@OHMomof2 - I believe you have a child at Amherst and may be able to help the OP with #1 and #11 questions?
Iâm sure your child will do just fine at this other school. As long as this other school has the area of study intended for undergraduate education it should be fine.
For what itâs worth â Our best friendsâ older daughter went to Amherst. (So did my dadâs brother, one of his sons, one of that cousinâs children, several of my friends from high school, etc.) She was a teetotalling non-athlete. She had a really successful experience there â loved her courses, loved her friends, learned a great deal, had close mentoring by senior faculty, met her fiance . . . What really impresses me, though, is that she had a sort of wild-and-crazy, unattainable dream of what she wanted her career to be, and almost eight years after her graduation now, sheâs still pursuing that dream, with a great deal of success. While she was still in college, she reached out to a couple of Amherst alums who might be able to help her, and they did, in very meaningful ways. (I canât really go into detail, because what she does is so rarefied, and there are so few women doing it, that almost any detail would identify her.)
Of course, this doesnât mean that Amherst is unique, or that she couldnât have been as successful as she is if she had gone to college anywhere else.
It would have been really easy for her to get diverted from her dream to some wider, more traveled path like law school or business school. I think itâs a credit both to her and to Amherst that she wasnât diverted like that. Something I notice among the age cohort that includes my kids, my kidsâ friends, and my friendsâ kids: People who go to top LACs seem much more likely to be pursuing their unique dreams, while people who went to research universities are more likely to have modified their dreams to fit market conditions. Itâs not at all black and white. You can find both types of people at each type of institution. But I see a lot more LAC grads than uni grads making a serious, and successful effort, to do something tough and unusual. Thatâs not limited to Amherst at all, but I know it applies to Amherst.
By the way, re STEM at Amherst: My cousinâs child who graduated from Amherst three years ago was accepted directly out of Amherst into a high quality neuroscience PhD program. During college, she worked in a research lab at UMass Amherst, but she got a lot of support from Amherst College for what she wanted to do.
There are several top rated LACs that offer merit aid for high performing students. Most of the top merit aid we found was in the mid -west but not always. Grinnell, Davidson, Kenyon and Oberlin come to mind as other options. My daughter got substantial merit aid from some of those schools. Not sure where you are in process but we couldnât justify the cost of a full pay school. Itâs definitely a personal decision though.
sorry just read through post and realized you are at decision stage.
@JHS Amherstâs free spirit and amazing alumni are what my kid fell in love with. However, most stories include gratefulness for free or partially free education. I wonder if people breaking the bank felt the same and saw good ROI. For a family like ours $300K is not a chunk of change.
@JHS Amherstâs free spirit and amazing alumni are what my kid fell in love with. However, most stories include gratefulness for free or partially free education. I wonder if people breaking the bank felt the same and saw good ROI. For a family like ours $300K is not a chunk of change.
@Veryapparent Its too late, we do regret not casting a wider net. With my kidâs academic and non academic accomplishments we felt naively safe applying to couple of reachs, couple of matches and couple of safeties. We knew weâll have a high EFC but werenât expecting it to be this high. Its $25k lower on FAFSA.
Iâm not sure if you have mentioned in the thread or not or do not wish to mention but are there affordable other options? It is hard to answer your question without really knowing what you are comparing Amherst to. My daughter chose a school that is in the list of top 50 ranked LACS. She got an offer hard to refuse. She turned down another school which was much higher up the list but offered significantly less merit money. Because she plans to pursue a PHD I donât think it will matter much in the end game although I am not 100% certain. Both schools do well in that regard. Is your student looking to go far beyond college academically?
I donât want to mention names but other choices include a top 20 school with some merit money, very selective honors program at our flagship and full merit rides at two decent local schools. As a high stat NMSF, free education is very much possible.
When faced with a similar choice - we did not force DD to go to a large public university where she had a free ride, but we also took off the table a highly ranked LAC that would have been $73,000 a year. That left a number of great colleges that fell in the 30-40,000 range. We asked her to choose from one of those.
Wow congratulations! I see why the decision is hard. Have you tried any negotiation on financial aid? The worst they can say is no.
@Veryapparent Thank you, hard work pays off ⊠well it pays off a little, just not enough to afford your dream school.
Iâve tried appealing FA but Amherst denied. If it was another school, we wouldâve understood but from a school like Amherst which boasts compassion, it is disappointing for the kid. There is nothing a teen can do about it but obviously its not Amherstâs problem. Amherst is just a business with a bottom line to meet.
@CupCakeMuffins Not sure if the top 20 you referenced was LAC or research univ., but if it was a significant amount to Rice I would go there â love that school! Same for Vanderbilt and of course Duke, assuming your son would like the vibe. If it is a top 20 LAC, I guess it depends which school, how the fit is, and how much merit $. Are we talking $5,000, $10,000, $25,000, etc.? On other options like state flagship, was kid offered any other perks like research stipends? Also depends which flagship, as they vary in quality. Sounds like your kid will do well regardless of the school attended.
FA is based on a formula. You supplied financial information. Based on their formula, you have too much in income and assets to quality. Compassion is not part of the formula at any college.
@brantly Well, no argument there. It sure is a formula and compassion is not a part of it. You are absolutely right about that.
@CupCakeMuffins - you mention âdream schoolâ above. Maybe it would help to know that many, many kids cannot afford to go to their dream school. Many families have to have very difficult discussions with their children that a school that costs $70,000 a year and that is providing no aid - is simply not an option. We have had that discussion. There maybe a little heartache for a few daysâŠbut in the long run most kids love where they land and can make the most of where they eventually enroll. Yes, we could have stretched and paid for the highly ranked dream school. But that was not something we were willing to do - and that was a decision made by the parents. These life lessons have to be learned at some point.
Thank you all. As we established that its our problem not Amherstâs, lets get back to pros and cons of the college.
It is a great school - a top LAC - the question needs to be - is it so MUCH better than the next option to warrant X amount that needs to be paid?
@CValle Indeed. In fact its a question for us grown ups. Most kids, rich or poor, donât have access to $300K to hand over to a college even if college is all that and then some. Its beyond their control. They canât even borrow this kind of money.