Ohio State, Michigan, Cornell engineering certainly can be in the "same sentence. " Great things are definitely happening at all these schools. Undergraduate engineering is fairly egalitarian, and he can do well coming out of any of these schools if he applies himself and embraces opportunities. Cornell seems to have been put on a pedestal, which may backfire if you really don’t want to pay. Best to sort out what you truly want to pay before applications go out.
Like @calmom , I remain confused by your posts.
So you are saying that you are fine paying for and sending him to Cornell … AND that if he gets accepted to Cornell, you will be happily sending him there without asking him to weigh the financials … BUT you just are worried as a parent that he will be disappointed with result so you are trying to find a way for him to work up some enthusiasm for his safety as well?
Because if THAT is the concern, I have some advice from a been-there, done-that perspective. And that’s to keep your mouth shut but keep on doing your own research and file away all the great things about OSU so you’ve got your arsenal ready in April.
My daughter – who did NOT have the stats – also had reachy dreams but firm safeties within our state U. system. And she definitely had witnessed and was keenly aware of college admission results among the students the year ahead of her — so she knew very well that kids aim high, get disappointed, and end up at the less-prestigious campuses within our extensive UC state system. I’m sure she “knew” in her heart of hearts that she was likely to end up at UC Santa Cruz or Santa Barbara, and not at Univ. of Chicago or Barnard where her stats were well below the norm.
So like you, I wanted to prepare her for disappointment by extolling the virtues of the the safeties.
Guess what? The college admission season is full of surprises. The dream schools said yes, Barnard’s need-based aid exceeded my most wishful expectations … and eventually there was a post-season, hindsight discussion - and here is what my daughter told me:
My efforts had frustrated her and caused her greater anxiety. She “heard”, over and over again, that even her own mom didn’t have faith in her and assumed she would fail in her aspirations. She wanted a cheering squad from her mom and instead she got Debbie Downer.
And that made me sad, because I realized that for the bulk of her senior year I had behaved in a way that undermined the quality of our relationship during the very last year of our lives when we would live together under the same roof.
So here’s the advice: our kids are resilient, and any kid who has a reasonable chance of admission to Cornell is smart. (Especially for a kid wanting to study engineering – he can do the math himself as to his chances without your help). So if the answer is NO in the spring, it won’t be all that much of a surprise, and your son will bounce back. You can give him a couple of days to digest the news and then fall back on your filed away tidbits about OSU and let them drip out as “new discoveries”. “Did you know?” “Look what I just found online!” etc. Or even… “I heard about ___ at OSU but I’m not sure I understand what it means… can you look at this web page and tell me what you think?”
And yes, next April will also be a very good time to mention that with the money you will be saving, you can finance some extras. My planned consolation prize for my daughter – which I never mentioned – was that I was planning to allow her to take her car to college for the in-state schools.
But for now, stay away from “convincing” – because it detracts from the fun of the anticipation that goes into applying to those reaches – and can send unintended messages.
And again – if that is not the case – if there really is some financial line that can’t be crossed — then that’s the part that has to be explained clearly and directly well in advance.
But sounds like your daughter got need based aid that made Barnard possible? It doesn’t seem like the OP is thinking need based aid is in the cards for the reaches. I agree that it may be a good idea for the financial line(if there is one), being clearly communicated. And then let it go. And don’t encourage applications to schools that you may be unwilling to pay for , conflicted about paying for, or resentful about paying for. Good advice to sort things out “well in advance”, @calmom .
@sevmom. The OSU and Michigan not being in the same sentence was a joke. It has to do with the football rivalry and it very well known by people familiar with either school.
Let me try to be explicit to clear things up for you. Somewhere in this string someone suggested that we were worried about having to pay full freight. I never said that. We do not have financial constraints assuming no school costs more than its list price.
My son has very, very diligently researched colleges - Completely based on the academic quality of the program (as he defines academic quality). However, he acknowledges that the differences between the programs he likes are small. He also is fully aware of the other benefits, outside of the actual curriculum, an Ivy League/top tier school would bring him. None of those things override his quest for type of curriculum he wants for his major; they are a bonus, but a significant one. All current schools in his small list fill that requirement. If they didn’t, they would not be on the list.
He will certainly be accepted by OSU. He will most probably not get into each of the other schools, as they are a reach for almost anyone.
So, it is really very simple. A likely scenario is he will not get into any school but OSU. He is very aware of this. And this will sting - He will be going to the same college as many of the kids he tutored in math in high school. His brain knows it doesn’t matter. But his heart will not be so rational. It will be disappointing, for sure, and we are trying to find ways, now that we know more about his list, to explain to him the benefits he would get, outside of OSU, that we would happily pay for. The price differential would be more than $50k a year. Quite the gap. And that could fund the living expenses for any summer internship he found which was otherwise unfunded. Of all of the other things we suggested (semester abroad anywhere he wanted to go, not restricted by where his college sends kids, for example) did not excite him. Realizing that there would be plenty of money to fund an internship that was unpaid DID excite him. Neither he or his dad and I have a clue if such things even exist. But the idea hat there could be really awesome unpaid internships that he could take because there would be plenty of money to fund them by us, finally got his attention. He would feel compelled to earn money during all breaks if his parents were paying $72k a year for him to go to college; no way he would ever take a dime from us other than tuition and room/board. Heck, he won’t even let us give him money now and he’s still a minor.
I think our situation is unusual for CC, but it isn’t difficult to comprehend.
Most engineering internships tend to be paid, so hopefully he can find one of those. If not, he is lucky that you will fund him if he wants to do an unpaid internship. Good luck with the applications.
But why now? If you would be happy to pay full freight to Cornell – why not just hold all those positives about OSU in reserve for AFTER you know results (unless you want to deter him from applying to Cornell in the first place – which you say isn’t the fact).
If your son gets waitlisted or rejected from Cornell (or whatever other reaches are on his list) he will be disappointed. But at that time it won’t be a Cornell vs. OSU discussion, or a point/counterpoint.
Seems like an opportunity to get a job at the tutoring center since it will be getting students who need help at math…
@momofsenior1, @cypresspat To clarify, I do believe that brand name colleges with money are able to leverage their names with summer internship programs abroad to offer more of that type of programs. Now, is that worth the difference in the costs? Probably not, even definitely not. The fact is no one will be able to say with 100% certainty that they made the right choice. I fully admit that some kids at University of South Carolina may be even more motivated than Stanford kids, and if you are really motivated kid, it shouldn’t matter which college you go to – I hinted at this in my post – but my kid is one of those kids who needs to be surrounded by very motivated kids to be more motivated himself because he certainly wasn’t that greatly motivated in his high school. The bottom line is this: I let my kid decide for himself. Actually, in our case, the circumstance pretty much made the decision for us. You see, he was offered a really good gap year program abroad after high school (free etc.), and public college would not hold his spot for him with the same scholarship money, whereas Stanford made it very easy to take a gap year and delay his attendance for one year.
I know one kid who wanted to go to Air Force Academy because he thought it would be cool and would like it but ended up not liking his experiences there at all. But he hung in there, and now after many years later, he is proud to be an alumnus of the Air Force Academy. It just goes to show you you don’t have to love your college experience to appreciate the experience later on. Heck, I didn’t like my Cornell experience even though it was pretty much free for me because it was just too cold, and I was relatively a country bumpkin kid from VA. I still don’t like my Cornell experience but I have some friends who wax about their Cornell days and attend many alumni meetings.
Bottom line: college is just a college. I don’t think going to a particular college is going to destroy or break a kid, or create a some sort of fairy tale life for the kid. At any college, you have to grind through classes, homework etc. and you have to learn to get through some kids you don’t like etc.
Let me tell you, I was even concerned whether Stanford would be a right fit for our kid, but he seemed to have grown pretty sanguine about his college experience. He told me that during first Quarter, he often had to mentally pinch himself to realize that he really was at Stanford, but after second Quarter, he just learned to grind through and utilize his time as well as he could. But he tells me he feels at home and happy at Stanford, even though he realizes it’s not perfect there.
@cypresspat Let me tell you about one actual experience of one person I know who majored in engineering at Cornell. He was a very good engineering student and had no problem getting 3.9+ GPA at Cornell engineering, but he ended up not liking it too much and changed his major to Hotel Management. He went abroad and worked as a manager at some well-known hotel where he met many business contacts who visited that country from other countries, and one company recruited him as a VP to sell a very well known product (now well known but back then not so well known), which ended up doing very well. He received an exclusive license to distribute that product in that country when he left his VP position and he ended up making a killing from that product and other products he managed to acquire exclusive distribution rights in that country. A long story short: the guy is anywhere between 200 Million USD to 400 Million USD worth now and is growing richer every year. Among my acquaintances, which includes CalTech, Cornell, Harvard and MIT graduates, this guy made the most money. The fact that Cornell was strong in pretty much every field of studies really turned out to be useful, and I also wanted to send my kid to a college which had very strong programs across the board, from engineering, social science areas and Humanities departments. Since I went to Cornell, I can definitely say that Cornell does have very strong programs across the board, including top Hotel Management, architect, etc. I know this because I changed my major something like 5 times because I hated every major I studied; the fact that I graduated in 4 years albeit with lousy GPA is my biggest accomplishment. The only thing bad about Cornell is that it’s located in a really secluded area (relatively) and is darn cold. I am not joking that my happiest day at Cornell was when I graduated and got out of there with a degree. To be fair to Cornell, I would have hated any college because I just didn’t like and still don’t like to study in academic settings. I just like to learn by myself whatever interest I develop, which is one reason I was good at setting up my own business etc.
Re: internships. In fact, state flagships have the same access to the same internships as most of the private universities. In fact, it is easier at flagship universities, because universities like the Ivies really believe that their undergraduates will be going on to grad school. Look at the internship pages of university websites, and see what the process is, and how easy it is for a student to apply for internships.
large state schools usually have an easier time, since they have a larger and more reliably supply of undergraduates for internships. OSU has over 8,600 engineering students, and Cornell, the largest private engineering school, has 3,600. Which do people think has more graduates in engineering companies, and which will provide a more reliable stream of interns?
The reliability of a school in providing interns is also determined by the number of students who are likley to want or to need to intern for the pay. At Cornell, 52% of the students are NOT of the top 10%, while at OSU, it’s 75%. That is about 1,900 Cornell students in the socioeconomic class for who paid internships will provide an important part of their annual income, versus 6,500 or so from OSU. If we’re talking students who are not in the top 5%, that would be about 2,400 Cornell students, versus 7,500 OSU students.
Any boost provided by “reputation” of an expensive private college is offset by the numbers and reliability of large state universities.
There is also a much stronger push in many private big name universities to push students to do research internships in university settings (look at Princeton’s Engineering internship offerings as a good example of that).
Overall, I have seen that large public universities do a much better job at helping students find internships than the “big name” private universities.
Again, this is logical, since the “top” private colleges still mostly serve a population which is much less likely to need the money provided by internships, are much less likely to need the university to make the connections they need for both internships and jobs after graduation, and these colleges have more of an expectation that their students will obtain a job on the strength of the name of the college, and thus have less of a need for the boost provided by an industry internship.
@cypresspat This year was a very strange year for admissions at OSU. Take a gander at some of the comments on the OSU page here … many high stats kids were rejected or deferred to regional campuses. I’m not making a judgement on your kid, of course, but over the last couple years OSU admission, especially for popular majors such as engineering, has changed.
I don’t think OSU is anyone’s safety in the more popular majors.
Posters are getting the impression that you don’t want to pay ~$70k/year because of the statements you’re making. You can pay full freight but it doesn’t mean you want to, you’re looking for ways to bribe your son to choose OSU, there are financial lines you won’t cross, and if he gets rejected from Cornell you might even be happy about it. In one breath you say he knows there aren’t any cost limitations but in the next you say you never told him he could go wherever he wanted. Your position isn’t really clear.
If you allow your son to apply to one inexpensive safety and a bunch of expensive reach schools the impression you’re giving is that he can go wherever he wants and you’ll pay for it. If that’s not 100% the case then don’t let him apply.
If your concern is that he’ll get rejected everywhere and be disappointed with OSU just because kids from his high school who he tutored in math might also go there then he needs an attitude adjustment. It doesn’t have anything to do with how much OSU offers but how smart he thinks he is in relation to the other students. There are plenty of smart kids everywhere. I doubt the engineering students at OSU are academic slouches. If he won’t be satisfied with OSU then it’s not a true safety. If he really thinks OSU is the best school for his major if he’s rejected from all his reaches then you don’t have a problem.
What are your plans if he’s rejected from all his reaches and OSU rejects him because they think it’s his safety? He really needs a couple of match schools. I wouldn’t let any applications to reach schools go out until he applied to a decent range of safety and match schools.
@cypresspat. I have not read anything but your fist post and will read the rest later… Too early for popcorn ?lol but we had a mix of this situation. Long story… We made lots of mistakes in this process a few years back and my daughter got accepted to her number 1 with little merit compared to her number 2 with merit it just didn’t make sense. She is entering her senior year with no debt that might not of been done with number 1,money in the bank (she does work as well and hates when I pay for things related to school) and a Ira account that we were able to put money into.
My son, whose at Michigan for engineering is like your son. He wants to study among his peers that have similar scores/Stats /intellectual curiosity. He is OOS for Michigan. It has been worth sending him there on every level.
But he didn’t think he would do study abroad either like why would he ever… Right?
Well, he was in France with 15 from Michigan engineering and 15 from 2 other schools with some from China. He had like the best time!!! On the weekends they went to Brussels and Amsterdam
and some other place. He discovered things about himself and tried different things that really pushed his envelope Seemed like all the engineering students did. He took a 2 classes there with one being engineering but had tons of free time and they explored different area’s of France as part of the program. Like learning about D-day while actually at Normandy… Cool.
For his second part of the summer he is doing an international engineering internship.
Turned down Maserati? Maybe holding out for Ferrari ?.
So also Cornell is a hard get5. Many at our Michigan’s parent day kids applied there and are at Michigan. My son also applied, had the interview that went really well then the rejection letter ?. Honestly we can’t see him anywhere else then where he is at right now.
You have a stellar flagship (even saying that coming from a Michigan fan). People don’t understand how great the big ten is for future employment. Kinda silly to spend a lot extra for little ROI.
So now I read the whole thread. The cool part of being a parent is that you can actually be the parent.
After making spreadsheets with the kids it was pretty obvious the costs etc.
We told our kids… You don’t get accepted anywhere your going to community College. If you get accepted to one school that’s where your going. You get accepted to more then one, then you have a choice, If we can afford it!
They knew we can afford just about any school but we are not willing to touch our retirement and had 529 money that was a little over half their schooling without merit. We knew we would pay the rest from current income. . My daughter helped us out by getting merit then switching schools and getting over half merit… ?
My son does get some aid maybe since we have two in college which made our OOS choice a no-brainer for us.
Since your kid likes researching stuff, have him look at the engineering out comes for Big Ten VS IVY including Cornell. A friend that is a college counselor showed this to us a few years back. Also in engineering companies the first year grads are from just about every school out there. Cornell grads in engineering will be paid the same as grads from Iowa State, Illinois Institute of Technology and even… Dare I say… Michigan. ?. All working side by side… OK maybe the Michigan /Ohio State kids a few further feet apart…lol.
My son is part of a group that he helped to restart that has members from Michigan, Stanford, USC, Berkeley, etc. No one seems to be superior. They all have fun, love augmented reality and it’s applications in the real world and laugh at all the stupid jokes and seem to all like pizza ??.
I think sometimes we overthink this… Alot.
OK… Now back from the dog walk since the temp dropped over 20 degrees from this weekend in Chicago.
I followed the Ohio State threads last year since I was part of a group giving a specific person advise for engineering. She had specific needs etc. Anyway, it seems for the like first time Ohio State like just about every other engineering program was rejecting some very accomplished high stats kids, that were instate. They thought it was a slam dunk. . We all think our 17/18 year-olds are smart enough but if OSU is his Only safety, he might be in for a rude awakening. We told my son to have safeties to his safeties. But they were also some very good engineering schools. My son is like your kid and trust me, rejection week can be cruel. Having a few acceptances before hand doesn’t hurt no matter what he’s telling you now. Just some friendly advise.
https://oaa.osu.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/irp/cds/columbus/IRP_CDS_2018-2019_Columbus.pdf (section C7) indicates that OSU does not use “level of applicant’s interest” in admissions. However, it does use a number of other subjectively graded criteria like extracurricular activities, talent/ability, character/personal qualities, etc., and it is possible or likely that the engineering division is more competitive than the school overall.
OP, after digesting all of this really good advice and the many personal anecdotes posted here, you have to ask yourself ONE question: what is my desired outcome? If you are honest with yourself with the answer to this question, you will make sure that your actions support that desired outcome. So many times, people do not ask themselves this (or lie to themselves), and then are shocked when their actions do not achieve what they thought it should.
This desire for your son to be “happy” is very elusive - are we talking “happy” now? Forever? In the future? And what is “happiness”? Is it him getting his heart’s desire of a fully-funded education at a private full-pay institution? Or is it him completing a program, earning his degree, and successfully launching into the world with a career that helps him meet his personal and financial goals? These things don’t have to be mutually exclusive. However, if keeping your own financial planning on track is part of that equation, they may be.
What are the kid’s ambitions in life?
I don’t have much to add, firstly, I believe at tOSU, engineering applicants now must apply EA, as that major has become more and more competitive over time. So looking at just general tOSU admit statistics might not give you a perfect idea of chances for engineering admit.
Second, this thread reminds me of a phenomenon in my town, which is very close to tOSU. It’s a great, great choice, and kids from all over the country would love to go there! But to some of our best and brightest here locally, it seems like a letdown, because it’s the school 5 minutes away, that EVERYONE loves and EVERYONE wants to go to, etc, etc…so in a students’ world where there seem to be unlimited possibilities around the country, going to the school next door can make it seem less desirable, simply because it’s so known/common/ maybe even “generic” (I fully realize that it is not, and it’s highly desirable). For these kids, it is the best option…program wise, and yes financially, but when faced with their peers applying to those exciting other names, or Ivies, it can seem less-than. In all of these cases that I know anecdotally, these kids have thrived at tOSU…applied to and gotten into honors, had a great experience, and wonderful career options at graduation. Just because it happens to be our state flagship (and aren’t we lucky) doesn’t mean that it cab very often be the best choice even without price differences, for certain kids and certain majors.
Now will any of this help your kid feel better about it, I doubt it. And in the cases I’m speaking of, it was usually a financial decision, parents made the call, that was that and again kid went on to thrive.
Lastly, you mention in some posts about the emotions of getting that acceptance letter, the thrill of being accepted to a higher caliber school, etc. But those are moments…and I think you mention that you know after a week, that’s over. And those emotional moments (highs and lows) are a part of ANY student’s college application experience, so they are par for the course…not necessarily something to base a decision on.
As for actual benefits that you are trying to build up for your son for tOSU, knowing that he responded to internships, I would say that staying in your home state with such a huge alumni network as tOSU would definitely have benefits in an internship search or just career networking. You can bump into an OSU grad pretty easily, that could be the connection you need for that amazing internship. Just think of your, or his circle of contacts right now…it’s possible that you already have some people in mind, whereas that would not be the case at a further away school.
Good luck!
OSU has become more competitive and harder to predict admissions, especially to engineering majors (and it’s hard to start those at most regional campuses). I’d have a safety (maybe Cincy or OU? Better one that has early action or rolling so the admit is in hand early) for that reason for sure, but then also, if he does get into OSU, that’s not “going to the safety” anymore. It’s going to OSU, the match that checked all the boxes.