and almost 50% of them get some sort of scholarship to tag them as NMS.</p>
<p>My point was only that NMS is not characteristics of any defined rules and is not any way associated with abilities of NMF students. It is more dictated by the institutes NMF end up matriculating or other non academic related reasons, so can’t be used to compare the academic strength of a cohort at two institutes.</p>
<p>McBainTrain, I’m afraid I may be faced with similar circumstances and it’s hard to know if the Honors Colleges truly fill the void. If you don’t mind, can you id at least the initials of the school where you’re attending Honors College and why you chose to go there?</p>
<p>PITA Mom, It sounds like your son has the “financial intelligence” and maturity that will yield great returns in the long run; a school where he’s happy with tuition fully paid and money in his pocket so he can focus on his academics and attaining a full college experience. You should be very proud. I can understand why he’d reject the ivy league schools to avoid the long term debt, etc., but I’m curious why he opted for the lower ranked state U rather than the top ranked state U. Can you elaborate on what it was about the campus that appealed to him ~ or what it was about the top ranked school that did not appeal to him?</p>
<p>Trying to slice/dice National Merit stats is rather pointless / spitting hairs. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that the NMSF bunch is a bright, driven group (great PSAT and GPA). But so are most of the Commended students and others near the same range of stats. </p>
<p>Fit is important. The tough thing is trying to assess which attributes are most important, and their value vs any extra costs / family burden. </p>
<p>As a friend once told me, “raising teens is like trying to nail jello to a tree”. Some teens are just hard to read. Sometimes it is because they are not good communicators (especially with parents!). And sometimes it is simply because they don’t know which factors are a priority… especially as compared to obscure things like parent retirement security.</p>
<p>So if this has been an easy year for you, count your blessings. If not… hang in there, frazzled parents… you are not alone.</p>
<p>Yes CM you hit the nail on the head.</p>
<p>My son is undecided as in truly undecided-he is a writer but doesn’t want to major in English.</p>
<p>He has mentioned Engineering, Chemistry and Math so far. He just doesn’t know. He has a great offer at a small LAC but they don’t have an engineering major.</p>
<p>He will need to pick a school that has a broad range of majors offered. That is good information someone mentioned about checking on the department and the number of students and teachers actually in it.</p>
<p>He has a good number of opportunities at very different schools. Only he knows what he wants-and I wonder if he even does know that yet. </p>
<p>I have said before I think that social fit is as important as academic fit. He has changed so much socially in the last couple of years it’s hard to pin him down-kind of like nailing jello to a tree!</p>
<p>Wise words, Colorado Mom! Thanks!!</p>
<p>LOL, just saw this:</p>
<p>I see. Since this thread focuses on undergraduate education and you seemed so confident that you wont ever want to send your kids to private colleges like Harvard because theyre not at all worth the money, I mistakenly assumed that you and your husband have had some firsthand experience with Harvard undergrad education at least!</p>
<p>LOL, you sure seem to enjoy jumping to unwarranted conclusions. </p>
<p>My husband taught Harvard undergraduates while he was working on his doctorate. For years. He started out as a teaching fellow, then became a non-resident tutor at Leverett House. He taught Sophomore History Tutorial at Leverett House for several years. He graded countless papers. He spent countless hours teaching and tutoring. He also ate many lunches and dinners with his students.</p>
<p>But, no, he knows nothing about undergraduate education at Harvard…</p>
<p>I guess I fail to see your point. Is there one? ;)</p>