<p>My H’s father would not allow him to attend any other university other than his own alma mater. H applied to another college, got in, and father tore that acceptance letter to shreds. Outcome: H loved dad’s U.</p>
<p>Myself: My parents gave me very little input about where to attend. I picked a place that looked good to me. Result: I regretted not aiming higher. I was not particularly happy there, applied and was accepted to transfer to a higher-ranked U, but did not go in the end because I did not want to leave my friends.</p>
<p>Ive been following CC for two years. My daughter is a high school senior. CCs been an invaluable resource for me as Ive tried to figure out the college search and application process. Im always a little surprised by this type of thread: whining in public because the process has been less than ideal. Frankly, TV4caster, I dont have much sympathy for you. Youre the parent. It was your responsibility to at least frame the college search in such a way that a positive outcome for your child [and your family] was probable. You and your daughter should have had this conversation twelve months ago. YOU should have managed that conversation. Part of the discussion should have been your pre-paid tuition plan and its impact on a final college choice. So, you screwed up. We all do. Your issue now, however, is that your daughter will probably have to decide between two in-state schools, which, by the way, are among the finest public universities in the country. Buy her a warm coat and get over it.</p>
<p>If this is what it comes down to, I’m less concerned about the OP getting over it than about the OP’s daughter getting over it.</p>
<p>The OP’s daughter was under the impression that if she could get enough merit scholarship money to bring the cost of the out-of-state school she wanted to attend down to the level of an in-state school, she was free to go there. She met her end of the agreement. Now she’s being given a different message because her parents did not fully inform her about the consequences of the prepaid tuition plan. </p>
<p>Poor communications a year ago have led to unfortunate consequences now.</p>
<p>Blind- I am not whining. I was asking for advice. There is a big difference. We are blessed to have such choices.</p>
<p>She said she knew that it couldn’t cost more than in state and knew about the prepaid tuition plan, she says she just didn’t think through how that affected the bottom line.</p>
<p>^ Perhaps with the prepaid tuition plan it would have been wise to explain to her if you expected her to not just cover the cost of VA tuition today by scholarships, but spell it out in an actual dollar amount. It does in fact leave a lot of room for confusion if you are asking a high school student to make a conversion for the loss you would incur if you do not use the VA prepaid and cash out. I think I am understanding you correctly now, but please correct me if I am wrong in what you expect in scholarship from your DD to make Clemson an option.</p>
<p>TV4caster, I know you’ve said your daughter feels VT is too big but since she likes Clemson so much, you really may want to try one more time to get her to apply to VT before the January 17th deadline. There is a poster,pierre0913, whose final 2 choices were Clemson and VT. He chose Clemson and is very happy there(I believe he was OOS for both) but has said he really had liked VT as well. It seems they really are a similar type of school. Just keeping more instate options might be a good idea. Mary Washington, as someone else has said, might also be worth an application. Our high school’s valedictorian ended up there a few years ago with some excellent scholarships. Good luck.</p>
<p>I think the Op has told us the prepaid tuition is refundable, although the interest earned on it over the years is only pennies. At least all paid can be refunded.
Ok. Based on that understanding, how about the parent get that refund, make the amount known to student. Then let student apply it toward any school student gets in. Wouldn’t that meet all of parents’ promise of what they’d contribute, as Marian outlined in post 64? Then the student could go anywhere of her choosing, and parent would be giving all that was promised.</p>
<p>I am in agreement with you here and I understand your predicament.</p>
<p>It is difficult to disappoint our kids, but its not like you would be offering a worse alternative that would require her to take out loans. It is the opposite.</p>
<p>Fwiw, all of my children at some point, have zeroed in on one college and only that college, which they became temporarily obsessed with, and they absolutely <em>had</em> to go there and it was out of state. It turns out, those feelings can be quite fleeting in a 17-year-old.</p>
<p>If I were you, I would remind her that you told her you <em>might</em> pay for an out of state college, and you have realized that Clemson is not the same price as instate, it is up to $28K more. So you need to see how all the other offers shake out before you will give your final okay to Clemson.</p>
<p>When the decisions come out and everyone at school is talking about where they are going, there is a good chance your D’s feelings may change. My D applied to our state flagship UC Berkeley, because I <em>made</em> her include in-state options, even though she declared she would never, ever go there. When the acceptance came, it suddenly dawned on her what an accomplishment and honor it was, she was thrilled, and it became her top choice until got into an Ivy where she is now.</p>
<p>This is not what has happened as Op states:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>We are talking about an extra 20-28k over the course of 4 years, not counting money that he will have to come up with for med school. Should student pursue med school, while she may me independent for federal aid, her parents income and assets will still be required for any need based aid. </p>
<p>Should student be willing to take out the max Stafford loan all 4 years we are talking about a 1k difference. If Op gets his money back from the prepaid program, we are talking about no more than a 5k difference (provided that there are no cost increase, which we know is not going to happen) for which D could take out a Stafford loan or work every summer to put away $ to make up the difference.</p>
<p>The way I read OP’s posts, if his D goes in-state, all of her tuition is already paid for (because OP deposited $22K 10 years ago). If she goes to Clemson, even if he gets his $22K @ 1% back, he will still have to pay an additional $5-7K per year to Clemson.</p>
<p>I know some folks are adverse to this…but the student could make up this amount by taking the Stafford loans each year…or working a summer job and taking part of the Stafford loan.</p>
<p>Seems fair to me. And if Clemson is $6k/yr more, she can work or borrow to make up the difference. I agree also that her mind can and may change in the next couple of months.</p>
<p>When I was a HS senior, I applied to 5-6 schools. I KNEW money was going to be a major - even THE major factor - my mom was single and a student herself. I thought I chose the school I wanted most, but my mom reminded me recently that it was also a near full ride, the only one to give me that much (and also the “best” of the ones I was admitted to). Now I wonder if I really chose it or if I knew that about the $ and accepted that reality. </p>
<p>What’s telling is that now, 30 years on, I really can’t remember :)</p>
<p>“I should also clarify a couple of things: D visited Clemson 2 years ago and hated it because it was too spread out and too cold. When I reminded her of that she said she was probably just too young to realize what she was thinking.”</p>
<p>Are you planning on taking your D back to Clemson? She may not like it as much as she now thinks. Also, she should audit classes at UVa and W&M (if she gets in) to see if they are really that intense.</p>
<p>I do agree that it probably could be seen as a mistake for a kid to get into UVa and/or William and Mary and turn it down for Clemson if it meant more expense.However, Clemson is still a great ,well respected school and if the daughter feels that strongly about Clemson and is willing to help with the added cost, it’s not the end of the world. She will probably do better at a school she is excited about.Virginia Tech gets kids sometimes that prefer to be Hokies rather than Wahoos, especially if they want engineering. Not all that crazy. She does have to get in first to these schools to even turn them down.Very good chance she will get into UVa and William and Mary if she put effort into her applications but these schools are not sure things. If she is not going to be happy at either school, she probably wouldn’t do as well as she could. Visiting in April on a nice spring day could change her mind about some of the Virginia schools.You never know but you’ll know soon enough. May 1st is not that far away.</p>
<p>BTW- I just looked up the official "reasonable rate of return on the official website and found that for the last 3 years they have been paying .03-.05% interest, and it wasn’t much better than that earlier in the decade. So when 4 years of avg tuition at a VA school cost 16k I paid them 22k. Now the average tuition is ~48 for 4 years and they will give me 25k. LOL.</p>
<p>Also, had a nice talk w my D about college tonight. I don’t know if anything was resolved but it was quite good and she understands all the nuances (I think).</p>
<p>When my D did college visits, she always always attended a class during the visit. I think it helped calm her anxiety about the level of work expected in college. When she audited a class at UVa and W&M, she found that the material was manageable. In fact, she knew much of it from her AP classes.</p>
<p>The best way to look at this, about whether or not you are forcing your kid to pick a school, is that you are giving her options. If you are paying for everything and have done research, which it looks like you have, then you have the final vote. Any school is what you make of it. The success that will come from going will be more based on the effort that she puts in as opposed to the prestige of the school.</p>
<p>Now it is good to take into consideration all of the issues that she does have with the different schools. Give her opinion plenty of weight and check out what she thinks about the school. The research that you do may change both of your minds about where she should go.</p>
<p>School is hard to get through and it is incredibly expensive. You want your student to feel good about where they go but they also need to understand all of the endless implications. The truth is that high school age kids still need plenty of guidance.</p>