Thank you for all of the feedback! Very helpful. Not 100% sure what we have settled on for a plan as this process is still evolving a bit. For those worried that we haven’t addressed the dollars yet, we have to some degree. She already knows that dollars will be part of the decision making process and she gets it. Specifics just haven’t been detailed.
She still needs to revisit 3 of these colleges for second time to get a better sense of fit, etc. Based on that we may have a better sense if there are some we are leaning towards so we can maybe tweak the approach to get her to lean in that direction (or away from one of the others).
Just to clear up any questions:
- DD has been pretty reasonable so far in this whole process and understands that dollars need to be considered.
- We would be fine with her picking any of the 4 schools in terms of fit, reputation, etc. (for instance, no party schools included). College A would be a perfectly fine choice if that turned out to be the best overall fit.
- Colleges A & B are cheaper due to scholarships (that require minimum GPA) so by dangling a carrot on the back end that should be a further incentive to keep the grades up to keep the scholarships. Otherwise, College A could be as expensive as College C if she bombs freshman year.
- DD has already eliminated a College E from consideration after realizing that even though it had a beautiful campus and had a nice “feel” for her it didn’t make sense because it was even more expensive by $10,000/year or so than College D, is pretty far away/tough to get to, and it’s reputation in Engineering isn’t that great.
We will see where all this leads…