Maybe you haven’t been on CC long enough but I can’t tell you how many times the veterans here have seen a kid write that the tuition at any given school won’t be a problem for their parents, only to have it revealed that the student has never seriously discussed college costs with their parents.
Also, never underestimate how much perceived status drives many high school students and their parents to apply to schools in the USNWR top 10 which may not actually be a good or realistic fit for the applicant.
CC posters have saved too many kids and parents from themselves over the years for you to be denigrating their advice.
I think they are the exception and not the rule. Most posters broaching the subject simply try to convey the concept of opportunity cost in relationship to career opportunities and earning potential. It’s not safe to assume that everyone who says money isn’t an issue fully understands this. After that, money typically ceases to be part of the discussion.
We are saying the same thing, Kids come on CC seeking prestige and many of us here on CC try to get the kids to think about a bigger picture.
I think you are painting with a broad brush. I myself have advocated for Ivy and other top school applications, as have others. When appropriate,. And I don’t think anyone is discouraged from applying.
If a kid knows details about each school, has good reasons to apply, can pay or get aid, then absolutely. I think it is also common to encourage applying in those circumstances with the caveat that the admissions rate is low.
Some of us PM on these matters as well. The main concerns are having a “dream school” and spending high school stressed out to get in, and then they don’t. It is always fine to go for prestige but the disappointment and even depression at rejection needs to be avoided if at all possible. And the high school experience can really be affected.
My last post here. I don’t think prestige defines fit in terms of happiness during college but yes it can affect career prospects for certain career paths,
Internet boards and chat rooms aren’t known for nuance. I’ll just point that out. People post, other’s respond. You can push back, argue, illuminate, add context (which helps) but the old-timers here frequently get “My dream school is Princeton. I’ve taken 13 AP’s but my school offers 15. Am I going to get dinged for not taking all 15” type of questions which frankly- is going to trigger both helpful responses (no. You will likely not get into Princeton because most applicants don’t, but it won’t be because of the number of AP’s) and unhelpful responses (your parents must be insane if they want to throw their money away on Princeton when any engineering program will work (for a kid who wants to study Classics).
It is the nature of the beast.
But kids-- and their parents- can learn a lot by sticking around and weeding out the unhelpful answers.
I don’t think you read all of my posts on this thread. In summarizing how my son evaluated fit, I talked about how we specifically used rankings to make the initial short list. As @DadOfJerseyGirl rightly pointed, there are two categories of applicants and there are many many more in the B category than in the A category. A lot of pushback happens specifically towards people in the B category. Rankings are very useful and will always drive choices and its perfectly consistent with that view to advise against using a solely ranking based approach or to point out their potential misapplication (as I did in my example about using generic rankings over major specific ones).
I think the factors are different for different families and even different kids - even the weight placed on various factors are different. A kid who wants to do marching band and doesn’t care about large class sizes probably would find a large school to be better fit, while a kid who needs a smaller class environment to thrive where professor knows them by name, would find smaller school better fit.
Some parents truly don’t have price as a big consideration while for others it’s a deal breaker. For some, it may even vary between kids if for example one kid plans on college/grad school path and another expects to be done in 4 years.
For some, weather is a preference and for others it’s a health consideration. Some refuse to go south for politics, some refuse to go north for weather.
The parent had to sign the ED application. Are you saying the parent did not check the ED obligations before signing? The kid can’t just put in an ED application on their own. That’s on them.
We were an example. When our oldest D graduated HS we looked at her through the lens of when we graduated. Her grades, test scores, class rank, ECs in our view were exceptional and many of our friends from a similar era were saying she should get a free ride anywhere. Enter CC. We learned a lot. First, that while she was an excellent student the education world had changed. Her grades and scores while very good were not exceptional. Scholarships were going to be available but it was unlikely that she could expect a full ride. I was introduced to the concept of safety, match and reach and it changed our outlook and expectations in the application process. We weren’t fanatical about prestige but it was talked about among her peers. I remember my D saying she might apply to MIT. It was outside of her “donut”. I asked if she was accepted would she attend. She said probably not. She didn’t apply. Because of CC her application process while not stress free was pretty stress free. She ended up at a school we didn’t think she would be able to afford and had to not consider some we expected to help her more financially. She applied to 2 “reaches” and was denied by one and waitlisted (denied it was WashU) by the other. She had 5 schools to choose from. If we hadn’t have visited CC I"m not sure how the process would have gone but I know we wouldn’t have been as prepared.
As I mentioned…my kids had some boxes they wanted checked. Everywhere they applied checked those boxes…or they wouldn’t have applied. “Fit” in the end was defined by a gut feeling as they walked the college campuses. They just felt that “it” feeling where they matriculated.
That’s always something I find a little funny. There’s really no such thing as “best fit” school. But there is a such thing as a bad fit. Bad schools 1) are the ones you can’t afford, 2)try to force you into an unmarketable major because marketable ones are hyper-competitive, 3) force emotionally developing teenagers into an endless checklist of ECs and toxic perfectionism for the chance of being accepted as the 3%. Seriously…have some self-respect.
The questioning of the value of “prestigious” schools does not bother me so much on chance me and other pre-admission queries. While some posts will show poster bias, the fact remains that even the best students need to be realistic as to their real chance of getting into “Harvard” and whether their family can afford it. The posts that bother me more are post admissions threads where personal bias is very much in evidence, with opinions based solely on limited personal anecdotes. Worse, when they cannot even do the math right (e.g. is Harvard worth $320k vs is Harvard worth $120k more than XYZ, a $50k school after merit). Here it really bothers me when the parents say they can and are willing to afford to send their kid to school X and posters here question their family’ economic choice. Full pay families who can afford to spend $80k+ a year on school, even if it is a stretch, are not financial idiots. It’s ok to ask if they have studied outcomes relative to their kid’s current goals and point out the cost of professional/grad programs, but there is no need to inject the the writer’s biases as the only conclusion a rational person could make.
I believe that the parents ended up taking out loans so that he could attend the T10. Yes, the parents were aware that he was applying to the school, but they had not paid a lot of attention to finances when applying, and when he was accepted they were surprised at the cost and surprised that he didn’t receive merit or aid.
Agreed! It was simply an example of a family not paying enough attention to college costs.
I really think the concept of “best fit” in colleges is similar to “best fit” in clothes. It might look great on someone else, but not fit you nor be affordable. And sometimes you don’t know until you try it on (go on a visit) and sometimes you don’t know until you’ve already bought it and worn it a few times and you have to get rid of it (transfer).
There are frequent posts from students saying their parents won’t pay unless it’s a T20 school.
There’s a current thread where a high achieving students wants to be a medical administrator, but her parents told her she has to get a MD.
Maybe most commonly, students start in engineering not because they feel drawn, but because they are good at math and physics and are told that’s the best degree to parlay that into a high salary.
I’m not sure forced is completely appropriate, but there are countless examples of students doing things that may not be fully their choice.