<p>happymom, it can have nothing to do with career goals or majors. My S could not find such a school because he had very high stats and very low income. He would not have been “happy” to attend any of the schools that give automatic scholarships, and in any case unless that was automatically a real full ride–not just full tuition–we could not have afforded it. Our state university was not a suitable choice for him, and probably would have cost us more than we could afford anyway. He had to get into one of the schools that actually meet full need, and luckily for him, he did.</p>
<p>You can’t MAKE someone be “happy” to go to Alabama or Arizona or whatever.</p>
<p>OP, what intparent describes is precisely what I was worrying about. I really think that your S should convert his ED application at Stevens to RD, pronto.</p>