<p>Our D was accepted into the engineering program at Carnegie Mellon Univ for this fall semester. Their engineering program is ranked #8 by USN&WR. She decided to turn down their offer in favor of a local state university (probably a 3rd tier school) that offered her a full academic scholarship. We were willing to pay for her to go wherever she wanted to. However, she realized that it didn't make sense for us to pay $220,000.</p>
<p>I was curious how many parents have sons or daughters who turned down an offer to a top tier college in favor of going to a 2nd or 3rd tier college that offered them a scholarship? Our D is probably in the top 5% of students at her university, but I believe she will still receive a quality education.</p>
<p>my son took a full ride here in state, he had great merit from 12 other schools some ranked higher… but he is still at a tier 1… He is receiving an excellent education, wonderful research opportunities, wonderful leadership positions, incredible access to professors, loves his honors program …he had a chance to work for the summer at a school he had been accepted to and really wanted to go to and received merit from but would have had 80K left to pay… came home after the summer saying his current school actually had more to offer him.</p>
<p>My D turned down a few top colleges to accept a full ride to our state flagship. Happy to report she is loving it. Her plan is to head to law school, so she could not pass up the opportunity of a free undergrad and her 529 continuing to grow for 4 more years.</p>
<p>She has a great group of peers in the same scholarship program and is enjoying the honors classes she is taking. She is more than happy with her choice.</p>
<p>I’ll be honest, after all my time here at CC, I still don’t know the difference between a 1st and 2nd tier school. </p>
<p>My son did turn down a school in top 30 as ranked by USNEWS to attend a school ranked in the 60s on a full tuition scholarship. Part of it was financial, most of it was fit. He’s in the honors college and absolutely loves his university. </p>
<p>My husband attended a state school (not the flagship) on an ROTC scholarship. He was able to rise unfettered through the ranks until he chose to retire and is now in a top rated doctoral program. </p>
<p>So, we put a lot of emphasis on fit during our son’s college search. I’ve always believed that a attending a school with a high ranking would be cold comfort is the student is unhappy. Of course, you don’t really know if it’s a good fit until they start, so it’s all a bit of a gamble.</p>
<p>D3 turned down a couple of “top” conservatories for a full scholarship at a less prestigious one. She’s beginning her second year there. Musically, she’s getting a terrific experience and it’s a great fit. Academically, the school where the conservatory is located isn’t such a good fit, but she’s become involve with honors classes, which has helped. She’ll graduate without debt, which we hope will allow her to pursue music as her day job rather than having to find something just to pay the bills.</p>
<p>My youngest had to turn down her first choice of school because she couldn’t afford to go there. It broke her heart at the time, but she has made good friends and is doing very well at her second choice school. Once she passes her licensure exams it won’t matter what school she attended.</p>
<p>My older daughter only applied to state schools because of our income. She was a B student and knew she wouldn’t get enough assistance or merit scholarship from the out of state school she wanted to attend. Now she’s engaged to a guy who did attend that school…</p>
<p>S turned down a top-15 and several other top-50 schools for our state flagship (which unfortunately offers very little merit aid even for top students).</p>
<p>He has no regrets though, and loves his school.</p>
<p>I would strongly advise her NOT to go to law school.</p>
<p>I base this advice not only on my own experience, but on the experiences of a myriad of friends and co-workers.</p>
<p>There is a VAST over-supply of lawyers.</p>
<p>I routinely warn people on CC who talk about going to law school not to do it.</p>
<p>I know you probably don’t want to hear this unsolicited advice, but if I saw your daughter was crossing the street, and was about to get run over by a bus, I am sure you would want me to warn her, right?</p>
<p>Anyway, best of luck to your daughter, but consider yourself warned.</p>
<p>If you want to hear more, then email me. Not trying to be a party pooper to your daughter’s plans, but you should know the WHOLE story and the REAL story.</p>
<p>My cousin was national merit finalist, valedvictorian of a very large public high school and ended up with a full ride to a state university…not 1st tier either. I was shocked but she loves it and it has a good physics and science dept. Her major.:)</p>
<p>My son turned down a top 20 school to go to our state school. I wished we could have been able to afford the other school, however the difference in cost would have been around $25k a year incremental to what we are currently paying for the state school. </p>
<p>I asked him when he was home last week if he had any regrets. He is having so much fun and enjoying his classes. Although he is in a very large school, he is in a small program which is perfect for him. He meets with the deans of his college one or two times a week. He has a lot of interaction with upper classmates. He likes his roommate and the people on his floor. </p>
<p>So far, no major regrets. I am glad we didn’t strain ourselves financially. He is happy.</p>
<p>D turned down Tufts because the bottom line was quite a bit more than her other options. She did graduate from a top 20, but her first choice was Tufts. We just couldn’t justify the extra expense, as it would have involved borrowing (we are not borrowers). She ended up very happy with her choice.</p>
<p>S turned down a wonderful school that he really liked - not top 20, but an excellent private school. Again, we just couldn’t afford it comfortably. He chose an instate school with a good merit scholarship. He ended up leaving that school & is at a local U as he decides where to go next. However, there is no regret at turning down the school he liked best. We just don’t believe that the value added is worth borrowing when we don’t need to do so … he does have affordable options.</p>
<p>Everyone is different, and there is no right or wrong. Families have to decide what works best for them. There is no one best school (at the risk of offending those who think there is ;)).</p>
<p>My son also was accepted into Carnegie Mellon engineering (I don’t believe they offered him much financial aid) and USC (half off tuition) but half off would have still been a stretch for us. So he ended up at Berkeley with no merit aid at all (even being a National Merit finalist doesn’t count for anything at Cal) but it was definitely the right choice for him and he loves it. Finances played a part in that decision; we’re saving on travel costs as well.</p>
<p>Yes. D was accepted by a good number of schools where $ was too much to look forward to. Particularly Stevens, (a six year program that had Law School built in at NY Law, but after scholarships the $220K+ at the end was a little much to look forward to. :…-{</p>
<p>Not sure if this is a compromise – many students would choose Berkeley over USC at the same price, or see Berkeley versus CMU to be a toss-up at the same price, so if Berkeley costs less, it would win for these students.</p>
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<p>Isn’t New York Law School the lower tier but expensive law school that recently got unfavorable attention in the news?</p>
<p>Younger s turned down a top 20 for a top 50 for financial reasons. Turns out the major he changed to (engineering) wouldn’t have been available at the top 20, had he gone there. This past summer he took classes and lived at the local flagship tech school, and while he did well (better than many of the fulltime tech students) he is glad he did not go there fulltime. So all in all it worked out for the best.</p>
<p>The only one of our kids who applied to schools we couldn’t afford was the oldest, and that was only because we had no idea what we were doing in setting the financial parameters for her list. She applied to a couple of need-only schools “just to see” what her finaid offers might be. This was foolish on her parents’ part because the finaid calculators made perfectly clear what her offers would be, and we knew that the full price was beyond what we could pay.</p>
<p>No huge deal because she was left with several great and affordable options. The decision isn’t always between a full-fare top tier school and scholarships at 2nd or 3rd tier ones (and who knows how those tiers are defined, anyway?). Sometimes a kid qualifies for merit aid at a school that’s deemed top tier. Sometimes a kid is lucky enough to be from Virginia or Michigan or CA or another state where the public flagships are deemed top tier. Sometimes the parents can afford a pricey, top tier OOS public but not the full fare at a need-only school.</p>
<p>floridadad55 I feel like you have your last post ready to paste at a moments notice LOL. </p>
<p>My D is set on taking the LSAT regardless of all the gloom and doom. However, unless she gets into a very top school with a scholarship or financial assistance she will not go to Law School. I think kids who have been following law, and planning on being a lawyer since second grade still want to be a lawyer in spite of the current climate. </p>
<p>OK, sorry to stray waaaayyyyy off the topic here.</p>