<p>D chose SUNY New Paltz over Carnegie Mellon, Hamilton, Tufts, primarily for financial reasons, but also because of the program and opprtunities at NP. She is a JR now and has said it was a great decision for her. She is in the honors program and has had a fantastic expeience. She has been able to study in Florence last winter break, spend spring break voluteering in Guatemala, and is now in Barcelona for a semester. In addition, she will graduate with a dual degree and an internship under her belt! And very little in student loans!! She should be in a great position to go the grad school.</p>
<p>Lucky for me, my daughter and I both think that $50k/yr to attend college is unreasonable and certainly unnecessary. I <em>know</em> this runs counter to common opinion on this board ;-)</p>
<p>We agreed that I would pay up to $20k/yr, and she would take on debt for any amount required over that. With costs in mind, she chose our local flagship, one public OOS, and seven privates she thought she might like to attend and that offered a fair chance of enough grant money to bring CoA down to our level. In general, she required a 50% tuition discount off private schools, or in state tuition from OOS schools. So far, five colleges have matched or dropped below our cost requirements, leading to visits to those schools. Three of the five schools that are offering generous offers publish or are known to this board to seek out NMF awardees.</p>
<p>Each to their own, I personally think that paying for ‘prestige’ or the right to wear the same hoody as an athletic team is silly, let alone going into debt for those privileges. Undergrad colleges are for education, socialization, and networking. Money buys relatively little of all three.</p>
<p>Safety, reach, are terms regarding the selectivity of a college, not the order in which a student likes the schools. It happens all of the time that students turn down more selective schools for less selective ones once the acceptances come rolling in. Yes, the financials often have a bearing on this choice, but other factors often do as well.</p>
<p>My friend’s son applied to a number of highly selective schools and Penns State which was their state school. He was accepted to the Honors College there, and after carefully visiting the other schools that accepted him, he decided that he truly preferred the atmosphere and offerings at Penn State. That he was going to save close to $100K, or more in making that choice was not a primary issue in the matter, though he did say that he probably would have chosen UMich or Notre Dame if the cost were the same. He just did not like Cornell, Upenn or Brown. There were some other high reach schools that he would have probably picked over Penn State had he been accepted to them, but he was not, and given the choices, he liked his safety school best.</p>
<p>My son also picked his safety school There really was little thought in adding this school to his list except it was on of two SUNYs that offered the degree he wanted. But when it came time to choose, and he listed all of the stuff he wanted, it turned out the be the choice that he preferred. Namely, he got into the exact program he wanted there, whereas he did not at schools like Mich, CMU, Northwestern, NYU, Syracuse. So though he was accepted to those schools which are not only much more selective, but higher rated in terms of rankings of just about any sort, what he wanted most was offered at the SUNY. So it went from “safety” to first choice.</p>
<p>I know quite a few adults (aka 30 to 50+) who all turned down well known schools that they couldn’t afford for less well known schools - they are doing just fine.</p>
<p>This is a very interesting topic. My daughter has already heard from a great school, was admitted into the honors program, and hopefully will receive enough merit money to drop the cost down to about $18,000. She is waiting to hear from W&M, UVA, Duke, ND, Penn, Princeton, and Dartmouth.
For me, I have always felt that the draw of Penn, Princeton, and Dartmouth is the quality of the student body. I believe that living and learning among what could be arguably called the brightest of the bright has definite advantages.
On the other hand, I can make the argument that the honors college she was admitted to will provide an equal experience when compared to W&M, Duke, UVA, or ND. The admitted student of the honors program has the same stats as the 75th percentile students at those schools.
So for us the real question will be if she makes the Ivies, does she accept? I am pretty sure that she will decline the others in favor of her current favorite.
I also agree with the prior poster who favored Providence with a $25,000 scholarship over BC. I know that BC has a better reputation, but unless it came with a job guarantee, its hard not to keep the 100,000 in the bank to be used for grad school, a house, or just no going into debt.</p>
<p>It has never been possible to prove that expensive undergrad schools lead to “success”, let alone financial payback. Perhaps business majors would be an exception, I don’t know. I’m confident from experience that science related studies are a matter of individual merit way beyond anything else.</p>
<p>The leading research universities in the country have been turning out oodles of graduates for decades, and people widely collaborate. The network is spread so wide these days that talent is recognized and promoted. I’ll mention two anecdotes in support: Towards the end of my days in med school in a country far away from the Ivy league, I took an elective in a field I was interested in. I enjoyed my month a lot, and met the head of the department, a Harvard alumnus. It was his habit to send his best students to Harvard for fellowships. I didn’t choose to study with him, and instead came to the US where the faculty was an amalgam of Harvard and U Chicago graduates. Once again, I found that the most outstanding students were funneled back to Harvard.</p>
<p>Fast forward 20 years, to my son who has been going to our local 3rd tier college for classes while in high school. He has come to the attention of a chemistry prof who has an active research program that includes collaboration with a Nobel prize winning group at Cal-Tech. This local prof promotes and mentors promising local students, and has offered to ‘pull strings’ so that my son may join an NSF funded research camp this summer at the college, and to join his research group when he matriculates in the fall. History of the summer program shows that about 15 kids participate annualy – usually around 1/3 of them current students at ivy league schools. The chemistry department has been successful in sending promising undergrads to near-Ivy grad programs.</p>
<p>In short, I went as far as my talents and ambitions allowed, and the same will be true for my son. Total CoA: 0</p>
<p>Disclosure: neither of us wear rolexes.</p>
<p>Safety, match, and reach labels - as per cptofthehouse - are selectivity labels. They are not labels of how much a student likes each school. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to enjoy a safety or a match more than a reach; there are many reasons to apply to match and reach schools. For example, it could be an issue of financial aid. Although I eventually grew very attached to Stanford and Yale, they were originally not near the top of my list - I applied to them for need-based aid. Additionally, although George Washington was something of a safety, I considered it (for some time) more desirable than Rice or Chicago. I think it’s a matter of individual preference. I could easily turn down my reach for my match, so I don’t see the jump to safety as that big of a difference.</p>
<p>
While I agree that CC focuses overwhelmingly on “elite” schools, I don’t think the majority actually end up paying 50k/year to attend them. Many turn those schools down for financial reasons; many others receive financial aid. My family will be paying less than 20k/year for Swarthmore; my in-state flagship would be cheaper only after merit aid, but it is totally different from a small LAC.</p>
<p>I also have several friends with acceptances to “elite” schools who may pick our flagship because it does have an attraction outside of cost (e.g. good fit with non-major music opportunities).</p>
<p>Although I never found a safety that was a better fit than a match or a reach, my list was very match-heavy because there were only a few reach schools that I preferred to my matches. For instance, had I not been accepted ED, I almost certainly would have picked Carleton over any LAC except Swarthmore or Pomona (and Stanford for financial reasons). Macalester, a low match/high safety, was also very attractive because so few LACs offer a program in linguistics. My parents wanted me to apply to more Northeastern LACs, but I didn’t find many that I liked more than (the less selective, especially for Asians) Midwestern LACs.</p>
<p>Wrt OP–I believe there was a thread a while back on choosing a lower-ranked school over a higher-ranked one… aha.
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/791581-why-did-your-kid-turn-down-clearly-higher-ranked-college.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/791581-why-did-your-kid-turn-down-clearly-higher-ranked-college.html</a></p>
<p>Keillexandra, congrats on Swarthmore.
Would you mind breaking down the $20k/yr into a bit more detail ? I am curious what costs you have included, how you treated loans, and whether need based grants were part of the package.</p>
<p>^I PM’ed you.</p>
<p>My DS is also. Pitt was a safety - visited it when he visited CMU which he hated - and loved it. That and full tuition scholarship made Pitt the #1 choice.</p>
<p>i havent seen anyone choose a safety over HYPSMC yet…</p>
<p>I’m probably going to my safety (University of Washington) over my reach (UChicago). It’s really hard to turn down Chicago, but I think UW is more of what I want in a college experience.</p>
<p>My D also chose her safety – University at Buffalo (SUNY) over four much more highly ranked acceptances, including Brown and Penn. It was not primarily a financial decision (she had a couple of decent financial packages that would have made several other options doable for our family). Still, there is no question that financially it has given her many more options and choices, and she will graduate debt-free. Originally UB was just the SUNY she put on the list because she felt she needed a SUNY on her list, she wanted a large university, and she liked the look of UB best of the four SUNY university centers. She visited all of the schools she applied to and liked them all, but something just clicked for her at Buffalo. Happy and thriving sophomore, and still thinks she made the right choice for her.</p>
<p>If you base your reach on nothing but prestige, and you don’t think you’d be happy at the school, then you’d definitely want to go to the safety.</p>
<p>I’m choosing my safety, Georgia Tech, over Cornell for engineering. The programs are comparable, and GT is MUCH cheaper with the HOPE scholarship and all. If I had money from Cornell, I would choose it hands down, but I dont. Maybe I’ll end up there for grad school or something. Who knows</p>
<p>also, it’s not like all the hard work you put into high school goes to waste if you choose a safety. You will be benefiting from that background all through college no matter where you go.</p>
<p>Hello all, I am new to this and i am having a lot of issues posting. Can someone write back to tell me the steps. Thank you. Also I am a student with a learning disability, and i am looking for a small Christian college with good supports. I already have my associate degree. I do not know yet but i am looking into Occutational therapy. Pleas if any one of you have an idea let me know. Because right now i am attending all women college in Albany, but i am not geting the supports that i need to be successful.
Have a nice day and may God blest you all</p>
<p>
What do the M and C stand for, MIT and Columbia? Or Caltech?
Ok, but then for the rest of your post you talked about alums from Harvard, UChicago, and prestigious programs run through schools like CalTech. Aren’t these all expensive undergrad schools?</p>
<p>You also mentioned not paying for prestige, but then stated you’re willing to pay up to $20k/year - so aren’t you paying for prestige then? You didn’t imply your daughter was getting a full ride at a State flagship. I guess what you meant is you think it’s stupid to pay $50k/year for prestige - my parents would agree with this. I suppose everyone has a different “cut off” number. </p>
<p>I ended up going to a private top 30 college for about $18k/year after scholarships. This is slightly more expensive than my state college, but I think it’s worth it. I think the luckiest people are the ones with great state flagships like UVA, William and Mary, UNC-Chapel Hill, UCLA, etc.</p>
<p>I’m choosing University of Alaska over Harvard. I want to become a polarbearologist someday.</p>