<p>Ivyhope- I’m N. Cal too- be honest here- CAl and UCLA are not ANYONES back up these days. Acceptances are too random, especially for affluent Sub. schools and fancy privates. CAL and UCLA only take so many from each school and then fill in with other socio-economic kids from lower ranked schools.That’s what ELC is for, a way to rank top students at top schools even though CA does not rank. ELC is suppose to make up for the large gap in school performance, but it also ranks the top kids for CAL and UCLA. Still doesn’t mean they get accepted by one or both though, every year…tears</p>
<p>“We might be living in different worlds in N. California but I still haven’t seen anyone who have choosen even Cal ‘UCB’ over HMSPY&C just because it is half the cost.”</p>
<p>I’m sure we are. College Con has really opened my eyes about all the different worlds people can live in, and still be in the same coubtry! </p>
<p>I believe we are considered the poorest and maybe most uneducated county in the Bay Area. Most kids from my kids school ( it’s a private but parochial school) go to community college. The GC ( when we had one ), told them doing this, and transferring was the way to go, to save money. He also said take the SAT and take the ACT, but take them only once…) Some go to CSU’s, some to private Christian schools, and the superstars go to the UC’s. They don’t even APPLY to HMPY&C as far as I know. My D was one of three that left the state. She was one of the top 5 students, all among her closest friends. One (the sal) applied to Stanford, but didn’t get in. She is at SCU, and “lovin’ every minute of it!”. The Val went to Cal, the kid with the 2360 SAT was one of the three that left California and he went to…wait for it…Liberty. My D ended up at Duke, but make no mistake; If she had gotten into UCLA, I’m pretty sure she would have gone. (She DID get into Cal though, and didn’t want to go, and we didn’t “make” her.)</p>
<p>A “doctor I rent space from’s” D applied to and got into NYU, but went to UCLA. I know that’s no Ivy, but I don’t think she applied to one.</p>
<p>I’m sure those that get into Stanford would go.</p>
<p><<one final=“” speculation:=“” i=“” suspect=“” that=“” someone=“” who=“” end=“” up=“” in=“” the=“” bottom=“” half=“” of=“” an=“” elite=“” school=“” class=“” would=“” be=“” better=“” off=“” at=“” another=“” where=“” he=“” or=“” she=“” could=“” top=“” end.=“” probability=“” a=“” good=“” outcome=“” next=“” step=“” is=“” higher=“” being=“” biggest=“” fish=“” smaller=“” pond=“” rather=“” than=“” small=“” bigger=“” pond.=“”>></one></p>
<p>I agree with this. My daughter is hispanic, with a 31 on the ACT and top 10% of her class. I’ve had so many people say she should be applying to Ivy League schools. Finances aside (we wouldn’t be able to afford it due to divorce/remarriage), I don’t want her going to a school where she will likely be the bottom 25% of kids, and she would. She’s smart, but I want her to go to a school where she will blossom rather than feel intimidated (and she would) and also get attention from a professor. </p>
<p>My step-son-in-law got into Yale, and attended Notre Dame. He wanted to be a doctor. He says in hindsight he would have been much better off going to a smaller LAC, like some of his lower achieving friends did, who found their niches, and now are more successful than he is. He did not become doctor; wasn’t near enough to the top to get research opportunities and attention from professors. He said he will have that regret the rest of his life.</p>
<p>FineArts- I too was a public school kid at a private U, had a lot of catching up to do but valued every minute of my education and its costs. I still thank the generous alums, all of you taxpayers who subsidized my loans, and my parents who sacrificed mightily to make it possible.</p>
<p>My kids had advantages growing up that I didn’t have. And I had no trouble explaining to one of my kids that if he had to choose between Rutgers engineering and second tier private college engineering we would not pay for that private- it was a weaker academic program, much more expensive (although we are not NJ residents), and had no apparent intellectual advantages other than higher price and snazzier dorms. So it was off the table.</p>
<p>But I don’t think showing your kids where your financial limitations are and trying to teach them the value of a buck by choosing not to pay for the education that you can afford is the same thing. There are hundreds of colleges I wouldn’t pay for, and a small list that I’d personally choose to go into debt for. YMMV.</p>
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There are certainly different worlds, the students I’ve talked to from ‘Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology’ only aspire to go to HMSPY and considered UVa as a back up plan. I think TJHS is in virgina.</p>
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Not sure if that is true, 40% of senior class from DD HS get acceptances from UCB/UCLA and only 10-12% go there. The worst case for the top kids at DD HS is to apply to UCSD.</p>
<p>Ivyhope: I don’t argue on these boards…but c’mon, 40%? No possible way…NONE.</p>
<p>Ivyhope-Why do you put those % out there when you know ANY parent in CA with a high achieving child knows that is just wrong. The way things are gong here in the 'burbs, you know and I know, kids with 3.8 and not above a 2000 SAT are being shut out at the UC’s (except UCM, UCR,UCSC) and are going to Cal POLY SLO (a great school :)) SDSU(ditto), and are also applying to out of state schools- Arizona, Boulder, Oregon. UW…why put out inaccurate info…</p>
<p>ParentofIvyHope – please tell which school has a 40% acceptance rate THESE DAYS to UCB/UCLA… and sends vast majority of graduates to HYP?</p>
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I’ve no interest in putting wrong information. I’ve followed for 6-7 years DD HS school for its acceptances and matriculation. Last two have been very tough but still % wise 10% of the senior class of 2009 got acceptances from Princeton.
Exact acceptance % at UCB was 33.23%, UCLA was 37.47%.</p>
<p>Back to FineArts and the question …</p>
<p>What was this thread about again?</p>
<p>IIRC, POIH’s D went to an elite private school.</p>
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<p>My thoughts exactly. I don’t see this as a black and white thing as in ‘either you pay big bucks for your child to go to an expensive private school or he/she will receive a poor education at the public university.’ IMHO, the decision needs to be made once all the offers are in and you figure out the cost/benefit. That cost benefit ratio is likely to be different for every family…even those who have a lot of money.</p>
<p>I see this as making a thoughtful decision based on the choices in front of you. Is it worth sending your child to a $50,000 yr school for UG and then have them get into debt for grad school? Maybe. It depends on the child, their future plans and the school. But then again, maybe it’s not worth it. </p>
<p>Maybe it makes more sense to choose a less expensive route for UG and be able to attend grad school debt-free. Again, it depends on a lot of things, not least of which is what is the child’s intended career path. In some fields, a grad degree is a requirement, in others, it’s simply a nice to have.</p>
<p>Maybe the child is choosing a career that will not earn them a high standard of living, so saving some money for a 1st house or the grandchildren’s education makes a lot of sense.</p>
<p>I don’t have ‘the’ answer because everyone’s situation is different and warrants individual consideration. I do know that we have been saving for college all along and have $120K put aside for college. If son chooses to go to a $50,000 yr school, it won’t kill us but we (husband, son and myself) need to sit down and carefully weigh all the options. The ultimate decision depends on many factors.</p>
<p>I will say this (I live in the southeast as a reference point) many people I know who are ‘rich’ send their kids to the instate public university usually because of one of three main reasons:</p>
<p>1) Either the kid didn’t do academically well enough to get in anywhere else (and the family isn’t going to donate millions to get them into a elite or not-so-elite private school) or</p>
<p>2)the kid really, really wants to go to the state U where his or her friends are going, or</p>
<p>3)It’s where the rich parent went and they don’t see the value of spending $200k on an education when said parent did very well going to the public u.</p>
<p>Fineartsmajormom: your original post struck a chord with me because our situation is very similar. What we have been telling son is that we will all sit down together and weigh the pros and cons of each option once all acceptances are in. Right now, my son is falling victim to the trap of equating ‘more expensive and/or private’ with ‘better’. My plan is once we see where he’s accepted (really, it’s a moot point right now because his ‘favorite’ and the most expensive school is a high, high reach for him) is to have him dive deeper into researching the schools. He will be doing an overnight stay for any school he’s seriously considering. We will ask him to give us concise reasons for wanting to go to those schools (not just ‘it’s a highly ranked school’), we may ask him to commit to making a financial contribution to the ultra-expensive school (no reason a kid can’t work summers and while in college - I did). Those are some of the things we are planning to do and we have told him this upfront. IMHO, son has not done enough due diligence on the schools he’s applying to.</p>
<p>As an aside, when we make the decision to put him into private school in 2nd grade, I did all of the above. We spend weeks and weeks researching the options and weighing the cost/benefit. I agonized over the decision for days. And I’m glad I did. It turned out to be the right decision but only because of amount of time we spent making sure that the cost/benefit made sense as well as the fit of the school.</p>
<p>Nice post, MomLive.</p>
<p>Perhaps it is obvious to most others but I’m just beginning to realize that many people on C.C adopt very extreme positions on certain topics (especially money topics) because they need to constantly justify their own choices and the choices made by their children.</p>
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<p>May I add a fourth? Sometimes families choose their flagship state U because of a special program the student is really interested in. Zoology or Modern Greek, for example. (Look at the number of majors offered at Ohio State vs. the number of majors offered at Oberlin.)</p>
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<p>LOL. I had the exact same thought as I read through this thread. AND I’m just as guilty of doing it as the next person. It’s human nature. It can be hard to feel okay with your own personal position if you have any level of self-doubt, so people tend to take extreme positions in order to ease their own fears. I will admit to doing it at times. Although, I’m getting better at living with that ‘uncomfortable’ feeling of seeing that things are generally some shade of gray rather than black and white.</p>
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<p>Absolutely! There are numerous excellent reasons someone who can afford an expensive school would forgo it for a ‘top’ school. Those were three that popped into my head when I was thinking about all the people I know who could afford to send their kids anywhere and, yet, still choose the State U.</p>
<p>A recent example I just thought of: One of my son’s classmates father is a wealthy orthopedic surgeon with no other kids at home and could send son to a $50,000 yr school and the son could easily get into a top 20 school - he’s at the top of the class. The father was telling me the other day that they would like son to go to one of the state flagships and then pay 100% of son’s medical school and costs through his residency because that is what his father did for him. Not many physicians get through medical school & residency debt-free. I think it is a wonderful gift to that child and a very valid reason to send child to the state U when you might be able to afford otherwise. It is, BTW, the same State U said wealthy orthopedic surgeon attended for UG.</p>
<p>Am I the only one whose sons haven’t a clue about rankings, and don’t equate “expensive” with “good education”? These things just aren’t on their radar. </p>
<p>One thing that’s been very heartening to me about the college search process for both S1 (now a college freshman) and S2 (high school senior) is that once the ultra high-ranked and ultra-expensive colleges have been eliminated from the list as being unrealistic (way too much of a reach academically or way too expensive with little or no chance of merit aid), there remains a very large number of high-quality, interesting and distinctive colleges still to choose from. This set of colleges includes both publics and privates, where at least some if not all of the students are thriving. </p>
<p>The challenge is to find that je ne sais quoi with regards to fit. When the student knows exactly what he’s looking for in a college, then this fit is easier to see (and perhaps a higher cost is easier to justify). When the student doesn’t have an academic passion, the fit is trickier to find (and perhaps the higher cost is not so easy to justify).</p>
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I certainly feel that way, but people here might be a bit tired of listening to me rant on this topic.</p>
<p>Thanks again to CC community for some interesting ideas. My post was to solicit ways to get a kid to weigh the cost and benefits of his college choices taking into account the financial costs even when our situation doesn’t make the costs a choice restriction. Like many posters, I thought my kid was not really into the status thing. However, I think that even though he seemed impervious to “status” up until September, since then, there has been subtle and not so subtle pressure to value the prestigious choices more highly. </p>
<p>You must all have heard the same questions from friends and family “where are you applying?” and the resultant oohs and aahs when a prestigious school is mentioned and a rather blank look when SecondTierStateU (but with good program in his area of interest) is mentioned in the same breath. It starts to make the prestigious school seem “better” because everyone responds with “wow…great school, think you have a chance?” and then when he says SecondTierStateU, they respond “oh your safety, but you’re a smart kid why not apply to TopTierStateU?” </p>
<p>It can’t help but influence his perspective (and, I confess, a little bit mine too). Then there is the really, really obnoxious response…“hey, but you are an URM so you should be able to do better than SecondTierStateU…” It makes him think the prestigious school is better no matter the cost and that he will get in based on his ethnicity not his talents and grades…</p>
<p>OK so I am beginning to hate college application season…</p>