Evening out the opportunities for multiple kids?

Parents Forum
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<p>I'm sure that a number of us on CC are or have been in situations similar to my family's, and I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts about it or reflections on how you handled them.</p>

<p>Our three kids have all had similar HS records - strong grades, GPAs and ECs. D1 was applying to college five years ago and got into her reach school, Harvard. We were delighted to find that our financial situation at the time enabled her to attend Harvard for roughly the cost of room and board at an in-state public. Two years later her younger sister was applying to college. She too wound up at Harvard, where both girls have had great experiences. </p>

<p>S is now an 11th-grader and we're putting together a list of schools to visit. Like his sisters, I anticipate that he'll get his SATs above 2200 though like them, he came up a couple points shy of the state's National Merit cutoff. He may be able to aim at Ivies and comparables, but isn't interested in the Ivies (or schools like MIT, Chicago, or Wash U) because his primary passion is playing the snare in marching bands. Pursuing the marching snare in college is important to him - not only is it a favorite pastime at which he's very good, it's a pursuit that provides the core of his social group and, he hopes, will continue as a valued lifelong activity.</p>

<p>A year ago, my wife and I came into an inheritance that now places our EFC in the upper $50Ks / low $60Ks. Some of that is tied up in real estate; with some we hope to help our kids in young adulthood and ourselves through retirement. We'll no longer qualify for need-based aid, but while we could come up with the funds to pay full fare at a top private university, it would use up much of that cushion for the future. Our regular annual family income remains around $100K. D2, a junior at Harvard, pays more in tuition than she used to but still gets significant aid due to Harvard's uniquely generous aid policies.</p>

<p>The girls have had remarkable college opportunities. They've experienced life outside their native South, traveled around the world, and made friends from all across the country and the globe. Their peer groups have been incredibly inspiring. And they've been able to have that experience within the budget they'd have needed for an in-state public.</p>

<p>An ideal fit for S could be Northwestern. He could have a similar quality of experience to that of his sisters, but for him it would cost $240,000. On the other hand, his focus - unlike that of his sisters - is on science and math. We have Georgia Tech as an in-state option, and if he keeps his grades > 3.0, he could graduate from there for around $40,000. If he fell below 3.0 and lost the state's HOPE (full-tuition) scholarship, in-state tuition is still only $7,000 a year compared to 4X that figure elsewhere. The Georgia Tech lifestyle admittedly isn't for everyone; if it doesn't resonate, UGA could be available at the same price.</p>

<p>Georgia Tech or UGA make all the sense in the world given the family's finances and S's marching snare passion. But we placed no limits on his sisters' aspirations when they wanted to apply to Harvard, Yale, Georgetown and Northwestern. It's tough to envision telling S that he can't have the opportunities that we afforded them just a few years ago.</p>

<p>Have any of you had to deal with changing family circumstances that impacted the scope of college choices for your younger kids?</p>

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<p>Does Northwestern have the band experience he is seeking?
It sounds like the in-state options are the best fit for him, anyway, regardless of his sisters’ choices or changing EFCs.</p>

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<p>Thanks SVM - yes, the band opportunity at NU would be similar to UGA and maybe stronger than that at GT. Other national private school possibilities could be Vanderbilt, Southern Cal, and Duke. But if the question is “What would you prefer - a B.S. in Math from one of those three or a B.S. in Math from Georgia Tech + a downpayment on a house?” then . . . :rolleyes:</p>

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<p>gadad: You have been so generous in advising others that I wish I had something brilliant for you.</p>

<p>One thing you don’t say is how your S feels about his situation. </p>

<p>Your girls were so fortunate to be able to attend Harvard. Is an elite school something you want for him or does he want it for himself? If he is content with his options in GA then all’s well with the world. Kids are not the same, and girls and boys are not the same as I have discovered in my family.</p>

<p>I will tell you that my nephew just graduated from Georgia Tech and is already fully employed at a handsome salary. It <em>did</em> take him five and a half years. The big drawback I see there is the school culture. It is very parochial. The guy culture is pretty sexist and limited in scope. </p>

<p>Have you explored the places where your S’s scores would bring him merit scholarships? There must be many. And there are places with music scholarships as well.</p>

<p>I think a lot depends on exactly what your son wants.</p>

<p>I was fortunate. My kids went to comparable institutions, Barnard and Williams, and received comparable FA. However, since the settings of these schools are so different, they did get very different things from college.</p>

<p>As one might expect from these settings, DD was turned outward, and DS, inward, but not in a solopsistic way.</p>

<p>DD is in law school; DS is exploring options that would lead to a humanities grad school program.</p>

<p>As long as a kid’s needs are met, I don’t think prestige needs to be considered. My kid at Williams would not have been happy at Harvard. He’s introverted and the small environment encouraged participation in many EC’s – music (played in orchestra), acting (acting in quite a few plays) and environmentalism (environmental club a little group in which he knew everyone.) He worked at the local museum and really expanded is horizons. DD explored the city, had exciting urban experiences but did not really dig deep with the EC’s on campus. Two different kids, two different outcomes.</p>

<p>His thoughts, goals, ideas, style will be paramount in this decision.</p>

<p>I guess I’m saying it doesn’t have to be either/or: Harvard-Northwestern/GA schools. They are many options in between.</p>

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<p>As a middle child with major social justice issues, I must say that you are being too hard on yourself. Everything in life is not going to be fair; everything is not going to be equal. The best thing you can do is make things equitable, which I beleive that you are doing.</p>

<p>Your financial situation five years ago, was dramatically different from what it is today. You opened your posts by stating that your D’s were able to attend Harvard at a cost that was comparable to attending school in-state. While the cost of a Harvard education was more than $200k for each of your D’s, you were able to purchase it at the cost of attending school in-state. During your older D’s junior and senior year, you may have essentially gotten a 2-fer, where the cost fr both of them to attend Harvard was about the cost of what it cost you to send one to school in-state.</p>

<p>While you did not set “limits” on where the girls could attend, if you knew the numbers would have presented themselves in a way that you would have to full freight paying for each of your daughters through 4 years of school, I am quite certain, that there would have been a different conversation taking place in your house.</p>

<p>If you set the parameters with your girls that “we are willing to pay the cost of attending school in-state and if you choose to attend a school that cost more that the cost of attending the in-state school, there has to be some really good need based financial aid or merit $ to make it work” and they lived within those parameters and made it work, your are being equitable if you set those same guidelines up for your son. </p>

<p>I think that it is “fair” to have open and honest communication with your son about what you realistically are willing to pay and can afford to pay for college.</p>

<p>X-posting: you mentioned Vanderbilt, Southern Cal, and Duke. Have him check them out to see where he needs to be in the pool in order to receive merit $$.</p>

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<p>Sure there are other choices and I’m sure gadad’s son will explore them. The basic question remains though - how do you determine “fair” when you have limited resources - especially when theoretically your financial circumstances are actually better than they were for your first child. I don’t think there are any easy answers here, but I actually think talking to all three kids about what they think is fair would be interesting for them. It’s the one thing I wish my parents had done more of in terms of educating us about thinking about money. </p>

<p>That said, I also feel that no matter how good the education is in the local state university, college is an ideal time to meet kids from other places and other walks of life. I had college roommates from Bangladesh, New York, California, Missouri and Massachusetts and close friends from Florida and New Orleans. On the flip side as long as one wants to remain in state for your work life the contacts you make at a state university can be more useful than those at the bigger name places.</p>

<p>I agree with Sybbie that “fair” may well be the cost of attending Harvard, not the actual tuition.</p>

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<p>For a number of legit reasons, we spent far more on D2 than D1 during hs years- this focused mostly on her music and related opportunities. They are close in age, so D1 was definitely aware of the ways we crimped the budget to be able to give D2 the extras.<br>
About once/year, I’d ask D1 if there was something special that she wanted, based on her interests. I was surprised to find that she didn’t count the difference in “dollars spent.” Instead, she looked for a similar level of attention and support from us. </p>

<p>So, in your case, if he’s in-state, going to his games, paying for various band-related opportunities (the extras, at school or away,) getting involved in parents’ groups that support band or volunteer at games, whatever, might mean a lot to him. And, there is still a chance to send him out of the country.</p>

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<p>I’m not a parent, but as an avid band kid in high school and college: would DCI be an avenue he’d be willing to look into? He could very easily attend any school he wanted and then use a few weekends each year along with most of the summer playing in a drumline at a much higher level than most college bands. </p>

<p>I don’t know what kind of experience you guys have with college marching band, but it’s going to be a very different scene from the high school experience. If it’s about hanging out with other band kids and something to do during the week, college marching band might be a good fit, where there’s a new show every week or two and a lot of the shows are kinda light-rock stuff. However, if he’s really good, he might find drum corps more challenging, and it would allow him to choose a school with a different marching band experience and still keep up playing at a high level. Just a thought.</p>

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<p>Back in the 1970s my middle-class dad gave each of his three daughters the same amount of money for college: enough for tuition at an instate school + room-and-board. He thought the experience of living away from home under light supervision was more important than the academic quality of the school, so he was adamant that we not commute. I got a room-and-board scholarship to Cornell and so was able to attend the College of Arts and Sciences despite the higher cost of tuition. My sisters both went the instate route. None of us had to borrow a lot of money.</p>

<p>Though, of course, the amounts are different nowadays, I am more or less in my parents’ financial bracket–we would not qualify for FA except at Harvard, where neither of my kids is likely to be admitted. I’m planning to do more or less the same for my two children that my dad did for my sisters and me: coughing up the same sum for each of them. It is enough to attend one of our instate options and have some money left over for graduate school or getting started in life, or, alternatively, enough to go to a private school and incur some debt. My first child, looking at his options last spring, chose the state flagship and is very happy and challenged there so far. My second child’s interests might be better served by a private school but I think she can make it work at a public. I counsel both my kids that it’s not wise to borrow large amounts of money but that smaller amounts might be a reasonable investment in one’s future, depending on the circumstances.</p>

<p>This is what seems fair and practicable given our family dynamic and finances. But I’ve known families do it all sorts of different ways.</p>

<p>PS My nephew is attending GT as an OOS student; the Marching Band and the aerospace engineering major were the attractions. He’s only been there a semester, but so far is very happy there. There are lots of other OOS students, and many of his friends are internationals. He did have to take a required “Georgia History” course, though!</p>

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<p>I would explore merit options outside of your area…like USC…since your family seems to place such high importance on that. If the issue is that the family has an attraction with prestige since the Ds went to Harvard, then the family’s choice is to “get over” that or resolve to pay what’s needed to get that. </p>

<p>however, to get the big merit at schools like Vandy and WashU (and probably USC), his SAT would likely need to be higher than a 2200…more like a 2300+. Those schools already get plenty of apps from kids with 2200 and some would say that they tend to favor URMs and out-of-region students with their merit offers. I know that my nephew with very high stats got 0 from Vandy.</p>

<p>And…he should apply to HYPS since those schools do have the more generous FA policies as you already know. But do note that these schools are getting harder and harder to get into. Some current HYPS students may not have been admitted under the more recent admissions numbers.</p>

<p>However, in the end, this is about what your son wants and what you can afford. </p>

<p>If it’s worth it to you to spend some of that inheritance to provide what his sisters’ have than do so…if it’s not worth it to you, then don’t.</p>

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<p>gadad - there seem to be several ways of looking at this situation. It’s very ironic that having more money has made the pricey schools less reachable, eh? On the one hand, you were not expecting the inheritance (one hopes), so I could argue that it is not something you should have been counting on for retirement. In a sense it is the same as the “money” you received from Harvard in the form of Financial Aid - just that now you have a choice to spend it on <em>Harvard</em> or on something else. On the other hand, Sybbie has a great point that if you spend on S comparable to what you spent on D1 and D2, that’s fair even if it means he goes to Georgia Tech. </p>

<p>As for what others have done, MIL/FIL had 5 children. The older 4 were close in age, and they had a deal that MIL/FIL paid for the first 3 years of college and they were responsible for year 4. All 4 of them made it through college (2 OOS public, 2 private), 2 went on for Master’s degrees. Kid 5 was later, and by that time MIL/FIL had lots of money and put him through all 5 years to his master’s at a private catholic. I don’t think the older kids felt there was anything unfair about it. Their situation seems opposite to yours, however, since having more money meant they spent more, rather than the same or less.</p>

<p>H and I have S in private HS and D in public HS (her choice). Right now, we are spending way out of proportion for him compared to her. As a way of compensating she has a much larger clothing/accessories budget than I would ordinarily allow, and I don’t balk at a little trip to the mall here and there. It isn’t in the same ball park as what we are spending for him. We may end up paying more for her college, who knows. </p>

<p>Anyway, it is what it is. You have to deal with the deck you have. We are also in a position that we have a $50K+ EFC and can’t justify doing that to our retirement plan, so we limited ourselves to places where S would get some merit aid, and the in-state publics. A lot depends on what your S wants, and you have time to launch a broad search for possible candidate schools for merit, etc. </p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

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<p>Thanks for the input everyone. Actually, S has not been very much into the college search process to this point. When the National Merit cutoff score looked to be a possibility he was interested in considering some schools in the West, and he finds Northwestern appealing but really doesn’t have an accurate sense of the financial implications. I think he’ll be quite flexible. And from what I’ve seen of OOS scholarship possibilities, UNC, Alabama, and Southern Cal may also be worth applications.</p>

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<p>Do LAC’s have marching bands? There are incredible merit opportunities out there for really good LAC’s: Rhodes, Grinnell, Davidson. But I don’t know about the marching bands.</p>

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<p>Your financial situation changed for the better because of the inheritance. It is the reason why you could afford 240,000 now. In my eyes, your affordability has not changed, it is the absolute dollar outlay that has changed. Another word, if the financial aid calculation is correct, then the financial hardship that would place on you by allowing your son to go to NU would be the same as for you to allow your Ds to go to Harvard. If the inheritance didn´t come into play, NU would have been a good consideration for your son. The problem you have is 240K is a lot of money, in the absolute sense, but not in a relative sense.</p>

<p>I think what would be the right thing to do is to allow your son to decide what he wants. It may even be fair to say - here is 240K, you get to keep whatever is left over for your future schooling. His older sisters got to go to Harvard with very little costs because of your financial situation. He should be given the same opportunity if that is what he wants. </p>

<p>I am not the most PC parent on this forum, I would encourage my son to go to NU and pay for the tuition because I do believe you do get different quality of education (opportunities) at top tier schools.</p>

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<p>My opinion is similar to oldfort. To be fair, siblings should be offered similar opportunities. The total dollar cost of those opportunities may be different because the siblings have different interests and the dollar cost to the family could be different because the family financial situation has changed. To offer the same amount of money to the younger sibling in gadad’s new financial situation is a penalty if it does not provide similar opportunities, a penalty the younger sib has not earned.</p>

<p>We are facing a somewhat similar situation, but the inverse. We have had a drastic reduction in income but younger sibling probably still won’t qualify for financial aid due to savings. The relative cost to our family of providing the same college opportunity to the younger sibling will be much more than for the older. However, it is important to us to provide a similar college opportunity to the second sibling despite the increased financial burden. For us it is a gut check.</p>

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<p>I set a dollar limit for my kids when applying to schools. DS, my first, was only able to afford an in-state public. DD, my second, is able to go to an elite LAC as the need-based aid was similar to Harvard and it was my second child. Was it fair? I think so. But D got better grades, SATs and diligently applied herself in order to be successful in school, leadership, athletics, music and community service. She deserved by her own merit to go to such a school. Like your son, DS did well but not as stellar as his sister. But a budget that changes depending on your family circumstances are fair. If you lost a job, you would have to downsize the budget as well. In my family, if we came upon an inheritance, I think (though I don’t know I would) feel good about buying an education that fits my son as I would have a “choice.” You’ve already given your kids a Harvard education to help set them up in young adulthood.</p>

<p>ETA: OldFort said it much better than me.</p>

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<p>Gadad…there is difference in playing the snare and studying music. If your son wants to pursue music or just play the snare you may be looking at different programs. John Parks at Florida State runs one of the best percussion studios in the country and they are generous with out of state tuition waivers. The majority of players on the FSU drumline major in something other than music, and Tom Burritt at University of Texas in Austin also runs a great program, but the majority of his players major in music. Ohio State and Michigan State also have killer drum lines and for off the beaten path, Brian Zator’s studio at Texas A & M Commerce runs a top notch program.</p>

<p>This is where you will have to separate what you determine to be a top notch education. Top notch in the humanities vs top notch in music are very different. Yale’s percussion studio is crazy good, yet Harvard’s is just ok. </p>

<p>But if your son loves the thrill of the big game, banging on his drum to the roar of the crowd, pick a school that can deliver that. UT, FSU, Ohio State, Michigan State…etc. These schools will more than likely give OOS waivers for musical talent (and maybe more) and your son could not possibly feel short changed because he would be living his dream.</p>

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<p>Have you talked to your son about what he wants? I notice in your post you say an ideal fit could be Northwestern or Georgia Tech could be a choice. I think one of the main things here should be: what does he want? A conversation with him about his interests might be worthwhile. </p>

<p>The best thing to do in this situation is to be honest with him and with yourselves. Is it really important to him that he go to Northwestern? If that’s what he wants, what are the tradeoffs. Do you think you need to be spending that inheirtance helping your other children as young adults, or is that something that you would like to do, but given your need to help your dependent son, that might be something you forgo for a while for your independent older children? Obviously you want to save for retirement, but what about the retirement plans you had for yourselves before you inheirited that money? Could you divert more of that money towards your son’s education and stick to your previous retirement plan for a few years? </p>

<p>I don’t think that you should make a hard line of anything in these situations. None of us know your particular financial situation so we’re not in a place to judge except from what we ourselves would do. </p>

<p>I think you should consider your priorities. If I inheirited a lot of money just before my son or daugther was to go to college, and their dream school was an expensive one, I think my priorities would be to help them access their educational dreams. Knowing that ultimately, that’s the best thing I can do for them, and if it means I delay my retirement or take on additional financial burden (within reason) for a short while, OK. </p>

<p>On the other hand, if I inheirited a lot of money and my son’s dream was to march in a band at a big and not terribly expensive state school, I would support that and then use the leftover money for retirement or other financial obligations I had.</p>

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<p>The NUMB (Northwestern University Marching Band) is a huge deal on the NU campus; kids who are in the marching band have a bond for years to come. They’ll have all the pomp and circumstance for someone who enjoys that type of thing, with Big 10 and bowl games. They just played at Wrigley Field less than a month ago!</p>

<p>GADAD, if you are so inclined, PM me and I could put you in contact with someone whose son is a freshman playing the drum in Northwestern’s marching band this year.</p>

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<p>I think for analytic purposes, one question to ask is, “What if it was Harvard?” That is, what if what “fit” your son was exactly the same as what fit your daughters so well, and he had the same opportunity they had (but at a higher cost to you)? I suspect it would be very, very hard for you to say “no” to that. Possible, but very, very hard. (I was in a similar situation, and I couldn’t say “no”, though the additional cost for us was comparable to what Northwestern would cost you extra.)</p>

<p>So what’s different? First, of course, drum line vs. academics/snootiness. Now, I for one frankly value the latter over the former. I would balk at paying top dollar to send my kid to “the Harvard of drum line”. At least I think I would. That’s a value judgment. You are free to make it, but you probably ought to be upfront about it.</p>

<p>Then there’s “gap”, relative distance. Harvard was waaaaaay better, clearly better than the next alternative that was meaningfully cheaper for your daughters. Is NWU so much better than GATECH? UGA? I don’t know. (And maybe that’s all the answer you need.) Who gets to make that decision?</p>