<p>How has the economy and the scarcity of credit and student loans affected your student's plans to apply to colleges?</p>
<p>I am wondering if there will be a slew of applications to state schools and a higher yield rate and the selective ones will be much harder to get into this year.</p>
<p>My son is comfortably in the top 10% stat-wise for our state flagship, but I think he needs a backup. We are in conflict about this as he thinks I have no faith in his ability to get into the state U, which is his first choice anyway.</p>
<p>Re: your S, how selective is the flagship? There's a difference between being top 10% at UVA and top 10% at UTexas. But it's great that the state school is his first choice!</p>
<p>It accepts a little over half still. But they just instituted a holistic approach about two years ago and there have been occasional reports of highly qualified students not getting in--rare but it does happen.</p>
<p>The risk is not that he won't get in, it's that he'd be assigned to Bothell or Tacoma campuses which are brand new branch campuses and both really poor substitutes for the flagship campus.</p>
<p>UW has done some unexpected things with its admissions making a safety school a necessity. I know a couple of students who this past year were accepted into higher ranked schools that were rejected at Washington. More of S2's friends are talking about applying to UW as a financial safety, so the application rate may indeed increase as a result of the economy.</p>
<p>D is a rising senior. Because of the economy, I think we have given up on the idea of getting into any top out-of-state public school (e.g. UNC, UVA). I figure there will be a lot of people who can't/won't pay $50,000 for college and will absolutely flood those schools with applications. I think there are a lot of people who borrowed against their homes for various things and now cannot take out additional equity. I'm am guessing this means the pool of people with $200,000 socked away to pay for Harvard is small indeed.</p>
<p>For better or worse, this may mean D will have a better shot at a very prestigious private school. It looks like D will apply to several elite schools and her own state school and a couple of others as safeties.</p>
<p>If she gets into the elite schools, we will grudgingly pay for it. Assuming the economy doesn't behead us or something. . . .</p>
<p>I want him to apply to Oregon or Montana, which are both WUE schools. Washington State is fine too but he really doesn't like the rural location. Montana is in a decent sized city, as is Oregon.</p>
<p>*UW, then? Definitely an up-and-coming public*UW may have already jumped the shark.
It is very competitive and well known.
They are tied for third best public research U.
Seattle has better weather than Michigan & isn't quite as expensive as CA schools for OOS.
[quote]
The top three public universities in this ranking are University of California, Berkeley; University of Michigan; and University of California, Los Angeles. The overall top-ranked university was Columbia. The UW's ranking is unchanged from last year.
<p>My D is applying to Washington, too. I was going to make her apply to Western as a safety, even though she has a lot going in her favor...course rigor, grades, test scores, URM...just in case. However, she really does not want to go to to Bellingham. Nor is she willing to consider Oregon or Washington State (Note: Western is harder to get into than Washington State. When did that happen?)</p>
<p>Unbelievably, I think our safety school is Alabama. She qualifies for a full tuition (and maybe better) scholarship and is getting used to the idea of being far away from home in the south.</p>
<p><a href="Note:%20Western%20is%20harder%20to%20get%20into%20than%20Washington%20State.%20When%20did%20that%20happen?">i</a>*
Western has some very good programs- even though they don't have great merit aid even for NMS instate students- it is on the more populated side of the mountains- close to Vancouver( site of Winter Olympics) & Seattle.
I know quite a few kids who decided that it was a good deal & affordable, which will leave them with more options after college, including my own D. ( who is taking a year off)</p>
<p>It's true that Bellingham is not as hip as Portland- the folks I know in Bellingham retired there after selling their homes in CA or Seattle. But you could do worse if you want to stay on the West coast + affordable.</p>
<p>We know a lot of them, too, but she is hard-headed! Fortunately, she is also pragmatic and, while she hasn't been able to get her head around Western, she is considering many other schools in other parts of the country that offer great merit aid.</p>