<p>The more research I do the more I think many LACs can be a financial safety. The COA should not be determined by posted tuition price alone. Many of the LACs in the Princeton Review are giving great merits. I’ve come to think some only have a high published tuition rate to “appear” competitive. I have definitely adopted the cast a wide net mentality because the financial packages come spring are so varied.</p>
<p>Eons ago I went to my top choice school ( a LAC) & turned down a full ride at a Tier 3 school. I did not regret it initially. But as many have stated here, when “real adult life” kicked in I questioned that decision daily as I made tough choices about law school, home ownership, effects on my kids. Like many life decisions, what is right today may not be right tomorrow.</p>
<p>OP - You have responsibilites to all your kids. The best thing to do is look long & hard for a financial safety that is a good fit academically & socially. I believe the social aspects are MORE important than academics if the student is living at school.</p>
<p>When I returned to college in my 30s, I didn’t consider anything other than the local financial safety - a SUNY school.</p>
<p>I don’t “regret” it but I do wish I had planned my life better and had completed my education prior to raising a family.</p>
<p>But in the case of your typical graduating hs senior - hopefully he or she will not choose a financial safety just because of finances, but will carefully select one that also is a place they would want to go.</p>
<p>I think regret enters in if the safety is not selected thoughtfully.</p>
<p>I agree with this. My tendency is to think of the State U as ‘the’ financial safety but our state has at least a half-dozen small LACs that a strong student could attend for pretty much free or at greatly reduced rates.</p>
<p>I am very curious to see what happen when the acceptances start rolling in, meaning how much merit aid my son will be offered at the various schools. I’ve had several people report that you can use these offers as leverage at other schools where your child wants to attend but did not get a good merit offer. Of course, this is not true for the ‘reach’ schools on the list. But it can sometimes work at the match and safety schools that have to compete for the best students.</p>
<p>My financial safety is an OOS public (UAlabama-I’m sure mom2college kids has told you guys all about it ) and I really do like it as an option. But, I am in a very different situation than most of you/your kids. I have to put myself through school with no support from my parents (not that I mind), so for me, money is the number one factor. Unless I get a miracle in the financial department-and I’m not expecting it-I know my college decision will be made for me.
I know i’ll thrive wherever I go, but will i be missing out on my ideal college environment? Absolutely. But sometimes those are the choices we have to make</p>
I think the problem is that many students are “dead set on being around a large number of high achievers in a smaller environment.” (Bold is for changes, italics for emphasis.)</p>
<p>
I see this all the time, and IMO it stems from a misunderstanding of exactly what a “small school experience” means. Honors programs offer some smaller classes and a smaller peer group, but a small school (I assume you mean LAC) experience encompasses much more than that. Will you ever be able to walk across a large state U campus and recognize by name 75% of the people that you pass? I doubt it. Indeed, I think many students wouldn’t want that kind of experience–but for the students who do, “honors” at a large university too often pales with respect to a true “small school experience.” I don’t mean to demean the value of honors, but I see it as most beneficial to students who do care about the unique aspects of going to a larger school but want more personal attention, rather than to students who are perfect fits for an LAC atmosphere. The latter kind will probably still succeed, but they are more likely to have regrets. (Then there are students like rocket, who prefer an LAC but genuinely do appreciate aspects of a large U, like well-attended football games. I, on the other hand, would love to attend a school with no football team at all.)</p>
<p>Of course, one also has to weigh the value of academics vs. atmosphere vs. cost. Outrageous debt is never a good idea. If someone is dead-set on attending an LAC, I’d suggest UMinn-Morris, which is priced at in-state for everyone… but for students looking at top private LACs, that is also a huge drop in academic peers.</p>
<p>My sophomore D chose to attend her financial and academic safety, and is very happy with her choice. As I have recounted in other CC threads, she turned down much higher ranked schools (including two ivies) and had her teachers, counselors (and yes, even H and me, at first) bewildered. But ultimately she chose the school that she felt fit her best, and suited her goals. </p>
<p>By the time Spring came around, with all her acceptances in hand, she decided she wanted a public school; she wanted a diverse environment that would reflect (as much as a college bubble can) the larger, diverse world. She did NOT want to be in an environment where intense academics/intellectual pursuits were the dominant trait – even though that’s her personal comfort zone. She’s a good example of a kid who is enjoying the benefits of being part of an Honors community within a larger university. She also received a full tuition scholarship, and she decided for herself that the benefits of graduating debt-free, and giving herself the f lexibility of more options – working less or more during the school year or summer, traveling, etc – was far more appealing, and practical, than her other options. Her decision, no pressure from parents. She is also thinking about possible grad school, and at the least doesn’t expect or desire to make a lot of money, and is naturally frugal. </p>
<p>So her decision fits totally with who she is and the values she holds. It’s worth repeating again: a financial safety does not have to be seen as a poor sister, a compromise, or a last resort, if it has truly been chosen as a school the student likes for its own sake.</p>
<p>I attended a financial safety (long ago), but coming from a family with no real resources there were not many alternatives. I received a fantastic education and a full time job. I don’t regret it at all.</p>
<p>If my 16 y.o son keeps his grades up this year, he’ll go tuition free to our state school. He’s not very adventurous so I think that is as far as he’ll go. I think the computer science program there will be adequate if not great. I just wish he’d consider some schools farther away that might offer internships or other job connections. My16 y.o daughter has greater aspirations. Her current desire is to study Chinese and international relations but she has two more years of h.s. after she finishes her Rotary exchange year in S. America this year. I discovered what looks like a great Chinese language program at Ole Miss where she could probably go tuition free with a merit scholarship. I have just been wrestling with whether a big state school where the majority of students have much lower academic talent would be as good as going to Middlebury or Georgetown or Beloit or somewhere like that. It seems like financial aid is not as cut and dried as the financial aid calculators make it seem, so I guess the best strategy is to just apply to several schools that match and wait until the financial aid comes back before getting to attached to a particular school. Fortunately, she is pretty practical and recognizes that we may need to save money for her to attend law school or grad. school. We’ll see… Anyway, I appreciate all your responses, both positive and negative.</p>
<p>My DD did not choose wisely. She only picked one financial safety and it was not a place she was excited to go. This was in the olden days before CC was so big and fit had been explained well. i tried to convince her to add schools, but would have done even more had I known how things worked.</p>
<p>She is now very glad she has no UG loans, but wishes she had had more options. However, whilst never truly happy with her UG, she did work with a prof in a GE course, she added his area as a double major and is now doing a PhD in his small tiny sub-field so it did send her where she needed to go.</p>
<p>Exactly why I’m insisting son have 3 financial/academic safeties (they are one and the same for him). I know he’s not going to be happy come next spring if he doesn’t get into one of his reaches, so I want him to have a few choices.</p>
<p>Also, I want him to have the choice to attend one of the colleges a large number of his friend’s will likely attend (not that I’m recommending he follow the crowd) and/or stay closer to home. Right now he’s insisting that’s not what he wants but he is very prone to changing his mind once he sees what his friends are doing. It will be too late come spring if he doesn’t apply now. I figure it’s worth the $$ and the effort to have those choices.</p>
<p>I attend a college that was ranked top 10 in Princeton Review’s “Best Value Public Colleges.” I was forced to transfer there because of many factors (money, naturally, being the biggest one). I’m very happy that I did. At my old college, where my scholarship covered only half of the tuition, I was under constant guilt that such big money (both mine and my parents’) must be spent just for the sake of the institution’s name. The individualized attention that I was supposed to be getting felt more like spoon feeding me what I already knew. The purported diversity was mostly ethnic: while the majority of students did come from different parts of the world, most of them were from well-to-do families and their maturity level was that of preteens.</p>
<p>Compared to my previous educational institutions, my current one feels like an inner-city school. Yet I have been getting all the attention I needed from my professors. All you need to do is to know how to approach them both inside and outside the classroom.</p>
<p>A good number of my classmates have to work to survive. Some speak really good English with the thickest of accents. A few are twice my age. A couple already have kids. I feel more comfortable among them than I ever did at my fancy parochial school and well-respected college.</p>
<p>It’s true that I’m missing the typical college experience: I come to class, and then I leave. Do I regret it? Not a single bit. New York City is my campus, and that’s good enough for me. I have those things that I used to call extracurriculars not so long ago; does it really matter that they have nothing to do with my college?</p>
<p>After reading such stories from others on CC years ago, we decided to have each of our kids apply to at least 3 financial safeties along with their other choices. That way, if the top choices didn’t work out, they each have some choices.</p>
<p>We didn’t feel comfortable just having them pic one fav safety in the fall, because we feared that that one safety would be disliked by spring.</p>
<p>One of DD’s “safety school” was also her number two choice of the five schools to which she applied. Both safety schools were academic safeties…and financial ones. It was a very hard decision between that number two safety and the school where she is enrolled. She would not have “settled for” that number two school…it was the second from the top of her list of choices. It just so happened that it was academically and financially a safety.</p>
<p>Anyway…she didn’t “end up” choosing the second choice school. She chose a smaller college and while it was more expensive, it was a choice we fully supported.</p>
) and I really do like it as an option. But, I am in a very different situation than most of you/your kids. I have to put myself through school with no support from my parents (not that I mind), so for me, money is the number one factor. Unless I get a miracle in the financial department-and I’m not expecting it-I know my college decision will be made for me.