<p>Wouldn’t it be great if we could add a 3rd dimension to Naviance called “actual cost after merit aid/grants that do not need to be paid back”? You could put in what you can actually pay out of pocket, and compare that to other students with similar grades/test scores to your kid to see how much they are paying. Wishful thinking, I know. 
But it would put it in perspective for kids like the OP’s D.</p>
<p>Would your daughter be amenable to a deal along the lines of she applies to 5 schools she chooses freely, and 5 schools she chooses from a list that you create? Then together create a spreadsheet including all of both your criteria, including financial…and a written out memo spelling out the acceptable financial bottom line…and the fact that any school on the spreadsheet that does not come in within the specified parameters is out of consideration.</p>
<p>This is similar to what we have sometimes done with our boys because it lessens the feeling of contention. Our picks both get considered, and the decision has to be made according to established criteria so no complaints about changing the rules of the game later on. And no complaints as long as the choice is made according to the established criteria.</p>
<p>blossom has characterized the situation perfectly. There are kids for whom everything is relative–a “not so smart” classmate getting into a particular college can be the death knell for the status-oriented kid who had previously considered that same school. I know one child who rejected an honors program she had been admitted to when she saw a Facebook post on a page for admitted students in which another kid revealed she was not good at math and only got X score on her ACT (with X being not that bad).</p>
<p>For the OP, maybe having her daughter intentionally seek out a few relatively unknown schools that have some interesting attributes and give her the chance to be the first to discover a “hidden gem” might help her overcome the perceived lack of prestige or brand recognition. She could start with the Colleges that Change Lives list or one of the other books that offer alternatives to the more popular choices among her peers.</p>
<p>Give her an exact amount of money you are willing to spend on her education (perhaps the cost of a nearby, state school) and tell her that she will have to find a way to pay everything else. And then enforce it! I’ve known for years that my Mom’s contribution to my education is the tuition benefit she gets from her work (which pays half of my tuition and fees basically anywhere) and then the federal and state governments will give me some in aid (I’m from a pretty low income household). That has motivated me to apply for scholarships and really think of ways to make and save money.
I also am a bit of a snob about prestige and would have loved to be able to tell people I went to JHU or Carnegie Mellon, but I decided to go to the University of Maryland for free rather than pay $20,000 of my own (which I obviously don’t have) at the other two. If you tell her you won’t pay and then you don’t, she’ll probably be very quick to change her mind!</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone on this thread for for your great advice :-). We have started with making DD run Net Price Calculator for schools on her list and it seems it’s already a bit of an eye-opener. We shall see. We also told her to add more safeties to her list (with suggestions) but no success on that front so far. It’s actually kind of weird… she is OK with her safety (the state flagship) but does not really want to look into any other potential safety, be it neighboring state U, or a generous private with not-so-great rating</p>
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This quote comes from the very first page of this thread but I just had to follow up on it. </p>
<p>I studied math and computer science in college and came to realize that the selectivity of the college had a HUGE impact on the academic standards in my field. Classes at a college with a median ACT score of 32 covered about three times the amount of material, worked on more meaningful assignments and had much more engaged and motivated students than the same class at a college with a median ACT score of 26. And their students took rather different post-graduation paths too. (My sample is 5 colleges I have attended myself, and many more colleges whose academics I discussed in depth with students and professors I met elsewhere.)</p>
<p>I don’t know to what extent this generalizes to other fields and whether that’s a concern for you family at all, but I did want to point out that “less selective” might actually translate into “bad” and not just “less prestigious.”</p>
<p>I understand that you are constrained by finances, but please do take a close look at the academic program at potential bargain colleges.</p>
<p>Of course less selective often signals a lesser academic experience. But, this depends on the major and the actual profs. It also depends on the sort of kid attracted there. I wonder if OP has taken D on some road trips. For a rising senior to just turn her nose up and say schools x and y are “bad,” suggests she needs to dig deeper and go have a look at various schools. I didn’t get the impression OP was suggesting 3rd or 4th tier colleges.</p>
<p>I get Blossom’s point- D1 didn’t want the flagship because it seemed too easy and many students there aren’t well-prepared (and, they didn’t have her major and the closest thing to it had one prof.) But plenty of those high dreamer classmates will end up outside the top tier. And, most of those will be proud enough (or act it.) It’s life.</p>
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Me neither. All colleges I have ever attended would appear in the first quarter of any ranking (1st tier??), but I did observe gigantic differences in their academic programs that were highly correlated with selectivity. Anyway, I think I’ve made my point and I’ll retire from this thread now.</p>
<p>There is probably a big difference between avg act of 26 and 32, but some schools that are “less selective” than the MOST prestigious might have avg ACT’s of 30 or so… I wouldn’t expect that much difference in those, and there might well be top kids there too.</p>
<p>^Some schools that are less selective still have very selective Honors colleges and other academic programs that could be as selective as Ivy’s. This results in student body in such programs consisting primarily of valedictorians or close to this status who decided to attend because of various benefits like full tuition / full ride Merit packages, great academic program, being close to home, plans for Grad. school,…etc. Do not underestimate the very top caliber kids in these programs as well as great academic challenges that they are presented with. I am talking about kids in top 2% with ACT=33+.</p>
<p>My post is not directed at OP, but for other parents who have younger students. The discussion of what kind of schools to consider should be started much earlier, I would think 9th grade is not too earlier.</p>
<p>We didn’t have finance to consider, but we started to come up with a list for D2 end of 10th grade, and it was done based on her preference (fit) and her stats. Her list was adjusted as we got more and more information about her - her GPA, test results. By the time, we came up with the final list, she completely “bought” into it. </p>
<p>If we had finance to consider, I would start laying it out on the table with my kid very early on 1) this is how much we could afford and these are few example of schools you could go to, 2) if you want to go to “more prestigious” schools then you’ll have to get merit aid (if not eligible for need based). If the first time the kid didn’t hear/understand it, then after 2-3 years of going over it, then he/she shouldn’t be surprised come senior year.</p>
<p>I have a feeling that it is a bit of a shock to OP’s D that she is going to have to settle for a lesser school. Most of our kids are used to getting what they want (iphone, ipad, xbox…), and it is not that hard for us to provide a lot of those things. But when it comes to college, it is 250k+ at full pay, not something parents could easily provide to make our kids happy. At the same time, kids are still thinking if they put enough pressure on their parents, maybe their parents will still come through.</p>
<p>The OP’s D should get some perspective about what a privilege it is to be going to college at all, and a dose of real life freakonomics. </p>
<p>The current new Yorker has a relevant article- “Why Are American Kids So Spoiled?”
[Why</a> Are American Kids So Spoiled? : The New Yorker](<a href=“http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2012/07/02/120702crbo_books_kolbert]Why”>Spoiled Rotten | The New Yorker)
The gist of the article is that we are raising a generation of indulged kids, expecting nothing from them, and thereby delaying their maturity. Sending them to their “dream school” no matter what the personal or financial cost to the family is an example.</p>
<p>State schools are generally more expensive for students now than privates are, if for no other reason than that the states don’t have any money to give for financial aid. Privates, conversely, especially the Ivies, have a lot of money.</p>
<p>there are a lot of academically oriented kids who dread the thought of having to attend one of the local U’s where the “stoner and slacker kids” end up. That doesn’t mean that the U has nothing to offer more academically ambitious kids; or that it doesn’t have great faculty, or that it doesn’t have some very strong programs. But it is hard to convince your kid that they’ll be able to make a new college life for themselves if in their minds they end up stuck with the kids they’ve avoided for the last four years.</p>
<p>I don’t think people are suggesting that the student commute to the local regional state school where flaky high school kids may go to. However, even if that happened (cuz that sometimes happens to great students), that doesn’t mean that the flaky kids will be the challenging majors that a hard-working student would choose. </p>
<p>I think people are suggesting that the student and parent identify a couple of more financial safeties (which does NOT mean the local regional state school)…it can mean finding merit scholarships at other very good schools where the flaky kids from the old high school won’t be. one of the local U’s where the “stoner and slacker kids” end up. That doesn’t mean that the U has nothing to offer more academically ambitious kids; or that it doesn’t have great faculty, or that it doesn’t have some very strong programs. But it is hard to convince your kid that they’ll be able to make a new college life for themselves if in their minds they end up stuck with the kids they’ve avoided for the last four years.</p>
<p>I don’t think people are suggesting that the student commute to the local regional state school where flaky high school kids may go to. However, even if that happened (cuz that sometimes happens to great students), that doesn’t mean that the flaky kids will be the challenging majors that a hard-working student would choose. </p>
<p>I think people are suggesting that the student and parent identify a couple of more financial safeties (which does NOT mean the local regional state school)…it can mean finding merit scholarships at other very good schools where the flaky kids from the old high school won’t be.</p>
<p>State schools are generally more expensive for students now than privates are, if for no other reason than that the states don’t have any money to give for financial aid. Privates, conversely, especially the Ivies, have a lot of money.</p>
<p>This can be true IF the family qualifies for lots of aid. If the family doesn’t, then a state school can be cheaper…especially if merit money is involved.
As for the ivies, since they represent a tiny % of privates, they shouldn’t be used as examples…especially since admittance is a crapshoot.</p>
<p>Classes at a college with a median ACT score of 32 covered about three times the amount of material, worked on more meaningful assignments and had much more engaged and motivated students than the same class at a college with a median ACT score of 26</p>
<p>I think that depends on the major. When you have large state flagships that offer 100s of majors ranging from “very difficult” to “football jock easy”, then looking at the median scores of the schools tells you nothing about what fellow students will be like if you pick a challenging major. You can’t really compare median scores from a large flagship with some small very-selective private and get any kind of fair and accurate conclusion based only on a number. </p>
<p>Very large publics/flagships can be like two different schools on one campus…with some of the students in “have time to party every night” majors, and the other half in “work my fanny off” hard majors. The median scores of the fanny-less students are going to be much higher than some lower reported scores of the entire school, therefore their profs do not have to dumb-down curriculum or go at some snails pace as suggested.</p>
<p>"The OP’s D should get some perspective about what a privilege it is to be going to college at all, and a dose of real life freakonomics. "</p>
<p>I agree, and we do our kids a disservice when we don’t dispel the notion that the only way to have a great college experience and a successful career is to go to an ivy. I think of all the professional people I know in my community - doctors, lawyers, business professionals, veterinarians, many allied health professionals, small business owners. People who enjoy a great deal of financial and personal success, but none went to an ivy or elite LAC. They went to state universities, or lower tier privates. I think of my husband and I. I’m sure our small, private, 3rd tier college would be looked on with disdain by many on CC, but our experience was great. I guess there were no rankings in the late 70’s, and I only applied to the one school. But my professors were smart, passionate, and opened my eyes to a larger world. And I was certainly challenged academically. Many of my classmates went on to medical school, law school, graduate school, and found ways to make a difference in the world. I suggest as I did in an earlier post that you take your daughter to visit some of the colleges that may not rank as high but would give her good merit aid. Making a judgement based solely on rankings may mean she misses some real gems.</p>
<p>“State schools are generally more expensive for students now than privates are, if for no other reason than that the states don’t have any money to give for financial aid. Privates, conversely, especially the Ivies, have a lot of money.”</p>
<p>-Not true in our state, by far. State schools still have lots and lots of privately funded Merit awards in addtion to state funding. I do not know anything about other state’s public vs privates.</p>
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This is one of the reasons we set a criteria of 1200 as the 75% SAT CR/M minimum. Perhaps another way in which op can help D to identify “bad” from “decent”.</p>
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<p>But who does this, anyway? Only people who are incredibly naive or are new to this country. In real life, everyone knows that you drive down the street of (insert nice neighborhood) and it’s not as though there aren’t plenty of successful people who went to whatever one’s state school is, or didn’t go to a fancy-schmancy college. I mean, really, duh.</p>
<p>Tptshorty: The New Yorker article you recommend is spot on. It should be required reading for all parents when their children start school. We parents do our children such a disservice by eliminating every obstacle in their way as they grow up. They need to learn to face adversity, whether it be on the soccer field, in the classroom or at home. A crucial part of developing into a responsible, self-sufficient adult comes from failure, learning from your mistakes, and realizing that the world will not stop spinning if you get a C in Biology, don’t score the winning goal in the big game or are unable to attend your “Dream School” because you cannot afford it or you just aren’t smart enough.</p>