Your child is an excellent student and has been accepted to Ivy or very selective colleges as well as safety and match schools. Have any of you ever made the “unpopular to some” decision of sending your child to a ‘safety’ school? Why did you do it and do you have any regrets? How did your child feel about this decision?
Yes. They got over it very quickly.
They are now thriving and will graduate debt-free.
Zero regrets.
@OhiBro - thank you. While all decisions have not come in yet, I have been taking a closer look at one of her EA schools which is in state but far enough away for her to stay on campus and have the campus experience. It would avoid expensive hotel stays, flights/transportation costs during visits and honestly, I am hoping for merit $ as she has received with 3 EA’s so far but we can pretty much afford this school with very little assistance and no loans.
Several people on CC said my D made the wrong choice by turning down Harvard. We, however, have zero regrets. She goes to a match school on a full ride. She is getting an excellent education, has grown a lot, has had more opportunities than she can take advantage of, has excellent relationships with profs, made great friends, and is having a fun and balanced college experience. As a junior, she already has an excellent full time job lined up, has traveled the world, and has a lot of money in the bank from her internships and scholarships. We call this winning.
Not to Ivy caliber but certainly to competitive engineering programs more well known than the school he chose. We made the unpopular decision to say “this is the budget and those schools will require you to take out loans” rather than stretching our household budget to fund the higher ranked school. He graduates in May with a job he is excited about, car, and a very small amount of debt. We are ALL thrilled.
Not unpopular to our DD but in the world of CC it was the “unpopular” decision. She loved her safety and is loving it now after a few years. It has not stopped her from success and she has opportunities beyond belief. She was admitted to much higher ranked and more “popular” schools with greater name recognition and she did not submit to many higher ranked matches and reaches for everyone but where according to Naviance and personal experience from our school she would have had at least a chance. No regrets. No impact on success or happiness. We don’t spend our life looking in the rear view mirror or playing the “could have” “should have” or “might have” games.
It seems most of the decisions above were made on finances. Curious to know if any were made on fit. (Although they would all have been reaches of course, my D scrapped the few original top 20 schools on her list because after visiting, because she didn’t like what (she perceived as) the hyper-competitive vibe on campus.)
Ours wasn’t a financial decision as in Harvard was not affordable. We’re fortunate in that I could afford to pay for any school. I just don’t think any is worth $80k/yr and we would have been full pay at Harvard. The fact that I could afford it is why certain posters on here had the nerve to tell me I was shortchanging my DD. Some have an attitude that every student should go to the highest ranked school they get into, which is not a philosophy either my daughter or I share. It was ultimately a fit decision since my DD much prefers the big state school experience with big time sports, school spirit, and a non-competitive atmosphere. Harvard was her “what if” app and it was easy for her to turn it down.
We are a full-pay family and therefor had the ‘hard discussion’ before applications began. Our daughter had the stats and ECs and ‘package’ for certain highly selective admissions, but we had long decided we wouldn’t pay for those schools.
Those conversations were very hard last Spring, even though we had been upfront for years about the budget. Children will often think ‘Maybe there is a way’ no matter how clear you are in giving parameters. It is difficult when friends/peers are applying (and getting accepted) to Harvard, Duke, Notre Dame, etc and you are realizing that you won’t be adding your name to the list of kids going to schools that make other people go, “Wow!” even though you are equally wonderful.
She chose not to apply to the dream school because she thought it would be too painful to get the yes, knowing there was no way we were going to agree to the bill. She didn’t want to mourn dream school twice.
Funny thing is that the school she ended up applying to ED [great recruiting push on the part of the school] has become her ‘dream’ school. It had everything she wanted in a school, except location, and the school is just as excited to have her attend (top merit offer) as she is to go.
As she listens to her friends dealing with unaffordable acceptances and trying to recalibrate their application strategies midstream, as friends who made the choice to stretch financially to afford schools at their family’s financial limits talk to her during winter break about how stressful it is to make the money work each year - she is fully realizing the advantages of going to a school she likes, where she will graduate debt free, can afford to study abroad, won’t have to work for pay during the school year unless she wants to, trying new things without worrying about cost.
She is going to be able to fully utilize the resources at the school she will be attending, and while it was a ‘safety’ for her admission and a ‘match’ for her merit hunt, it really has become the dream of what she hoped college could be.
She has several pieces of ‘chosen school’ spirit wear and loves when people ask her about her school. Her clear enthusiasm in sharing why she is excited about her chosen school has led to many smiles when talking to parents, teachers and friends and she has actually received a ton of “Wows!”.
The question I have is why even apply if you had no intention of your student attending? For bragging rights?
My D20 didn’t even apply to any ivies as they were not a good fit for her. I can’t imagine her applying to an ivy just to turn it down because she never had any intention to matriculate.
Yes, we forced our kid to take the full ride to an OOS public U because the sexy more selective schools were not affordable without stupid crazy borrowing on the level of Worst Decision Ever Made.
It was very hard on her. Five students from her school, including her, were admitted to her #1 choice and she was the only one not to matriculate.
Then, one of her besties from HS transferred there sophomore year.
Then (!!) she recently forwarded an email from the dream school acknowledging that she turned them down for UG, but since according to their records she is about to graduate, how about grad school?
Oh come on! Sigh.
I think the biggest mistake families make is not being clear very early on what the budget is and whether any particular school is financially feasible. I don’t think it’s fair to the child to apply and be accepted to a school with no prior discussion on whether it is financially feasible. We’ve had a few acquaintances who didn’t realize that the UCs for example didn’t provide financial aid to OOS students until after the child had received the glorious acceptance and the financial reality was much, much more difficult. My husband and I had long and hard discussions on whether we were comfortable being full pay when we knew merit was possible. Those discussions should happen EARLY - not after the kid has fallen in love with a school and spent time and energy applying. It’s also not fair when they MAY have other options. One of my daughter’s friends last year learned that her parents would not pay OOS tuition period - she chose to compete for a ROTC scholarship and picked a school that would allow her to go out of state. These types of decisions aren’t possible if the student is informed in March or April about what the parents are willing to spend.
D2 made this decision because higher ranked school would have required a 5th year to get certified as a teacher and the school she chose let her do it in 4.
My son had multiple T20 options, including an Ivy, and chose an OOS flagship (“Public T20”) that is higher ranked for his major, with a much larger department and much wider variety of courses, than any of the more prestigious schools. He is currently a sophomore and has already taken multiple 300 & 400 level courses that are beyond the highest level courses offered in his major at many T20 privates, and he will be able to start taking graduate courses as a junior. His school also offers several uncommon foreign languages he is interested in, as well as an unusual minor that was not available at any of his other options.
Finances were only an issue to the extent that any cash he saves during undergrad is his to use in the future for grad school, travel, buying a home, or whatever. His grandparents set up a fund for him at birth which would have covered 4 years at an Ivy or any other private school, but it made no sense to him to spend $300K more for a school that actually offers less — fewer faculty, fewer course options, fewer opportunities for undergrad research, fewer choices for foreign languages, and no option for his preferred minor. He got everything he was looking for in a school, gets to attend for free, and will have an amazing nest egg when he graduates. Couldn’t ask for a better outcome than that.
It wasn’t unpopular - we all agreed. DD went to a school on a full ride instead of her dream school - Vanderbilt that offered her very little in scholarship. She graduated debt free and actually has saved enough (from her part time job) to pay for the first year of medical school. I think she probably would have enjoyed her dream school more but not 250,000 more! Yes, she also chose a less expensive medical school where the tuition is much less. She will graduate from med school with very little debt. Win/Win in my book.
Is this kind of thing common? How long do schools keep records of applicants who don’t matriculate?
I agree with this. I’ll also add “in a more perfect world”.
We did run the NPCs on all the schools on our kids’ application list. She did get a heads up that 3 schools on her list would likely be unaffordable. She wanted to apply to them anyway, and the college counselor at her private HS was on her side.
I made an error when I first ran the NPCs, making the schools appear more affordable. When I found and fixed the error, the estimated COA shot up. Then, I re-did the NPCs with an anticipated increase in our income and, more importantly, took our older kid out of college for the younger one’s 2nd, 3rd, and 4th years. That did it. Solidly, without a question, unaffordable. But this was all happening during application season. Our older kid was easy! Community college then the in-state flagship. Done.
I think there was some wishful thinking on our kid’s part. I’m not sure about that, but I got the sense that she was hoping IF she got in, we’d “make it happen”. She had two friends at school who were not from affluent families and both of them were accepted to Top 20s and received amazing need-based aid. I can see where that might be confusing to an 18 yo who knows her family isn’t poor, but knows her family is also not rich (like many of her classmates).
On my part, I looked at the dismal acceptance rate and figured the school might just do the dirty work for me. Nope. She got in.
I will say that lucky for all of us, she had all her decisions in by Xmas. We were able to rip the band-aid off early and she had all the second semester of HS to get used to the idea.
Nevertheless, she was unhappy most of freshman year at her university. Now, she calls that city “home” and is busy filling out grad school applications.
I will also like to add that she was a handful senior year of HS. We had her in therapy, paying out of pocket for the most skilled person we could find in our area. She was so mad at us about…whatever teens are mad at their parents for…I was really beginning to question the value of her going to one of the full tuition schools over the full ride school. Would it make a difference in her ultimate education and contentedness with life? It would still be a lot of money for us (room and board, plus travel).
So while for a short time, there did appear to be a “choice” for her between OOS public universities, it quickly became apparent to me the wise decision was the full ride school.
I hope sharing our story can help others!
I think it’s really dependent on the kid, the fit, and the career goals. We have two kids. One we decided to go the full pay ,highly selective school because we feel the combination of outstanding everything at the school AND his chosen field which will very likely yield a high paying first job and great career launch.
2nd child is in the application process now. She’s a performing artist. We will only be looking at lower cost schools, or ones that will give her outstanding merit (she’s quite bright) because her career goals will not line up well with payng off debt. We can afford to pay more but are looking to pay about half of what the other kid’s school cost. She won’t have any debt. She won’t have to work during the school yr. She won’t have to work over the summer (so she can do summer stock theater).
Again, totally kid dependent in my mind.
We mostly did this prior to sending in applications. The main issue was budget. We set a budget and insisted that they stick to it. The main casualties were highly ranked New England LACs which were not affordable for us.
One also turned down an higher ranked less expensive university (McGill) because she wanted to stay in the US and felt that a different school was a better fit.
Both ended up being very happy where they ended up and getting a great education. D1 is now very happy to have graduated with no debt.
Are you or your kid choosing?
If you are choosing a different college from what your kid wants, is it due to cost?
If it is due to cost, did you inform your kid that the net price limit is $X before s/he applied, and that s/he needs the net price to be $X or lower to be able to attend?