I just looked up what my school’s acceptance rate was back then and what schools have a similar rate now and wow! That was even more of a reality check. I’ve never even heard of 60% of these schools. Even my state’s flagship school has a lower acceptance rate.
It really is a different world now.
I never had a strong desire fort my kids to go to my alma mater. I went to an Ivy and my husband went to a state flagship and we ended up in the same job. My husband seems to think that I’m pushing LACs too much with our kids.
He had the opportunity but turned it down for the military. He didn’t go blue. We’ve never recovered.
My guess is, more people apply to college than before, especially with the ease the Common Application allows.
There is global rise in interest in US colleges as well.
H & I met at college and got married on campus. Our kids grew up going to football games and events. Whenever someone (in any game on TV) would score a TD, toddler younger S would call out “TD Hokies!” He had our alma mater bedding. Both had tons of gear (as did we).
But when it came time for college, neither went. It was on their lists, but it was the last choice. We were fine with that. Honestly, I was a bit disgruntled with the school’s admission process and it was my last choice for them too. I have softened a bit since then as my niece goes there, as do many of my kids’ friends. It’s still a great school, but not for them.
Spouse and I had zero expectations.
We visited all the institutions we had attended- grad and undergrad. Kids reactions ranged from “This could work” to “No Way” and everything in between- but no real enthusiasm. So we let it go. Kids need to own their decision, and a parent putting a huge thumb on the scale is a barrier to that- based on what I’ve observed with friends, classmates, etc. The first bad day (early November- it’s raining, it’s getting cold, the “fun and zany roommate” is now an impossible lunatic, kids about to switch majors from CS to ethnomusicology now that she’s seen that CS is a LOT more than programming…) and kid won’t be owning the decision- it will be a call to Mom or Dad “Why did you make me come here?”.
Nope. Not playing that game.
RE: the money- that’s also an “own it” situation. You made professional choices which involved trade-offs. You undoubtedly have a classmate who headed off to Wall Street, made her first million before she was 30, now runs a hedge fund, and treats $100 bills like they are pennies. Lots of trade-offs in that life. You made different decisions.
I have college classmates who are massive, massive earners (and very generous to our alma mater, which is more or less how you can tell who did well)… at my 10th reunion we “celebrated” the first 7 figure gift which shocked me. Spouse and I had just bought a house-- a tiny house, the worst on the block, with multiple realtors telling us “if you just had 25K more for the down payment you could afford something much nicer”. Gee thanks.
You just can’t look over your shoulder at the lifestyle and professional choices you’ve made. Going forward- if it bugs you that you aren’t earning more, you can do something about that! But the past? No sense chewing that over. Own it. I make more than some of my classmates (but I admire many of them- social workers, curriculum developer for kids with developmental disorders, religious figures, artists) and I make less than some of my classmates. That’s life.
I think if you do a deep dive on your life you will quickly come to terms with your kids need to forge their own path, and your own financial successes and limitations. Hugs. You’ll get there.
Numbers are important… unhooked kids apply to 8-15 schools on average, so the odds that their list includes the 1-2 legacy schools aren’t high to begin with. The legacy discussion is truly relevant for stretchy schools, where the odds are ~10% admission rate.
The odds of one kid attending are 2/12 * 10% = 1.7%… statistically pretty low
Don’t assume that is a bad thing. Your child might have far better opportunities than you did. They will end up at the right school for them and will have a different experience, which could be better than yours.
My parents both attended a top 25 university. It was the only college they suggested I attend. I had no desire to go there. I wasn’t interested in their alma mater or trying to relive their experience. I commuted and lived at home all through college. Because of that, I was able travel the world, work, and complete college at my own pace. It took me six years to get my degree, and I didn’t attend an amazing school.
That was the way I wanted to do it. I have a fulfilling career and have had a good life. What you want for your kids may or may not happen. You just support their path, even if you wish it was different.
This! 
They say not to measure yourself with someone else’s yardstick. The same applies to our kids - what was right for us is not necessarily right for them.
I’m fairly lukewarm these days on my undergrad alma mater, which provided a good academic education but honestly wasn’t a good social fit. I did love my grad school, and D22 loved it also and was accepted - but the finances for undergrad there just didn’t work. A little disappointing, but D22 ended up at an equally excellent school that has been a terrific fit, so I’m thrilled for her. Going forward, I don’t really care whether D26 and D29 even consider my two schools, as there are so many other choices out there and my schools (a need-aware private and OOS flagship with minimal merit) may not be viable options for us financially anyway.
Good topic! My dad went to Dartmouth and my siblings and I were all rejected. I think he was bummed.
D23 didn’t have the stats to get into my husband and I’s alma mater, a competitive LAC on the east coast, so she didn’t even look at it. S25 probably will have the stats but I’m not sure it’s the best fit for my west coast kid. My husband is 4th generation though and I’m sure that part of him would like his son to continue the tradition, but he’d never say that.
I totally agree that times have changed and that there are so many resources for finding colleges that can be a great fit for a student that were not available to many of today’s parents (or grandparents). I also agree that students should be encouraged to live their own lives independent of what their parents did or of the parents’ wishes for their kids’ futures. But I think this quote kind of encapsulates the spirit of where OP was coming from.
How many families bemoan that housing has gotten so expensive that even when their children want to live nearby, they can’t afford to (or necessitate a large financial gift from family)? Or perhaps climate change is making favored locations (whether a hometown, family retreat, etc) untenable for the future? Perhaps industries have been leaving your state and so a kid who would like to return home can’t find a job at a living wage that would interest them? Maybe they really wanted to become a family practice doctor or pro bono lawyer, but the escalating costs of grad school are such that they can’t justify the expense? How many times have there been threads or comments where members of the upper class or upper middle class (who are usually really upper class but can’t bring themselves to identify that way) are concerned that their child won’t be able to have that same lifestyle in the future? Maybe they have specific health concerns, and the cost of health insurance prevents them from doing what they would prefer to do in order to have less expensive health coverage? Alternatively, what if they have specific health concerns and your state of residence is now outlawing that type of care?
I think that a lot of parents have some sort of angst about what the future may hold for their children. Although this particular thread was raised through the lens of a child being able to attend their alma mater, I think that the more global concern is about one’s progeny ending up having a harder time than oneself, which I think is often a pretty common concern, even if the kids end up happy with how their lives turn out.
I don’t disagree with your sensitive post… but it lacks historical context in my view.
I am the child of refugees (and grew up in a community where it was not unusual to have zero grandparents-- not close by grandparents, but NO grandparents, uncles, aunts who had survived WW2). You don’t think our parents generation worried about us and our prospects? I remember nuclear drills during the Cuban Missile crisis, and how horrified my parents were to learn that gym was canceled so we could huddle by our desks “and kiss our ^&* goodbye” as the saying went. Social unrest during the Viet Nam protests- which baffled one of my parents no end that somehow the greatest society the world had ever known could be undone by “a bunch of scruffy college kids”?
Every parent worries about their child and the world they are launching into. What’s different about now? My husband’s father enlisted as a soldier the day he turned 18 and was shipped off to fight WW2. He was GROSSLY unprepared for combat, got minimal training and support. You don’t think his parents were terrified?
That’s what it means to be a parent. But worrying that a kid can’t afford Dartmouth doesn’t seem up there with the worries previous generations had.
And how many of our grandparents lost infants to easily treatable infections?
My family (accidentally) created a tradition of going to college in Philly. lol My dad went to Temple, I went to Penn, and S22 goes to Haverford.
Neither of our kids even considered my or my husband’s alma maters. Didn’t bother us at all.
One thing parents need to keep in mind is that your child is NOT going to have the same experience at your alma mater that you did. Your child is a different person living in a different decade, they can’t have an identical experience to you. They just can’t. And some of the opportunities YOU had at your school, might no longer be available or might not be the opportunities your child is looking for, or your child might get other opportunities, or the opportunities that your child gets weren’t available yet when YOU (the parent) attended the school way back when.
There’s no way that my kids will ever attend my alma mater. I went to an amazing in-state university. LOVED my college experience. It’s an awesome school. But we now live in another state, there’s no way we can afford the $74,000/year total cost of attendance, and my kids don’t have high enough stats to get into that college. So it’s never going to happen.
That’s ok. There are thousands of other wonderful colleges and universities in this country. My kids will find the right one for them, that we can afford, and that has the right vibe for them.
I guess I feel your pain but then again, who is going to college? You or your kids? And when you say opportunities, can you please elaborate a bit? I agree that there are target schools for certain professions for kids just finishing school and looking for their first job. But after that?
And yeah, there is always grad school.
My DS is interested in my alma mater but not his other parent’s alma mater. It’s a matter of the fact that my alma mater offers the program that he wants to study but my spouse’s does not.
I don’t really understand the question being asked by the OP. Why would I assume that just because something or some place worked for me or my spouse that it would also work for our kids?
The optics around legacy admissions are also really negative, so I wouldn’t be shocked if that alone disqualified our children from being admitted to either college.
We subscribe to the “go to the best fit” school of thought. I attended CMU in the 1980s, and amazingly our son was accepted for engineering (it is a reach for everyone and, while his academic record was competitive, we expected a rejection). Instead, he opted to go to Case Western because he liked the campus and the school emphasized support for students. Frankly, he was turned off by CMU’s reputation as a grind. My wife was a tad upset, “How can he get into CMU for engineering and not go there?!”, but we all realize he made the right decision.
My son was also accepted at MSU, where his mom did her undergrad. It was a safety, and he would not have attended if he had better options.
Are you channeling your inner WC Fields?