<p>Set a dollar amount, not a percentage amount, that you will pay. As counterintuitive as it may seem, students eligible for FinAid often can attend expensive private schools for the same or less money than they can attend Local Public. Why? The private schools have much more FinAid. One of my D’s friends attending Smith (was $40-45K/year, now crept up a little) had to pay about $6K a year. Okay, an extreme case…it was a single-mom with a modest but not extremely low-paying job.</p>
<p>Taking schools off the table before you figure out what FinAid you can get is not terribly productive.</p>
<p>Two of D’s best friends “fell in love with SUNY Binghamton” in different years. The first one is 2 years older than D and did not get in. She was accepted however to Syracuse. Attended one semester and didn’t like it and transferred to Binghamton at the end of the first semester.</p>
<p>This year one of her friends applied ED (or EA?) to SUNY Binghamton and again didn’t get in. She did however get in during the regular round. </p>
<p>Another thing to take into account is that SUNY schools are not easy to get into especially wit the economy where more students are looking for lower tuiton costs for undergraduate school.</p>
<p>We are NOT from NY state. BUT we know more than a handful of kids who fell in love with SUNY Binghamton, and SUNY Stonybrook…and a couple with SUNY Purchase.</p>
<p>I certainly know students who’ve fallen in love with their SUNY schools! Binghamton and Buffalo are popular choices here for really bright kids who want to spend less on their undergrad school. Lots to offer at each of them - and Buffalo is a great town, too, with lots going on there - cool neighborhoods, an arts scene, great sports. </p>
<p>If your d is competitive for admission at Binghamton, which has become much more selective recently, she’d probably qualify for merit aid at some good OOS public schools, and, depending on what she’s interested in, private schools as well. I suggest that you/she look at the University of Pittsburgh, a school my 2 younger ds loved where they qualified for some nice scholarship money. It’s got rolling admissions, so you can have an acceptance and scholarship offer in hand in mid-October, which makes senior year ever so much more pleasant. Good luck!</p>
<p>Don’t forget SUNY Geneseo. It’s a popular destination in our area for bright kids who can’t/don’t want to pay for selective privates. I think it’s replaced Binghamton as the most selective SUNY now, based strictly on SAT scores.</p>
<p>But it’s got a Liberal Arts bent and feel, if somewhat larger. A very pleasant campus in a very rural area. The students are strong academically and if the OP’s daughter is competitive, I assume the chances for med school are good. And the price is right. It also has a small honors program (my son, now at a very selective LAC, did not get in to that program), and some merit money.</p>
<p>You’ve gotten some very good advice here - tell your D what you can pay, make sure she applies to a “safe” SUNY school as a financial safety, allow her to apply to privates with the knowledge that the financial aid package needs to make up the difference of what you can pay . . .</p>
<p>One thing to emphasize with D: Med schools are expensive - even in-state public med schools. She does not want much debt coming out of undergraduate school (no debt is ideal) and should not want crushing debt coming out of med school. Med schools are quite egalitarian about where their students went to undergrad. There are students at the top med schools who went to pundunk state U. Grades and MCAT scores are the key. She can get a very good pre-med education at a number of SUNY schools - the 4 university centers as well as some of the others. And she won’t be in debt entering med school. She should factor that into her equation when deciding on an undergraduate school.</p>
<p>Add my D to the minority – she fell in love with the University at Buffalo, and chose it over all of her highly prestigious options.</p>
<p>We expected to be a full-freight family, and H and I were financially prepared for that. In fact, I was a little concerned at first that she was turning down Brown, Penn, Michigan, etc for just a “lowly” SUNY. </p>
<p>She genuinely liked every school on her list, and expressed great satisfaction at the accomplishment of being accepted to the others. But in the end, she felt that UB was the right fit and the place she wanted to spend four years. And the more H and I learned about UB and her reasons, we became very impressed at her research and choice. </p>
<p>I will add emphatically: Even though she did not make the decision for financial reasons, there is no question that her choice has created much more flexibility and opened up many more options for schooling, travel, work, extras, etc. She was also awarded a full tuition scholarship and found a great on-campus job that she loves, and I think she takes a lot of pride in how much “skin” she has in the game.</p>
<p>It’s not clear whether your family would qualify for financial aid at a private, and you do not need to disclose that. But some privates give substantial financial aid, even to families with incomes that might be considered fairly high. I would not discount private options before fully investigating, since they really can be much cheaper than state schools, with the FA.</p>
<p>Being realistic about money up front, before the selection process begins, is best, and you are already doing that.</p>
<p>Personally, I feel the most appealing town to be in is New Paltz. On the other hand, I got my PhD at Stony Brook and have never left. I love Port Jefferson (nearby town where I live), the Sound, the proximity to the city, the enrichment of a major university. And I must say, as the years have passed I have fallen in love with Stony Brook.</p>
<p>Many of the kids’ friends attend. They wanted to get away.</p>
<p>I was totally upfront with my son about what we could and could not afford - that is why we applied to 13 schools and no Early decision schools. Fortunately for us, the best school he got into was the school that offered the most aid - because they meet 100% need. First you need to do the EFC calculator and figure what your EFC might be. When using the calculator I found it best to go off my gross pay as not to be surprised down the road. You might be pleasantly surprised what your EFC is. On top of your EFC, your student will also have loans (perkins and Stafford) and that equals your financial aid package at 100% need schools. Schools that don’t meet 100% need it is a crap shoot.</p>
<p>My daughter is not wild about any SUNYs, but she is wild about a couple of programs, so that’s positive. Her biggest concern is the same as pretty much every other student I know who applies: she doesn’t like the locations. But one can’t have everything, so she’s applying to two, along with some privates and one CUNY, and seeing what happens.</p>
<p>Am prepping to have a similar conversation with my kid soon . . . and will take the soft and direct approach: </p>
<p>“we as a family need to have you look at some financial safety schools and add some of them to the college list . . . a “financial safety school” is one where the net cost ( list price minus scholarships) is in the 20s to low 30s . . . These can be a school that has a low list price, like McGill . . . or schools that tend to offer a lot of merit aid that offsets their higher list cost (like Muhlenberg, where 30% of the kids get merit aid and the average merit award is $11k) . . . So here’s a list of potential financial safety schools . . We want you to read about them and select 4-6 for us to put on the list.”</p>
<p>The other part of the conversation that needs to happen sooner or later is the “yes, we’ll pay but we won’t pay that much for that school” topic, which some parents handle by saying something like “we’ll go $30k, the rest is up to you” . . . We haven’t had that kind of conversation yet, in part because I WOULD pay the big bucks for some schools because the value is there (e.g., Columbia) but not for others (e.g., Wheaton in MA) </p>
<p>It also depends on whether the kid is still thinking in a more child-like fashion about colleges (e.g., “mommy, daddy I just LOVE this school, can I have it please please please”) or is approaching it in a more mature way (that is, there are dozens of schools where a particular student can be happy and thrive, so since the issue is best value, what 4-6 schools on your list would you be happy attending)</p>
<p>Complicating the situation for us is that we will probably not get much in the way of need aid (unlike post #31) </p>
<p>What I like about the soft and direct approach is that it elevates the student to a more mature level, away from the OP’s original issue of trying to make sure that the kid thinks of it her self into the realm of working collaboratively toward a common goal . . But that ALL depends on the maturity level of the student.</p>
<p>I agree with mythmom, SUNY New Paltz is a school that many kids do fall in love with. It’s in a great location (1 1/2 hours to NYC) and the town and surrounding community is fun and funky. I have heard that the biology dept. is very good and I have also heard they are building a brand new science building. It’s worth looking into.
My son transferred there from a top private school and really likes it.</p>
<p>set a dollar amount. Or set 2/3-1/3 if she goes private and flipflop is she goes state. But talk now about who pays for med school. And if she goes 2/3 of your money now for undergrad, then maybe she will be on her own 100% with med school etc. And if she goes 2/3-1/2 for undergrad, there will be funds left over for 1/3-2/3(notice the flipflop) for med school.</p>
<p>Set a dollar amount. Or set 2/3-1/3 if she goes private and flipflop is she goes state. But talk now about who pays for med school. And if she goes 2/3 of your money now for PRIVATE undergrad, then maybe she will be on her own 100% with med school etc. And if she goes 2/3-1/2 for STATE U undergrad, maybe there will be funds left over for 1/3-2/3(notice the flipflop) for med school.</p>
<p>Give her a financial motivation. But given the cost of med school,. time to start talking NOW.</p>
<p>My son “fell in love” with the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam. We know a lot of kids who fell in love with Purchase, Fredonia, Potsdam, New Paltz, Buffalo, the list goes on and on.</p>
<p>If you let the kids know that they can attend anywhere, price is not an issue, it is very rare that they will go the SUNY route.</p>
<p>Given a choice of unlimited $$ for a car they won’t choose the bug, unlimited $$ for a house and you won’t choose the this will fit just fine home…</p>
<p>Part of the student’s options should include the degree to which a) they’re willing to work during the school year and summer to get some $$$, b) the degree to which they can get Financial Aid (merit and need-based), and c) the degree to which they’re willing to assume loans on their own. </p>
<p>D graduated with around $20K in loans, which is where my personal comfort zone for undergrad is at and that paid for roughly 10 percent of her cost, giving her “skin in the game.” We’re happy, she’s happy. She also worked 8-10 hours a week during the school year, enough to take care of all sorts of expenses without putting undue pressure on her schedule. Research assistant, tutor, TA. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, she didn’t earn a dime in the summers due to unpaid internships but we all thought the internships were more valuable than summer earnings and events proved that judgment correct as they led to a job in her chosen field that she had nailed down five months before graduation.</p>
<p>Kei-o-lei: I started out with similar ideas until I really got into the process. I realized that I was investing in my child, not in the school. Therefore, it might be that Wheaton could help my child become all he can be better than Columbia if he needed the support, the small campus, the involved teachers, less pressure.</p>
<p>I would make sure I was getting something valuable for my money, and then the “name” of the school would not be an issue.</p>
<p>For instance, my D gets claustrophobic really easily. She needed good public transportation and desperately wanted to attend school in NYS. She was accepted to Barnard and attended. I initially said wouldn’t pay for NYU (big, anonymous school that didn’t have the greatest reputation when I was young, but it coming up) but I changed my mind.</p>
<p>She preferred Barnard, but I would have stretched for NYU as well.</p>
<p>I see your point, but I eventually came to think another way. Of course, your approach is just as valid. I just thought I’d mention it.</p>