I didn’t say he needed to be bribed.
I said if he chooses the great and more affordable instate option, then they would save $60,000 compared to Case Western.
So maybe if they choose to, they could give him some of that money. They don’t have to,
UT Austin is a great choice anyway. And affordable.
Knowing it is not his fault that financial aid works the way it does, making his dream schools unaffordable – good. Keeping a chip on his shoulder – not so good.
There is no reason to feel wronged about having to go to UTexas. It’s a fabulous school with a long list of opportunities. Despite the fact that he was autoadmit to the university due to class rank, he passed a highly selective admissions bar to get into the school of engineering.
Back in the day, all of my hard work and NMF status went to, ahem, Rutgers. So despised by so many high school students in NJ! It was what was affordable. I mourned the idyllic LAC that I couldn’t afford and the highly ranked OOS public university I couldn’t afford, and moved on and went to then down-at-the-heels New Brunswick.
It was a great experience. It is possible to make a large place small by showing a bit of initiative. I knew my professors, made good friendships, took interesting classes, got good grades, and got into highly ranked graduate programs with full funding.
UT Engineering is insanely competitive and highly ranked. Austin is a very fun college town. Nice weather too! With the money saved, you could afford lots of perks - study abroad, maybe a car? I’d say give him time to get through the stages of grief. Within a couple of months in the fall, he will probably feel very different about his prospects.
If the feeling of lack of choice is the issue, he could throw in a couple of last minute applications at rolling admission schools. UA has been mentioned. He also would get a full ride at U of NM as NMF. Pinging @DiotimaDM whose son will be studying engineering at UNM as a NMF next year. You might also check to see if ASU is still accepting applications, where he would also get a good package due to NMF and probably entry into Barrett Honors. Personally, I think UT is a better option academically than either of these but if he wants to compare and feel as though he has a choice, these might be options. If he is interested, I would call admissions and verify that NMF funding is still available and how to expedite the process as May 1 is fast approaching.
I know a high stats young woman who got locked out of her top choices and visited ASU at the final hour and ended up really liking it. She enrolled and has been very happy there.
My D had a bit of a long and winding road and ended up attending a school which she and her peers considered a safety (it’s anything but, to be honest). She was initially accepted everywhere she applied and offered significant merit by some top schools, but as I said… long and winding road to the “safety”.
Anyway, she was quite upset initially as the OP’s son is. We helped by taking her on 3-4 visits to the city and campus and being enthusiastic about both. It also helped that she had a good friend from high school attending who she met with a couple times while we were there. We loaded her up with school shirts and other swag, used yelp to find all the best restaurants close to campus and ate at them all, and generally ran around the city to get her comfortable with it. The US News rankings also helped to dispel the notion of her school as a “safety” although I’m not sure she buys it even today.
Regardless, she’s happy where she is now even though back in Freshman year we had told her she could certainly apply to xfer to other schools later if she wanted to. The last time I chatted with her on the subject, she agreed that where she’s at ended up being the best choice for her.
Polluted? You’re going to enable a kid who is experiencing normal disappointment (and will get over it no doubt) by telling him he’s a victim?
Please.
He can’t afford to attend college without aid- he’s in good company. He’s got a bio dad who refuses to pay- he’s in good company. He’s been admitted to one of the top engineering programs in the country, which his mom can afford- that’s pretty unique, a wonderful accomplishment. He’s disappointed in how things have shaken out- again, good company.
Tell him how proud you are of him, give him some space to get comfy with UT, and go buy him one of those shower caddies with space for his soap and shampoo at Walmart and tie a bow to the handle.
@mamaedefamilia, actually, he does have options, including to ASU, but he doesn’t feel that they are “real” options because yes, they don’t compare to UT-Austin in CompE.
But here’s the crazy thing: UT-Austin is merely one of the top schools in the country in CompE. I can’t think of any goal for a typical CompE major that would be more easily achieved at the schools he pines for than at UT-Austin.
He doesn’t value what he has because he could gain it easily but he doesn’t realize how fortunate he is to have an easy admissions path to UT-Austin and only pay in-state prices just because he is lucky enough to graduate from HS in TX. Kids as accomplished as him but unlucky enough to be in other states or outside the US may not even get admitted to UT-Austin and even if they do, they have to pay a lot more than his family has to to attend.
Sorry if the word bribe was too harsh. But I’d worry he’d still feel like he’s settling, unless he comes to see the advantages of UT Austin. Not just the ways Mom might get him to grudgingly accept and attend.
Agree with @blossom. Allow him to move on and try to avoid feeding into his disappointment. UT Austin is a great place particularly for engineering, Austin is full of fun things (for students who have time). I have not heard mention of any other school options that would be better than UT.
^Oh it’s CE. This is just a silly conversation then. Kid gets to go to just about the top school for CE in the US which is affordable for his single mom and is still unhappy? Small Pond Syndrome. He needs to grow up a bit and I’m sure he will. There will be plenty of kids at UT who will be smarter in his CE classes which will be small anyway in the upper years.
Could he meet with some recent graduates in his major?
Prestige is an irrational emotion that drives people to spend up to $250k for a bachelors degree. I find that completely insane. Why would a parent spend half their life savings on an expensive private school when there’s just as much benefit going to a state flagship for a small fraction of that cost? A masters degree from any local university would squash that 250k bachelors degree any day of the week. What we need to teach students is prudence over prestige. The vast majority of employers are small to mid-size companies. Guess what colleges they recruit from? They recruit from local and regional universities because it’s more cost effective than relocating.
I have been in your shoes. Here’s my advice with the understanding that each kid is different so what worked for us may not work for you.
I had to let her be sad. I had to drive a grumpy kid to accepted student days, and then a couple months later to orientation in the summer and one month later to be dropped off in the dorm.
I did NOT cheerlead the school. If she said something vaguely positive I agreed and affirmed briefly.
I didn’t allow her to be negative about herself or others who got into her dream schools. My standard go to was something along the lines of, " You are a fantastic student and you could succeed at any of the top schools. But there are more great students than there are spots in those most competitive schools. Doesn’t mean you are less of a student or they are more. Doesn’t mean the admissions game is rigged. Luckily there are enough colleges out there for every student to thrive somewhere. And lucky us. We live in a state where the flagship is a fantastic school and a great bargain for us compared to comparable schools elsewhere."
There was one moment when she was lamenting that a friend got in to my daughter’s top choice school. This friend apparently had a parent who helped her game the system as much as possible, regularly being “sick” to miss class and take a test later, or skip one class to study for another. Everything was apparently a parent child joint effort to boost those grades, EC’s, etc. as high as possible for college admissions. And for her it worked. And that stung for my kid. I let her rant a bit and then quietly said, “Do you wish we had done that?” She thought about it and said no.
It was also helpful to get her talking to people outside of the bubble of rarefied top college admissions world. Church was great for this. People can’t resist asking a senior about their college plans. When she said, “state flagship” people would say things like, “What a great school!” The trick for you is identifying which groups of people will response this way and finding more of them and avoiding the people who will say stupid stuff like, “A student like you? I figured you’d go to Harvard for sure.”
Three weeks into the school year I got a text with a screen shot from her group me captioned, “I have found my people.” Six weeks into the school year she came home for fall break and brought along 8 of her closest friends to stay at our house. She loves the school and is so glad in so very many ways that that is where she ended up.
Seems like the actual main problem was that the application list was pretty much all reaches or out-of-reach (due to the FA with uncooperative NCP issue) other than UT Austin.
If he wants a smaller environment with engineering, see if South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology are still taking applications. Both are easy to get into, and both are relatively inexpensive even at out-of-state list price.
I’m a big believer in the 24 hour pity party, complete with Ice Cream therapy. It hurts to be rejected, and our kids should be allowed to feel that hurt without being made to feel they shouldn’t
But then it’s time to rejoin the human race and begin playing the hand you’ve been dealt. Have him join the group chat for accepted candidates and talk to other kids who will also be attending…kids who are excited about that choice! Their excitement May very well be contagious!
We e spoken a lot this year about blooming where you’re planted. My daughter is now giddy with excitement about attending a school she had never heard of 4 months ago.
Just wanted to offer my virtual hugs as well.
I fear we will be in this exact same position in exactly 1 year. I agree about not calling that great state flagship a safety- H & I keep talking it up and my BFF who graduated from the school loved her experience & keeps telling D that. But I so feel for these super hard working kids who suffer such disappointment. D is headed down this same path.
My motto is ‘whatever is meant to be will be’ and I’m going to keep the faith that things happen the way they are meant to for a reason.
Best wishes, OP! I hope it all works out great for your hard working kid.
Hhm. If he get’s accepted off one of the waitlists is he willing to compromise on the quality of the Computer Engineering program? Only CMU is higher ranked and it’s extremely hard to get accepted to. If he was applying to CS or CE at CMU then he has nothing to feel bad about. Look at his blessings and see them as opportunities. If he had been accepted to one the others he may have made a bad choice. Now he can’t. He’ll do great!
“Seems like the actual main problem was that the application list was pretty much all reaches or out-of-reach (due to the FA with uncooperative NCP issue) other than UT Austin.”
Nope, he had several other OOS safeties but they either cost more or aren’t close to UT-Austin’s level in his major, so he feels like he has no options (even though he does).
So even though what he does have is something that many kids of his caliber who are unfortunate enough not to live in TX(/MI/IL, etc.) would want but do not have (a school as good in CompE as UT-Austin at in-state rates), he’s raging because he’s in that 18 year-old bubble and can’t see how fortunate, through no accomplishment of his own, he is.
Post #0 says that he got into 3 other schools. One (CPSLO*) was later decided to be undesired, as discussed earlier in this thread. But the others were mentioned as being unaffordable since he did not get the needed merit scholarships (the schools should have been assessed as reaches due to the need for the presumably reach-level scholarships, even though admission may have been safety level).
*CPSLO is also not generally considered a safety for any engineering applicant to begin with.
One of my DD’s BFF’s went thru this exact same scenario last year. The BFF was an auto admit to UT-Austin and it was the only school BFF was accepted too out of MANY applied too. BFF opted to defer enrollment for a year, decompress from a very hectic high school schedule, do a bit of volunteer work that involved travel and get a new perspective.
BFF “knew” that UT Austin was the dream school for many but BFF is from the Austin area, the dream was elsewhere and BFF had really high stats as well but alas, those stats didn’t get BFF into any of the dream schools.
Originally BFF was going to try and apply again but late last summer, BFF came to the conclusion that UT Austin was an amazing opportunity, was affordable and the dream schools really weren’t the end all be all that had been created in BFF’s mind. BFF is now eagerly awaiting move in day in August and thrilled to be a Longhorn!
I hope your son can come to the same conclusion - I think its fair to be upset but I also think at some point we need to remind them that we don’t always get what we want when we want it AND that lifes paths have a funny way of working out.
My high-stats, hard-working DD was rejected or waitlisted from all of the schools she really wanted to go to and admitted only to 3 public flagships - only one of which she willingly applied to as I made her apply to the other 2. She was devastated. Like you, I imagined that for the next 5 months I’d be faced with a miserable, depressed kid who hated where she was going. I sympathized with her and allowed her space to feel whatever she was feeling. But I also made sure she knew that I believed the 3 schools she got into could offer her a great experience and a wonderful education with the added plus that they were a great financial value (compared to the schools she wanted to go to).
A week after the bloodbath that was the RD decision week, we went to an admitted students day for the one school of the 3 that she had never toured. 2 days later she agreed to commit there. By that night we had ordered her some t-shirts and she was sitting on the couch watching that school’s men’s lacrosse game on TV. Last night we were debating where on the family cars we’d put her school’s decal. It became clear to me that I had very much underestimated her resilience and that we wouldn’t spend the next 5 months watching her dread going off to college.
While I think her ego is still bruised she has played the hand she was dealt pretty well in my opinion. It might just take your son a little longer to process his situation and come out on the other side. But, yes it’s possible that maybe he doesn’t. If that happens, he may be one of those kids who goes the transfer route (although as noted, he’d be much less likely to get merit money as a transfer). I’m not sure there is much you can do to convince him it won’t be the end of the world.
I’ve since asked my daughter whether spending $140k more to go to one of her waitlist schools than the school she has committed to would be worth it and asked whether going there was more about ego than about her ability to be happy and get a wonderful education. The waitlist school is smaller than her current school so that’s a legitimate concern. But I think even she realizes that $140k is a huge chunk of change. Hopefully over time your son can more rationally look at his options and appreciate that while perhaps it’s not what he initially envisioned for himself that there are ways to be happy at the highly-rated and very affordable school in his own backyard.