I just started my second semester of junior year, and I’ve done a lot of college searching for the past few months or so. After running a couple NPCs, my parents and I have established that there’s a significant gap between their EFC (full pay) and what they are willing to pay (~25k/yr, instate flagship costs).
However, they want me to give equal consideration to schools that don’t offer merit (or where my stats would make merit a big reach) and to schools that do. I understand why one would visit schools regardless of merit offerings, just to get an idea of her likes and dislikes, but what’s the point of spending time and money researching and applying to schools that almost certainly would be unaffordable? They’re also encouraging me to look at schools where merit is more likely, but I’m afraid their current strategy is too optimistic, and that come April of 2017 I’ll have a few acceptances to unaffordable schools and my state flagship.
I think I have a fairly balanced list in terms of admissions, but it would probably change when looking at it financially (eg. a high match school becomes a reach because I need enough merit money to be able to attend.) I have good but not stellar stats, and maybe they don’t realize how competitive the applicant pool actually is.
When I brought this up to them, they said that I’m going about the process wrongly, and that I should apply to schools based only on fit and assume that some will not be affordable. We live in a fairly affluent area, so some more experienced parents can quite literally afford to prioritize fit over finances, and that’s what they’ve told my parents to do. I don’t know if I want to put myself through that, but maybe they’re right.
Should I try to convince them to only focus on schools where merit aid is more likely to come through, or am I being too cynical about it? I’d really appreciate advice from parents who have gone through/are going through the process themselves.
Some parents set a price limit of X but will make an exception for certain schools. They might be willing to spend over their state school budget for Harvard but not for Tulane. Is that what they are getting at?
If that is not it, then are these unaffordable schools close to your home and they want you to visit the schools to get a feel for that type of school (big, small, religious, whatever) to eliminate or add other potential schools from the list?
If not, it does not make sense to me to apply to schools which they are unwilling to pay for unless there is merit aid available. If you do apply to them, they are financial reaches. You’ll be the one writing the essays, supplementals, and scholarship applications. You might try to negotiate with them to apply to one or two of these schools and spend the rest of your time on your affordable list.
I think your concerns are perfectly reasonable. There are a fixed number of schools that you can apply to depending on your budget and tolerance for essay writing. Every application you put in for a school you can’t afford is a lost opportunity at one that fits.
I will offer one theory but you really really need to talk to your folks about it…On the rare occasions when I take my S shopping for something expensive, I give him a budget that he needs to stay within but he’s learned that I will sometimes pay more if he can convince me, with well reasoned arguments and supporting data, that a more expensive model is in fact a better value. Would your parents be willing to raise the limit they contribute on certain schools if you can show them the value?
@gettingschooled@Otterma Re: them being willing to pay more for a better school: I honestly don’t know. I asked how much they’d be willing to pay for a school they considered “worth it”, and they said they’d figure it out after results came in and they could see more concretely what the options were. That’s fair, but it doesn’t help me much in discerning which schools they might be willing to pay more for.
To some extent, they want me to use visits to unaffordable schools to get a feel for my own preferences, which I don’t mind at all. I do, however, take issue with spending more time looking at schools without merit aid (which seem to be the ones they’ve focused on so far,) instead of taking a look at those with aid available.
I’ll try to negotiate with them and only apply to one or two schools without merit (excluding instate safeties, which are affordable regardless of aid.)
My advice would be to listen to your parents. Perhaps you don’t have all the information right now and will in time. I don’t think there is that much effort in “considering” a school. If you are still in the same boat information wise when it’s time to start applying then maybe you’ll want to revisit the conversation to see if it’s worth it to apply to certain schools.
You are handing this in a mature and responsible manner. Kudos. For the more expensive schools, give your parents a run-down of the costs and ask if they would be willing to pay for you to attend that college. If not, then maybe just apply to one or two to satisfy them and put most of your efforts into affordable options.
At least you know there is a real risk that your list is unaffordable for your family. I’d make sure you have a couple of schools that are affordable that you are likely to get into and you would like to attend. Then put in a few apps where merit is a possibility, and if they want you to, a few schools where there won’t be merit. I can see why you are frustrated… hopefully they don’t think that big merit will fall from the sky…
Your parents are not doing you any favors with their “mushy” suggestions re schools to apply to IF in fact they absolutely cant or wont spend more than $25k per year-[ is that for BOTH tuition and room and Board?]
So many parents make the mistake of saying" we’ll figure it out" after admissions decisions have been received, because by then its too late to apply elsewhere.
Sit them down now and have the MONEY TALK.
Get a FIRM commitment as to what they will actually be willing to pay.
You’ll need to cast a wide net if you want to land substantial merit $$- and that means applying to colleges that you or they might not have otherwise considered.
What are your stats? GPA, SAT scores, etc, etc.
Did you take the PSAT and if so, is your score above your states cut off?
Are there grandparents who might be willing to pay more?
I ask because I’ve known some parents who behaved like this because they really believed in their heart of hearts that if their S or D got into HYPSMC or_____, grandparents will pay. At least once, the parents were right. D got into a college in the AWS group and grandpa, an alum, was very happy to contribute. I doubt he would have paid a cent for any other school. But when it seemed like his grandkid wouldn’t be going to his alma mater for financial reasons, well…to him giving the grandkid some of his $ now rather than later made sense. It really was a win-win because attending the same LAC strengthened the bonds between grandparent and grandkid.
So…if there is a possibility that someone else in your family MIGHT be willing to contribute, your parents may want you to apply “just in case.”
You seem reasonable. Your parents might be getting some bad advice, but they seem reasonable as well. When there isn’t quite a meeting of the minds, I advise that you come up with a core list you agree on – say four or five or eight, whatever y’all are comfortable with – and then they get a “parental prerogative” – a school on the Common App that they want you to apply to just because. They might have a specific reason, but it doesn’t matter what it is. It’s just that school they want in the mix that you might not consider otherwise. I say Common App because, if your other ones are on the CA, it’s minimal work to add another one. And then you get one that they aren’t sold on. Again, doesn’t matter what your reason is for putting on the list (but in this case it might be that you know you’ll get merit aid). That way everyone gets something they want.
FYI, ds1 ended up at MY parental prerogative. Who knew that would work so well?
We are in the similar situation as OP, there is a specific amount that we are allocating to pay for our S and D college tuition each year, but is much lower than the EFC. We also don’t want them to take out a loan if possible, knowing that both of them want to pursue grad schools later, which will be another large expense that we don’t have the money for. So we focused on undergrad first, worry about the grad school later, hoping that they would get some merit scholarships then.
So what we did was to come up with a list of 12 schools purely based on their strength in the desire majors and what my DS or DD liked. Three were reaches, 6 were various degree of fit and with more optimal probability of getting in, and 3 were safety (including a State flagship). I used CAPPEX, Parchment, Niche and Naviance sites to chance them to get a balanced list. We then ran the NPC on each college. If the school was more than $10K above our budget, we find another school to replace it. Coming up with this core list took a lot of iteration and research.
The reason why we capped the cost at $10K above our budget was hoping that our kids can work during the summer and apply for various in-school and out-of-school scholarships to supplement the difference. The game plan was to decide on the core list by the summer after junior year, and spend the summer start writing those college essays. Some colleges require that the merit scholarship applications be submitted at the same deadline as ED even for the RD applications, so we tracked all the submission deadlines and all the essay topics. The goal was to be done with all the college applications by mid December the latest, then spent the entire winter break applying for the outside scholarships.
Both kids adhered to that schedule, so they had the whole Christmas holiday and beyond to focus on applying outside scholarships. My son sent out a bunch, got some, but decided that he has better luck lining up paid internship during the summer and winter breaks while in college. My daughter is obsessed with applying scholarships because she doesn’t mind writing more essays. They both should be able to finish college debt-free while attending the schools they wanted.
It is important to consider money when selecting the schools, you are way more mature to think that far than most high schoolers. However, I think selecting the schools that fit you first then adjust the list based on money, could avoid going to a less expensive school that you don’t like.
It seems like you have the realistic ideas, while your parents do not.
Perhaps you can not bother to argue with them, but when you make your list, it just happens that all of your favorite schools have at least a good chance of sufficient merit scholarships, or are low enough cost that they are comfortably affordable based on what they are willing to pay, and that your safeties are assured of being low enough cost (either at list price or with automatic-for-your-stats merit scholarships) to be comfortably affordable. Obviously, you can make your reach/match/safety assessments on the chance of getting sufficient merit scholarships (although non-automatic-for-stats merit scholarships can be hard to assess reach versus match; assume reach unless there is good information otherwise), rather than just admission (unless the school has a comfortably low list price).
Note that with a parental contribution of $25,000 per year, you can afford up to a net price of $30,000 per year if you are willing to add either a federal direct loan or some work earnings. A stretch budget could be up to $35,000 per year with both federal direct loan and some work earnings, but that may be more stressful with less room for error than attending a school that is not as close to the absolute financial limit.
My own D. focused strictly on “schools where merit aid is more likely to come through” I am not sure why you call yourself “cynical” for this reason. I do not see any cynicism in being mature and realistic person at such a young age. D. never thought of any schools being safety / match / reach or whatever. In addition, she had to withstand a big push from her GS to apply to Harvard and such as she graduated #1 in her private HS class. She was offered a merit award at every school that she applied. She ended up attending at in-state public on full tuition Merit award (one private also offered close to full tuition Merit, but public was a better match for my D.). She had amazing 4 years at college. Her experiences there went well beyond our expectations and she reached her ultimate goal of being to medical school. In fact, she was accepted to 4 of them, 2 in top 20. Since we did not pay tuition for her college, we offered to pay for her medical school. She graduated last year debt free, only 16% of medical school graduates are debt free. D’s very wise and mature decision choosing her college paid off for her handsomely. Best wishes to you too!
Standing your own ground is a good approach in life in general, not just making decision about your college. That has worked for me in my entire life and I am ancient.
What is your home state and what is your GPA/test scores/rank/class rigor? You may be better than you think with respect to merit aid. If you are willing to share that information, CC members should come up with good specific options for you. In an ideal world, what kind of school would you like to attend? Do you have ideas about possible majors?
We were a bit mushy on finances too…didn’t want to pay full price, but if you got into Princeton we would see if we could get it to work.
What I would do is continue the way you are with the goal of $25K, and ask your parent for a “parent pick” college of the type they are talking about (given your preference of major, urban/rural, college size, area of the country) and apply there too.
We know a senior who was admitted to Stanford, and he’s using it to leverage aid to other schools that are not as competitive (like UVA).
I am not sure of the, um, efficacy of this plan, but it does appear to be working for them (take this with a grain of salt because it’s hearsay from me-I’m assuming what I’m being told is the truth and relaying it to you, versus seeing it happen with my own eyes).
We’ve told our kids they can apply anywhere they want, as long as they don’t fall in love with a school, because we won’t know if it’s affordable until the final numbers come in, and what our savings will look like in a year or two. We’ve also told them they need to have significant skin in the game with merit awards and scholarships.
That may be what your parents are doing, as well. You really never know what the difference between the sticker price is and the “here’s what you pay” price is. (I know there’s the price calculator, but we’ve seen some big disparities there, so we don’t completely trust them). So they’re giving you a number they know they can meet to protect against heartbreak. That seems reasonable.
I know some people are good at saying “we have X dollars for you, the rest is on you”, but other people have finances that are more flexible. I might be willing to eat ramen soup if the kiddos got into a school that matches them really well but costs more.
^ FYI, we don’t negotiate financial aid packages at UVA. Telling our aid officers that another school has more money that them isn’t going to make more money appear.
You are still early in the college selection process. Allow yourself the luxury of looking at schools without regard to costs for a couple of months or so. Once you have done so you will have a list that includes characteristics most important to you. After coming up with schools that match your nonfinancial priorities you can then eliminate those that seem least affordable. You will also realize how many schools are a good fit and fit best into the budget. By just looking at what seem to be more affordable schools you may be ignoring important factors.
You have done a college search one way. Spend some time doing it your parents’ way. Then see which favorites appear on both lists. You should allow yourself some dreams at this time. Then let your practical side take over when it comes time for the college visits and applications. Who knows, you may discover some schools are more affordable than you thought.
Approaching the college search problem from more than one angle will uncover different aspects.
Good for you Dean J! My impression is that good state flagships do not need to entice top students with money- for every student who chooses another school there are others who will be just as good. Many elite students populate flagship campuses.
