<p>She would probably work and travel if she took a gap year. It’s likely that the college options would shrink after a gap year. </p>
<p>I would slightly disagree in that Rhodes is a top LAC so plenty ’ Prestigious ’ especially wrt grad schools but it depends how your daughter defines prestigious :-). Regardless Portland State is a terrible choice it does not match any of her criteria. Lewis and Clark would have been a safety too and would probably offer merit. I was thinking of your predicament and came to post about the Nacac list. If your daughter really doesn’t want any of the schools on the table you can say gap year or NACAC list. I saw great minds think alike and several posters already brpught it up. 
Anyway you could deposit somewhere and wait for the May Nacac list to be published and have your daughter see if any pf them appeals to her more than her deposit achool or a gap year . Many are very reputable but miscalculated yield. It may offer an alternative for your daughter … and your family .</p>
<p>Yes, that’s why I said Rhodes seems the most prestigious of the ones left. I just meant that it may not have the “wow” factor and the level of prestige the daughter is looking for.</p>
<p>Agree with everybody above that Rhodes is the most prestigious of her remaining choices and plenty prestigious in its own right! </p>
<p>New College and St. Mary’s of Maryland are also very impressive public honors colleges that were on the NACAC list last year, as was Lewis & Clark, which has a beautiful campus from what I can tell in Portland. We originally considered the first two but ruled them out when our son decided he wanted to have the option to study engineering. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ncf.edu/international-studies”>http://www.ncf.edu/international-studies</a>
<a href=“https://smcm.studioabroad.com/”>https://smcm.studioabroad.com/</a>
<a href=“International Affairs - Lewis & Clark”>https://college.lclark.edu/departments/international_affairs/</a></p>
<p>New College and St Mary’s of MD are both fantastic ideas! New College is also rather prestigious (top “Ivy feeder” for grad school apparently), Honors College for the state of Florida, wouldn’t be too expensive (they’re trying to attract OOS students so it’d be within budget due to their OOS scholarship), gorgeous location, great weather (OP you’ll want to visit in February :p). Very rigorous and an atmosphere that may not suit all though, so have her look into it through Fiske Guide, Insider’s Guide to College, Princeton Review’s Best Colleges, plus their own website.</p>
<p>To elaborate on why I think Portland State is a terrible choice: nowhere near LAC, not residential (heavily commuter), not nice campus, not very motivated students.
Western Washington is a better choice for that area of the country among the choices that are on the table.
Did she get into the Honors College at any of those on the final list?</p>
<p>Yes Lewis&Clark isn’t within a sphere of influence or a geographic area, it’s IN Portland (well, in a wealthy residential neighborhood of Portland, not downtown), with college shuttles taking the students to where college students want to be.</p>
<p>St. Mary’s of Maryland has always seemed interesting but it is rural and the OP has said his daughter specifically wants an LAC in an urban area.</p>
<p>Looking at the D’s criteria (LAC in urban area), I’m surprised that the D didn’t apply to Macalester, which seems to fit all her needs and which (last I looked) offers merit money. I’ve no idea if COA would’ve been affordable, but it’s a pity that it apparently wasn’t considered. </p>
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<p>Shhhh!!! Don’t tell him about SMCM and NCF! I’m trying to keep those schools a secret so my daughter has a better chance of admittance next year. His daughter will probably knock my daughter off the admit list… </p>
<p>Wait listed at Macalester. I might be going a bit wobbly. The more I read about GWU Elliot school the more I wonder if that might be a once in a lifetime opportunity.</p>
<p>Admitted to honors program at Western Washington. </p>
<p>She sounds like she is wearing you down and my guess is she has been able to do so in the past? Not sure GWU is a “once in a lifetime opportunity” when there are other options ( and there is always graduate school). Marketing is powerful so I would be careful. This is anecdotal but my older son’s former girlfriend that he dated for almost 3 years went to GWU. She was unhappy and said the only reason she did not transfer was because she believed in finishing what she started. I would look at some reviews , etc. before committing to pay what you have said you don’t want to pay for undergraduate. </p>
<p>Honors at WWU would be okay too. Not great for IR/foreign service, not a LAC, not a city, and overall student body average to above average (and in my opinion a bit too much on the drinking side but ymmv on that!! :p) yet a good honors program, nice campus, not too commuter with most freshmen living on campus and most upperclass students living off campus in apartments, cool town, rather mild weather compared to WY, well-located with Seattle and Vancouver accessible. I would still rate Rhodes/Goucher above WWU 
but it’s much better than Portland State.</p>
<p>Elliott, as mentioned above in one of the unnumbered posts, is Harvard-high for what she wants to do. Not that much of a stretch in terms of comparison, nor an exageration. It’s really above all other choices in terms of what it offers IR majors with European and critical language skills. It’s actually pretty impressive your daughter got in. :)</p>
<p>But what it comes down to is how fixed that budget is - Is it impossible because it’s unthinkable or because it’s unaffordable?
If you have the money in a bank or in a college fund, or if it means some “belt tightening” (ie., “we won’t take any vacation except a week at Grandpa’s and we’ll fly budget not 1st for the time Daughter is in college and we won’t eat out/buy more than once a week and everyone will pitch in cooking every day” type of thing ) but no major bleeding, then it’s really a family decision.
Do keep in mind that you need to be fair to your other child too, ie., if you take huge Parent PLUS loans that will not be available for your son, it wouldn’t be right in my opinion. But also keep in mind that if your income decreases (to 180k at HYP, to 120-150k at the 100%need schools, other schools pick and choose whatever they want), need-based aid will be available but if your income stays the same your EFC will be high too. If it would jeopardize your other child’s college or your retirement, it’s probably not prudent.</p>
<p>I may be kind of frugal (I agonized over a $41 purchase last weekend) but I try to slow the process down by thinking of a “piggybank”, physically, the little pig, with coins that I remove rather than an abstract act of showing plastic in order to see whether I can afford it, and I try to think of everything, if I remove all these coins do I still feel satisfaction with my purchase? Then I make comparisons and I try to see which side of the story it fits. Trying to apply this here (not sure it works, 
I apologize in advance!) It’s kind of like going from Laramie to NYC: you can take Greyhound or fly. Flying will cost much more*. Is it worth the cost difference? IMHO, the answer here would be “sure”, unless you like to spend hours and hours and hours on end on a bus :p. If you have the plane ticket’s cost in your piggybank you think about the cost because it’s so much more than the bus ticket, you may worry about depleting the piggybank, but 48H on a bus vs. 6h on United? … so really it’d be up to you to spend it on the flight followed by youth hostel or stick to the bus ticket and spend it on a nice hotel after the flight or emptying half the piggybank and splurge on both flight and nice hotel or just keep it in case something else comes along because having the coins weight heavy in the piggybank makes the bus ride worth it.
But if I only had enough for a Greyhound ticket, would I borrow from all my friends and sell plasma to fly? Never.</p>
<p>It all comes down to what you can afford. Some things, no matter how worth it, aren’t affordable. And sometimes, they are affordable and you “only” need to weight cost/benefit.
So, is GWU enough benefit that it’s worth the cost if your family can decide you can afford it? Or is it not worth it even if you have the money?
Or is the issue that you don’t have the money but you’re trying to make your daugher happy?</p>
<ul>
<li>I realize that in real life, depending on circumstances, flying could cost less :)</li>
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<p>BS. Don’t cave and blow your budget at the last minute. It is GW, for crying out loud (not Georgetown SFS, not Harvard, not Princeton). Don’t do it… And I personally think you should not start perusing the list of colleges with open spots. A little backbone as a parent would come in really handy here… you need to accept that somehow you have raised a kid who values “prestige” overall, and that is not a very flattering thing to say about a kid. Stick to the choices on the table that you can afford. Stop waffling.</p>
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<p>Why did your daughter prefer Barnard (at $62K) to GWU Elliot (at $52K)?</p>
<p>If you are getting wobbly, I think that’s an important question, because it goes to how committed your daughter is to the idea of a foreign service career. </p>
<p>I think it is fine and appropriate for an 18 year old to keep options open, and a LAC as opposed to special-focus school like Elliot will do just that – but I think that is something to consider before giving into any second thoughts you might have. </p>
<p>I don’t know anything about what happens with people who go into the foreign service with bachelor’s degrees. They get jobs and postings… but where do they lead?</p>
<p>My daughter was interested in international relations – her dream job would have been working with a NGO rather than foreign service. She got a great job straight out of a college with an agency that works with the UN – she had a UN ID badge and everything. Great perks on the job. $35K starting salary, not so great. There were a lot of young people like her at her workplace, but no room for advancement or promotion. The expectation was that the youngsters would work for 2 years and then go to grad school. Most went to Tufts. The only path to a job with more responsibility was a master’s or a Ph.D. </p>
<p>Before you wobble, sit down and have a talk with your daughter about what she really wants… and what she is willing to do to get there.</p>
<p>I still think that she is very fortunate to be able to attend Rhodes-- and I do think that if she is serious about her goals, then it really is a better path to get a strong undergraduate foundation and then get into a good grad school. </p>
<p>Agree, going to a “good enough” , if not great , program like Rhodes or Wyoming will get her where she wants to go if she is serious about international studies. She is fortunate to have Rhodes as an option. These seem like great programs . Are they Harvard or Georgetown? No but they would give her a good foundation and are a lot less expensive than GWU or Barnard. Rhodes seems to meet her needs (program she wants, urban, LAC) . There is also community college or a gap year (with work required ) if she does not want to accept your limits.</p>
<p>With a stint in India through AFS, OP’s daughter may have an advantage in getting admitted to Sciences Po at Le Havre campus. Le Havre focuses on Asia & Asian languages (including Hindi). Since the deadline is May 2, it may be worth the effort to make a phone call to the Deputy Director of Le Havre campus, Mr. Alessandro Mariani, and get an idea of the level competitiveness for admissions. A call may clear lots questions; besides Le Havre may be prestigious for the daughter (with a 3rd year option at a few Ivys & GW), and affordable enough for the parents. </p>
<p>Mr. Alessandro Mariani
Deputy Director, Le Havre Campus
<a href="mailto:alessandro.mariani@sciencespo.fr">alessandro.mariani@sciencespo.fr</a></p>
<p>Tel: 011-33 -1 45 49 77 64 or
011- 33- 2 32 92 10 07</p>
<p>Trinity7: I don’t think we have the time or energy to bring Sciences Po into the discussion at this point, but I will keep it on my radar.</p>
<p>Daughter is leaning towards Goucher, because of location (east coast). Location trumps rigor.</p>
<p>I can understand why the OP’s daughter might be frustrated. If I’m counting right, she applied and was admitted to 13 colleges (plus WL at Macalester). That had to have been a tremendous effort on her part. And, for example, if GWU had come through with merit, it might have been affordable, so definitely worth applying. </p>
<p>To be faced with choosing among the 5 schools she only applied to on her parents’ insistence has to smart. Still, she has some excellent choices. She may not end up sticking with IR, but if she does, as other posters have shown, she CAN pursue it (and study abroad) at several of her choices. Ug school is not make or break for foreign service. It’s not like applying for a job in the private sector; you just have to be able to pass the written and oral exams and place high enough in the Register. Some of my son’s friends, after their ug degrees in many different places and in many different fields, pursued an MA at SAIS (Johns Hopkins international affairs program, located in DC, not Baltimore). Just have a look at the ug schools attended by the Pickering Fellows, which was posted above. (True, that program looks very hard to increase diversity at State, hence the disproportionate representation of HBCUs, etc.) </p>
<p>Passing the FS exam is not a given. I don’t know whether the stats are published, but I’ve heard the pass rate for the written exam is under 30% (tho you can retake it). Passing the oral exam brings that percentage even lower. And even once you’re on the Register, even after you get your medical and security clearances (not guaranteed–you have to be healthy enough for “worldwide availability”)–you may never get a slot. Your position on the Register is based on the oral exam plus any critical needs language or veteran points you have. My son, for example, moved up the Register thanks to his results on the Russian exam (this is a telephone test). Each cone has its own register and the political cone is said to be the most competitive. </p>
<p>If the final decision is a gap year, she might want to look into a structured program, like AFS. One of the seniors at our local high school is doing a year in India through Rotary.</p>
<p>If it were my kid, I’d work that WL at Macalester; it seems to fit her needs very well.</p>
<p>I forgot to add this link:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.talesmag.com”>www.talesmag.com</a></p>
<p>This is the best online source for real life stories of living abroad. Most are written by foreign service people.</p>
<p>janesmith, I doubt that that Macalester will give enough need-based aid for this family - and a WL student would not be a candidate for an offer of merit aid. My son was accepted to Mac a number of years ago, and their need-based award was adequate, but not as strong as other schools – it fell pretty much in the middle. Son also qualified for merit money as an NM scholar at the time – Mac would have used that to wipe out loan requirements, but it still was coming up short compared to need-based packages from other schools. Since the OP says his EFC is around $64K…I think that would just be another financial dead end. </p>
<p>It looks like the daughter applied to a very good range of reach, match,and safety schools and the parents were right to insist on some schools that would be financial safeties. But the d’s desire for prestige is in conflict with the financial pressures – almost all of the prestige level schools offer need-based aid only – or if they do offer merit money, it’s probably pretty hard to come by. </p>
<p>Goucher may work out very well for her – the school has a strong commitment to study abroad, so there may be a lot of resources to support her interests. She’s close enough into DC that she would be able to visit from time to time and attend events in DC that are important to her. </p>