<p>1)How have parents/students made the choice between a full ride at a good university vs. attending a more selective college?
2) What are the implications for the job market (STEM) ,graduating from selective vs. honor's program at good university?</p>
<p>It just has to be something you decide to suck up and do - unless you are independently wealthy and it doesn’t matter how much it costs. Being in the category of income that makes us too “rich” for full need met but too “poor” to pay full costs, we had to make the decision. We made the decision a long time ago to pay for a pricey K-12 education and allowed her to apply to colleges without regard for price (with the caveat that they had to be need-blind). With her grades and scores, she could have gotten a free or almost free ride elsewhere, but she went to the ivy league.</p>
<p>Its a choice for the parents. My kitchen needs to be redone, house painted, would like a newer model car and a 2 week vacation in a warm climate. None of which we can afford with our tuition payments. Do we think its worth it? Yes. Do other parents? Maybe not. However, I believe it is only fair that you make your intentions clear to your child early so they know the deal. Mine always knew that if she got into Yale (my alma mater) she could go and we’d figure out the money.</p>
<p>It is truly a personal family choice.</p>
<p>When you say STEM, what exactly do you mean? And also what schools are you referring to?</p>
<p>Thanks for your feedback. We have twins, both who will most likely get at least partial to full tuition/ride, so difficult decision!!!</p>
<p>Science, Technology, Engineering, Math
Cal Tech vs. University of CO at Boulder or University of Arizona. thanks for your interest </p>
<p>FWIU while Cal Tech is a great school it is better suited to graduate students. If your twins have the stats to get into Cal Tech, you may want to expand your options to other schools besides Bolder and U of A that have top tech programs and have a good chance of getting scholarships. IMO there are better schools between the two state schools and Cal Tech.</p>
<p>STEM major doing what? There is a big difference between a petroleum engineering major and a biology major.</p>
<p>It all comes down to a cost analysis versus fit. Comparing the full cost (60k+) versus free seems like a no-brainer. if those are the only choices, the “free” option would have to be pretty bad to make the expensive option seem worthwhile. But of course, that’s rarely the choice. There are almost always several choices in between. If you’re getting financial aid, your oop costs (including loans) at an elite school might only be 10k or so per year. In which case free might not be as enticing. Or, perhaps a more common scenario is where a family is on the hook for 40k/year at the elite school versus 12k - 30k at a lesser, but still decent, school.</p>
<p>In our case, our daughter is applying to 6 schools at which she has varying degrees of chance at full tuition scholarships (from guaranteed to infinitesimal). Some of those schools are offering free room and board in their scholarships. To us, that means there is no way we’re considering paying 60k+ for anything. </p>
<p>In the highly unlikely best case scenario, our D will have one offer of 22k oop costs versus several 12k or so room and board choices versus three completely free schools. Because all of these options are within our budget, we would encourage D to find the school she believes is the best fit, regardless of ranking. I could certainly understand full pay families taking any or all of the non-free schools off the table. </p>
<p>I don’t suppose I understand a full pay family paying 60k plus at an elite school, when there are much cheaper good enough options out there unless they are very, very (like Bill Gates) wealthy, but yet some families do it. And God, love 'em, they’re happy to do it. I’m sure from their perspective, they’re wondering why my husband and I wouldn’t do whatever it took to get our high stats kid through an elite school. </p>
<p>College budgeting is one of those personal decisions that every family needs to figure out for themselves.</p>
<p>I should add that the schools to which our D is applying vary widely in ranking. We have just decided that was not as important to us as our D being happy during her undergrad (within our budget, of course). </p>
<p>I don’t know the accuracy and sample size used by sites like payscale.com but it shows a return on investment which I think is a more critical interpretation than total outlay <a href=“25 Colleges With the Best Return on Investment”>http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/05/20/25-colleges-with-the-best-return-on-investment/</a> . You can plug in different majors to get lists specific to areas of study as well. Of course, each family needs to be able to reasonably afford the outlay, but if you can then sometimes it make sense to attend the more expensive college over the full ride. </p>
<p>The referenced Payscale rankings basically tell you that schools loaded with engineering majors (e.g. Harvey Mudd, Caltech, Polytechnic Institute of New York University (which is no longer a separate school), MIT, SUNY Maritime, Colorado School of Mines, Stevens Institute of Technology, Stanford, Rose Hulman) have highly paid graduates compared to those with more biology, etc. majors. Mixed in to the top of the list are elite schools on the consulting and Wall Street short list of schools to recruit at (e.g. Stanford, Claremont McKenna, Harvard).</p>
<p>“1)How have parents/students made the choice between a full ride at a good university vs. attending a more selective college?”
- very easy, D. did not apply to any selective college, she simply applied ONLY to UGs that we know (after extensive 2 year research) would offer some Merit. She also applied only to combined bs/md programs, they are very selective at any UG. She ended up attending Honors at in-state public on full tuition Merit in bs/md program that had only 10 spots. Later, while in Med. School she repeated many many times that this was absolutely the best UG for her, that she did not like the lack of personal growth in many medical students (NOT all, though!!!) who are in her medical school class and who graduated from the top Ivy’s /Elites. She felt that she had an advantage over them and more so when many of her superiors pointed out to her exceptionally good bed manners, great communication skills and being a great team member. She said that in state colleges, there is simply a greater variety of kids and if a student is engaged and involved in many un-related activites, then there is more opportunities for personal growth.<br>
As an icing on the cake, it did not hurt at all to graduate as a top pre-med in her UG class, received award for it and being recognized in all kind of other ways (Summa cum laude, PBK, several medals at graduation) And having the best job on campus for 3 years did not hurt either - had been picked up by Chem. prof. to be his Supplemental Instructor, ran instructional supplemental sessions that sometime reached 40 kids. In-state, public UGs LOVE their top kids, cherish them as much as they could, offerred them opportunties that are not widely open to general student body.<br>
Again, somebody at Ivy / Elite could have had a great experience. Public, state has workde fine for my D. and in appreciation for her choosing her UG so smartly, we are paying for her Med. School. Not such a bad deal for her at all.
BTW, D. did not check any ranking when she decide on her UG, she visited many times, she stayed overnights, talked to current students, even stayed with the potential sport team. She made her selection very very carefully, but not thru listenning to others, rather to herself.</p>
<p>Right, so STEM is vague, and without knowing potential career paths, it’s hard to give advaice as well.</p>
<p>Really, it’s hard to give advice without knowing all options and desires.</p>
<p>For certain career paths, if you can afford it, going to a school well-regarded in that field is an easier route than going to another school. For many paths, it makes almost no difference. And you generally will have a little more/better options at an elite if you are undecided on career path.</p>
<p>@kmywest - To answer your question, my D had the great good sense to choose a very good and highly selective school that offered her full tuition, Tulane, rather than attending one of the most highly selective schools that accepted her but offered no or little financial aid (a couple of Ivies, a couple of others in the USNWR top 15). As others have said about their kids that attended a school that wasn’t the most selective they got into, she did quite well (summa cum laude, PBK, several other honor recognitions) and after landing a very coveted summer stint at the US State Department, she is just starting grad school at Stanford, having also been accepted to Harvard, Columbia, Berkeley, and Johns Hopkins. You don’t have to attend an Ivy or equivalent to get great results, but I am not sure the choice has to be between Ivy level or big state school either, finances notwithstanding.</p>
<p>Which leads to my answering your question with a question. Why not apply to several highly selective and most selective schools that offer high level merit scholarships and see what happens? WUSTL, Vandy, Duke (I think Duke now has some high value scholarships based solely on merit, you would have to check), Tulane, Miami, Chicago (again, you would have to double check me on Chicago), etc. I am sure I am leaving some out that award big scholarships based purely on merit. Not all of the top schools follow the Ivy model of no merit awards.</p>
<p>Cost is one factor, could be a main factor, for consideration. Very often, a NMF is not going to a school that would offer a large scholarship or full ride but another school with higher cost. Of course, any school that is not affordable would be out of the list, but there may be still a lot of options available for those students with great credentials.</p>
<p>Emory, UVa, UNC, UMich (tough to get, but you mentioned the Duke and Chicago ones as well), USC, Wake, JHU, and Rice also have some big scholarships. Actually, there are only a handful of schools that don’t offer at least some big merit scholarships.</p>
<p>And for most paths out of undergrad, success will be more dependent on the kid than the school.</p>
<p>If someone is contemplating a JD or MBA (and would be full-pay everywhere), my advice would be to prioritize spending on those degrees instead of undergrad, as those are degrees where where you go to school matter more.</p>
<p>My daughter was a National Merit Finalist, so she had a lot of full rides open to her. But they all bugged her in some way. Before we got the big news from Harvard, the choice wasn’t between full ride and selective schools. It was between the huge modern campus and the small traditional campus. So we were looking at full-tuition awards instead of full rides. As a family, we decided that the cost of room and board was a reasonable expense for the kinds of things offered by an SLAC. So for us, this was the difficult choice.</p>
<p>It turned out that the family contribution to Harvard was roughly what we would have paid for room and board at the SLAC. It was a different sort of choice, but it was kind of a no-brainer.</p>
<p>I would never question another parent’s reasoning for how much they are willing to pay for their child to go to school or college. It is a personal choice. My dad, back in the day, said that he would pay whatever it took for me to go where ever I got in. I came from a working class background and went to a crappy public school, but exceled in a special program. I was blessed to be accepted to Yale in 1978. Tuition was $7,000 total - yet my parents needed substantial financial aid to make it work. However, my dad, who was a vet, took out a loan at the credit union for their part and he did not see his monthly retirement check for 4 years as it went to the payments. That was his choice.</p>
<p>Because of their sacrifice, I am much better off financially than they ever were and was able to provide my child with a stellar education. She worked hard to get into Yale and I feel I owe the same to her as my parents did for me. Luckily, her dad agrees and is willing to sacrifice to make this work. I get up everyday and come to work. If I choose to live in a house that needs some work, drive a 2010 Honda, and forgo vacations, I can. I have friends who have 2-3 luxury cars in their driveway, rent homes in the islands for weeks at a time for summer vacations, etc. Who is to say which is the better use of our hard earned dollars.</p>
<p>I guess you can tell this is a sore subject for me.</p>
<p>And yes, you can do well not attending an Ivy. I have yet to have a boss or Director who attended one. Actually had a couple that never attended college at all. Go figure.</p>
<p>I think we maybe made a bad choice, but I am not sure. My daughter had a full tuition and fees plus stipend offer at one school, but did not like the school at all. Another school she pretty much had full tuition and fees. The rest, we still had to pay at least $20K. Well, our EFC is closer to $6K. My husband is bothered that she did not apply to a bigger variety of places. In reality, she really messed up her common app anyway and likely would not have gotten in anyway. She ended up taking the 2nd good scholarship offer. But at that school, things went horrible. Her first roommate was violent and her second was a meth user. It was a small school that seemingly was not a good fit for her at all, as she was quite competitive academically (as in, she likes working very hard and is academically focused). My laid back child is actually at that school and loves it. But it did not work out for my high strung, straight AP classes child. We didn’t have much choice. Now she is starting over and redoing the applications.</p>
<p>^^ Finding that academic orientation is part of the challenge here. My impression is that a lot of schools with big merit awards are trying to increase the numbers of really bright, motivated students who attend. The obvious inference is that the school may not have a lot of those students currently attending. There’s some overgeneralizing there, but it’s something you’ll want to investigate. The presence of a solid honors program can mitigate that concern somewhat. E.g., Kentucky’s is supposed to be very competitive, and ASU’s will fly you across the country for free just to take a look.</p>