<p>Our situation is that we have the money to pay for our second child to attend a private college (we are already paying for older child to attend a public university out of state). We're not thrilled to having money sucked out of our wallets especially in this economy in which our fortunes could change overnight.</p>
<p>Anyway, second child is interested in a private school that would probably be thrilled to have her. Based on the experiences of some of her friends who applied last year, there is gold in them thar hills. One friend was offered $30,000 in merit aid from this school (but declined and went to Berkeley).</p>
<p>Our child is thinking of applying to this school ED to be sure she gets into a school she likes. I am wondering if applying ED will kill her chances of getting some merit money. It makes me grind my teeth to think of paying full price yet again. </p>
<p>If she applies ED and is accepted, am I correct that she will have no bargaining power and will take herself out of the running for merit aid?</p>
<p>She will not have other financial aid OFFERS from other schools for comparisons…if she applies ED. She will have to decide to accept her ED offer quickly and will not have financial aid offers from OTHER schools.</p>
<p>Re: merit aid…if she is a strong candidate for this AND she is accepted ED, she COULD still receive this aid. If it’s GUARANTEED merit aid based on stats, she would get it regardless of ED or RD application. If it’s not guaranteed merit aid, you have no guarantee she would receive it in the RD round of admissions.</p>
<p>You are very fortunate to be able to provide this kiddo with a full pay college education. Only YOUR family can decide if you will do so. </p>
<p>We were in your position (except our kids didn’t apply anywhere ED…both did EA aps but not ED). Both received merit awards (one a bit more than the other) and we paid for the rest. We were grateful that we could provide this financial support to our kids, and that we did not have to “limit” their college application choices based on finances. We, too, weren’t too thrilled with the idea of paying all that money for ALL that time (7 years total…one year of overlap) but we could and we did. This is your decision to make…and how lucky you are to be in a position that this is a choice.</p>
<p>We also are in the full-pay boat. I will not let the kids apply ED because I want them to have choices. Things can change for young people and what they want now in August, may not look quite the same in April. I like the idea of having choices.</p>
<p>For us, had we gone the “Let the senior do whatever she wants” route, she would be at Chicago or Georgetown (accepted EA at both) and we would be paying the whole bill. Instead, a great brochure showed up sometime in the fall and DD applied to an OOS public where she was offered full tuition. The nearly $200K that we save should make an impact on her life later–if we don’t live too long and have too good of a time.</p>
<p>Yes, we are fortunate. We have dodged numerous bullets over the years through multiple recessions, and we know full well that this is purely due to good luck. If you could see the home improvement projects we haven’t done so we could save, you could feel my pain. How many of you can say you showered this morning in a mildewed master bathroom from 1958? :)</p>
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<p>Yeah, that’s the heart of the question. It wouldn’t be guaranteed merit aid. She might or might not get aid during RD, but at least we could compare merit offers if there are any. If she goes ED, I can’t understand why any school on the planet would give merit money to a kid they don’t need to entice.</p>
<p>cindysphinx, there are a few schools that do actually preferentially offer merit money during ED, but they’re very much the exception. </p>
<p>D1’s second-choice school last year offered a generous merit award for National Merit finalists…but the award wasn’t guaranteed. When D1 did her interview, she asked the adcoms if any NMFs who designated the school as their first choice didn’t get the award, and she was told no, they did…but that she shouldn’t apply ED if she wanted merit money. That’s the kind of digging and checking you’ll want to do. </p>
<p>D1 is going full-pay elsewhere, to an ED school that offers essentially no merit money. If she’d been turned down, she would have applied RD, not ED II, to her second choice. All because of the merit $$$ situation.</p>
<p>anyone else trying to guess which school the friend was offered $30,000 to and turned it down for Berkeley? (I’m assuming instate)</p>
<p>cindy: this is a slippery slope; it might help if you mentioned the school (here or elsewhere) on CC and tried to find out if anyone received merit $$ in the ED round in previous years…</p>
If you think being full-pay at a private is too economically risky to your family, then just tell your child “NO” - she has to apply RD, and if she doesn’t receive significant aid she can’t go there.</p>
<p>Saying no can be unpleasant, but sometimes we have to. Your child will survive.</p>
<p>1- generally under ED, you can decide not to accept if the financial packahe is inadequate . . . exampel from the from the College Board: “Your child agrees to attend the college if accepted and if the college offers an adequate financial aid package.”</p>
<p>2- there are such things as what I call “financial aid safety schools” . . . these are colleges that typically offer a higher percentage of students non-need-based merit aid at a greater amounts . . . examples: while Dickinson offers 9% of frosh an average award ~ $10.5k, American offers 36% an average of $16k, Davidson offers 21% $19k, Rochester offers 73% $9k, etc. You can use those data along with the list Cost Of Attendance (and the likelihood of your child being accepted) to calculate what it might cost your family.</p>
<p>We were trying for a net annual COA that started with a 2. While that didn’t happen with Vassar (no merit aid), it did with Oberlin because of its merit offer and with McGill due its relatively low list price (27k all in.)</p>
<p>I was the Parent that insisted on including Financial Aid Safety schools in our family, which precipitated a family-wide discussion about what we could afford for college. Result was that we agreed that kid #2 could go wherever as long at it started with a 2, and that if it started with 3 it was discussable as long as there was some unique compelling reason.</p>
<p>Cindy, I totally understand not wanting to pay retail. Does your daughter appreciate the inherent trade-off involved: money not spent for college is money left over for grad school, or a down payment on a condo, or travel, or (far from the least important of these) a dignified, comfortable retirement for her parents? (In many cases, it would also be money not borrowed, but it sounds as if that might not be an issue for your family.)</p>
<p>I wouldn’t encourage ED if I were in your position. I’d search far and wide with my daughter, and encourage her to cast a wide net. The summer before her senior year started, my older daughter didn’t have a “first choice.” This disturbed me until I realized that not having a first choice left her options wide open. She could look at her acceptances, see whether anybody offered her merit aid, and then make choices. In the end, she did say, “I might have liked [College A] as much as [College B], or maybe even a little more, but there’s no way I like [College A] better than [College B] and $60,000 change.” If you can keep her from falling in love with a particular college or university, you’re in a much better position to get a good value.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t let her apply ED. I agree that it’s not as likely that she’d get merit or a lot of merit applying ED. It can happen, but I know that none of my relatives who applied ED got any merit anywhere. </p>
<p>You’ve said that this is a school that would love to have her…so why fear applying RD?</p>
<p>Frankly, I can’t imagine what school this is that it offered $30k in merit to another student, but would be hard to get into RD with the appropriate stats? Was the $30k in merit is unusual. </p>
<p>I’m thinking that this is a school ranked below Berkeley?</p>
<p>How are your d’s stats compared to this other student’s?</p>
<p>As an aside, you need to decide if you’re willing to pay $200k+ regardless of merit. If not, tell her the amount you will pay so that she knows NOW that she needs to include some schools that will give her merit.</p>