How do you come to terms with the fact that your kid won’t have the opportunity to go to your alma mater?
I went to one of the Ivies and when my kids were small, I fancied the idea of them following in my footsteps. But now that high school is here and I understand the reality of college today, I’m realizing that even though they’re outstanding students, the acceptance rates at this school is SO low that even as a legacy, they’re not that likely to be admitted. And even if they were admitted, we simply could never afford to pay for it (we are in that ‘too rich for aid, not rich enough to actually afford it’ gap). We just don’t have that kind of money.
So while I know that there are MANY amazing schools out there, and that I am sure it won’t matter that much in the long run where they go to college, it’s still a little painful to realize that your kid won’t have the same opportunities that you did.
Different situation. We begged one of our kids to apply to my Alma mater. It’s a great school and would have been for her too. She was absolutely not interested…at all. So that was that.
Actually, she landed in a terrific college so I wasn’t disappointed for long.
My guess is that your kids will also land in great colleges for them…even though it’s not where you went.
DH and I met at our highly rejective alma mater. It is definitely a “fit” school and we realized that it didn’t fit any of our children as they looked towards their undergrad applications.
Both DH and I were very clear with our children that while we very much enjoyed our time in undergrad and still think the school is great - our children were to make their own choices when it came to applications. Neither of us believed that our alma mater should be considered based on the fact we attended.
Funnily enough, D20 actually considering applying to our alma mater for grad school; it is now most definitely a fit for her, especially with her areas of interest. And she’s had more opportunities than I could have imagined when she started undergrad, let alone when I was her age.
We thought for sure our D would apply ED to our alma matter (she would have been 3rd gen) but that evaporated when she went on her first official visit and hated it. It was a terrible fit for her. She knew it, we knew it. Didn’t check off any of her most important boxes in terms of fit.
My H’s family was pretty upset until other family members made the same decision and also didn’t apply.
Not only did she not go to our Ivy, she was enamored with state flagships.
She graduated this past May with honors, with a fabulous job, having done study abroad (got it in before Covid), research, internships, coops, TAing, and forming stronger relationships with her profs that we ever had. If anything, I think she had a much better undergrad experience than we did back in the day.
Thanks for your perspectives! If they were deciding that this school wasn’t a good fit for them, then that’s one thing, but I think what I’m struggling with is the fact that it’s simply not an option for them, even if they want to go there. Something that was within reach for me is just not within reach for them because of circumstances and finances.
You want your kids to have more choices that you did, not fewer, you know? And it makes me sad to think that this isn’t the case. Maybe also part of a more general feeling and fear that the world is going to be a lot harder for them than it was for us.
My in-laws were very disappointed that neither of our kids applied to my FILs alma mater which was Dartmouth. Fact was…neither was interested in the school…but also, neither would have gotten accepted even if they had applied. The in-laws pushed and pushed…we didn’t even bother explaining.
We could have paid for Dartmouth, but our kids had an ice cubes chance in hell of getting accepted. Very disappointing for the grands!
I was more surprised than disappointed that my sons were not interested in my alma mater. Since they were little, I took them to football games, tailgated, walked around campus, multiple pics with the mascot, bought the t-shirts and SWAG, visited the fratnernity house, signed them up for the Jr. Booster club each year, made (small) annual donations to the school (just in case), showed them interesting (to me) articles in the alumni magazie. When application time came around, however, I was silent. Zero. Nada. Zilch interest. My influence campaign didn’t work. Hilarious.
I will echo @momofboiler1 with the fact that my oldest daughter has had so many more opportunities and a better college experience than I had, or could have imagined…and I loved my college experience!
I think it is very natural to worry but I don’t always think we have all the information to know whether our worries are based in reality or not.
With the Internet and the amount of opportunities - special programs, Honors Colleges, scholarships, etc. and the Internet - I think the menu today is like Cheesecake Factory - expansive beyond anything anyone can imagine.
So far this has not concerned me. My alma maters (for bachelor’s and master’s) and my wife’s alma maters (ditto) did not appear to be good fits. If our youngest decides to go back for a graduate degree then 3 out of 4 of these are quite good for what she will probably want to study but so are several other universities.
The main thing is for our kids to find universities that are a good fit for them, with good programs in their major, that we (or they) can afford. So far we have accomplished this much. There might still be one to go.
Finances have certainly become more difficult over the decades since my wife and I were in university. Admissions has probably also become more competitive.
Our kids were considering a much wider range of universities compared to what my wife or I thought about when we were applying. I think that they have had more chances than we had to think about what a “good fit” would be and to find one. They have also found a variety of opportunities that would have been rather difficult to connect with prior to the Internet. I think that they have had quite a few opportunities to choose from.
So my son went to my wife’s. It was the perfect fit for him.
But I know what the OP is saying. I know many families that since the kids were born wore their schools gear. Went to the games even oos. Talked about the school etc then now their kids apply and they are rejected. Many many had several generations. I am not talking about wealthy connections (OK, maybe a few ), but most pretty much regular folk that just love that school and culture.
Same. When I was applying, most people in my HS applied to a fairly standard set of schools in my state. A few applied in neighboring states, a few to warm weather “party schools”, and a very few to Ivies or maybe MIT or Stanford.
With our S24, we’re now looking at such a vaster and more interesting pool of possibilities in comparison. My college is perhaps still going to end up on the list as a reach, but if it was not, I would view it as no big deal. Because the overall situation is much more exciting to me. And hopefully my kid.
The state flagships are better than ever.
Perhaps if you look at the acceptance rate when you went to your alma mater , your kids will be accepted at colleges with similar acceptance rates today.
I now live on the opposite coast of my alma mater, a highly rejective LAC in New England. My D21 did not bother to tour it when we toured similar schools on an east coast college tour before Covid hit, she ended up at a university on our coast neither I nor my spouse would have been accepted to when we were applying in the late 1980s. Go figure, she won the lottery, that’s how we see it.
My D24 has no interest in my alma mater, and even if she did, she has little chance of being accepted as the admission rate is now 10% for female applicants and her stats are average excellent but neither unusual nor with any hooks. So I understand what you’re getting at, knowing she would not be able to attend if she wanted to causes a pang in me for sure.
Ironically, she may attend the college (a likely/safety school for her) my husband attended for 2 years before transferring to his state flagship. He has mixed memories of his 2 years there, it was a struggle for him in many ways, and he’s had to come to terms that it might actually be a good fit for her, that she is better prepared and better equipped to succeed at a place he did not.
I guess I’ve come to realize that while we carry our own memories and hopes for our kids, we need to encourage and allow them to find their own paths, no matter what we might want, hope or choose for them.
Honestly, let it go. There are so many wonderful schools out there. I went to an Ivy, husband went to a T5 LAC. D23 really liked both, applied, and didn’t get into either (also didn’t ED to either, because she was trying to gamble on a school with better odds). She got into plenty of great schools, though, and frankly, even though she would have been happy at either my alma mater or my husband’s, I think the one she chose is a better fit for her than either of the legacy schools. Our kids need to forge their own paths, not retread ours, and it’s best, I think, if we don’t envision a particular future for them.
And your kids may well have more choices than you did – just not the specific choice you made.
Our oldest is not attending either my or my husband’s alma mater. Instead he is attending a very different school half way across the country. And it’s working out great. It has expanded our lives to watch him on his journey, creating a new and exciting experience for himself, something we hadn’t imagined for him (but which is so obviously right for him.)
Looks like our younger child won’t be attending either of our schools either, so even more new things to learn and experience as parents.
Neither of our kids looked at either of our Alma maters. Older s did briefly look at the school I attended for grad school as they offered him $$$, but it is a huge flagship U and he had no interest. It’s their (our kids’) education and their experience, not ours.
I’m in a somewhat opposite situation. I never fancied my son would follow my footsteps to attend my alma mater, not only because it doesn’t practice legacy admissions but also because I had confidence that he would be able to take advantage of similar opportunities anywhere he ended up. He didn’t finalize his choice until late April and he chose my alma mater. He chose it based on extensive research of and comparison among his list of acceptances, he probably wouldn’t have chosen it if he had thought that his legacy status helped him with admission to the school.
From my perspective, the only advantage/benefit was that I had more knowledge of what his experience in the following four years was going to be like, and did impart some of that knowledge to him before he went there.
), but most pretty much regular folk that just love that school and culture.