<p>Now that most decisions are in and some financial aid info has been received my D's friends are starting to talk about which schools they are deciding between.</p>
<p>She has been surprised by some of the schools her peers have been accepted to. She was very conservative with her applications (she also had some specific wants - major, ECs, distance to home, etc) and only really applied to one true reach and really took finances into consideration too. </p>
<p>Obviously we don't <em>know</em> the full stats of everyone nor their ability to pay, but some with similar or lower stats have gotten into some pretty good schools with seemingly good financial aid packages.</p>
<p>Now, both she and I wonder if she sold herself short by not expanding her criteria and applying to more reachy schools. ARE WE THE ONLY ONES???</p>
<p>***If only I had found CC when both my kids were in elementary school...maybe I would have been a better resource for them!</p>
<p>My D had a similar situation last year after being accepted to all her schools and thinking she should have applied to more “reachy” schools. In reality, many of the more “reachy” schools didn’t really appeal to her. Fast Forward one year and she chose to attend one the 5 schools that gave her significant merit aid, she is taking a rigorous course load, has made some wonderful friends, and is very happy.
Don’t be surprised if she also has “buyers remorse” once she sends in deposit – we went through that as well:)</p>
<p>My daughter got into two reaches and no high reaches. She is now crushed, even though she got into great schools and has wonderful stats. And she has classmates with the same or lower stats who got into some of the schools that rejected her.</p>
<p>I believe your circumstance is tragically common. Most families need to consider money when making any decision, so it seems like common sense to only apply to a reasonable number of school (at $65-$75 a piece) and to be completely intimidated by all the schools with $56K or higher pricetags and steer kids to state flagships and other less expensive schools. Unfortunately, this can be a huge mistake.</p>
<p>For those with limited means (and even those with limitless means thru merit aid), the financial landscape in college is unlike anything most have dealt with before. Many of the elite schools with the most expensive price tags, often provide generous financial aid packages. If your child has performed very well on their standardized tests/GPA, there are hundreds of lower tier (but solid academically) schools that will buy your childs matriculation thru grants/scholarship. Anyway, I do not belive families realize that their best bet is often to resist the financially conservative instinct to apply to few (and to less expensive), and instead do lots of reseach and apply to many, including often the most expensive.</p>
<p>Thanks freecycle - good point…and I’ll watch out for that buyers remorse.</p>
<p>I feel your pain megdog. Someone encouraged her to apply EA to her reachy school and she didn’t get in. Many friends with those lower stats that applied RD got in…it’s been rough (especially since two of her best friends got in and are going!). Plus the next choice down, didn’t come thru in the financial aid dept!</p>
<p>I guess we all need to recite “it wasn’t meant to be” over and over again! Man, it’s hard not to compare yourself to your peers or think the grass is always greener. Maybe things <em>have</em> worked out like they were supposed to.</p>
<p>I recently said to my wife that one of the most frustrating things about this process is that you can’t run several trials, observe the various outcomes, and then decide how you’d like to proceed.</p>
<p>Of course, the same thing often applies to most big decisions: job searches, house-buying, starting a family, and so on. Heck, some people even approach marriage that way; OK, Larry King and Rush Limbaugh, maybe not so much…</p>
<p>My youngest applied to the state school that is a good fit hoping for similar FA to older sibling. State school budgets being cut, she got a package that is barely doable and has her borrowing the Stafford max. She probably could have gotten as much or more money at a lot of other places - but not the program/program quality.</p>
<p>I am consoling myself with the reality that in terms of keeping costs under our control, she has the best option in hand with the program she wants. I know she did not want to spend her time on applications to places she wasn’t sure she would attend but the second guessing (at least on the part of the parents) is there. She has friends going to Harvard, Brown, Princeton and Chicago as well as the state schools so next year’s facebook chats will have some very high caliber comparisons!</p>
<p>The process is getting much, much weirder and less predictable for the student. I think the best course is to apply to a broad swath of schools, from the safest safeties all the way through high reaches (not to say every student need to apply to Harvard, but their equivalent stat-wise). My results were not what I would have expected, with very happy (!) results with HYPS and waitlists and rejections from schools I didn’t consider quite as big reaches, especially given that I felt a sense of “fit” there. I’ve had great results, but I think back to my original, “reasonably sized” list and it very heavily favored the schools that ultimately rejected or waitlisted me. Interesting.</p>
<p>I applied to a few reaches and a few safeties. I got into all of them, so now I’m just left doing the decision process. Now that I have seen where I got in to, I feel like I could have gotten my app out to a few more schools - so you and your daughter aren’t the only ones.
I don’t know about her, but I’m the type of kid who wants to get to the furthest possible place from home, and the colleges who offered FA and scholarships are the furthest. So just keep location in mind when accepting admissions offers.</p>
<p>Miche - Growing up she always wanted to “go away” to school. But her brother is only 1.5 hrs away so she got to see how easy it was to run home to pick up something or leave on a Sunday afternoon to go back after a weekend visit. Plus the majority, if not all, of her close friends are staying in-state so I think that all was a factor with her list until she started hearing about others who ventured out.</p>
<p>Again, I’m sure it will all turn out for the best…and the school at the top of her list right now is the farthest from home. Maybe that’s another reason she is second guessing - it was a last minute application because it was outside her initial distance criteria - I think she now wonders if there were other, better, schools that were outside her criteria that would have been worth an app.</p>
<p>funny how most of us don’t know what we want but when we finally get something we start to wonder “what could have been…better” :-)</p>