Another parent here with two very different children AND they don’t get along. No surprise, but they have taken very different paths.
^ That is also her own choice to apply to those need met reach schools as she is not interested in schools with lower caliber than the state flagship. My D1 got accepted by one of the two need met schools on D2’s list and we did compare the financial aid packages a few years ago. The cost was not far off from the flagship and that school has even improved their financial aid a couple years ago. We do have another in state safety in mind but we will leave it to the RD round as it is a true safety. D2 is well aware of the low admission rates of all reach schools.
@dustypig Thanks for the reminder. Most of time, we are not even intended to compare them but the younger one is super sensitive about that. That is part of the reason why past experience with D1 would not help at all for D2 as we could not even mention our past experience from D1. I know she is trying to get away from the shadow of her sister and that is exactly the reason for this thread.
Yes, siblings can be very different.
In one family within our extended family with 3 siblings…the middle and favored son(former frat boy who overfocused on beer/partying in college) is now a SAHD after decades of having issues maintaining steady employment and multiple academic/disciplinary issues in college.
In contrast, oldest sis is now a judge and the youngest sis is a senior corporate executive at a fortune 500.
My kid #1’s first-choice college was kid #2’s safety school.
They were that different, academically.
But both ended up with good college experiences, master’s degrees, and good jobs. So maybe they aren’t that different after all.
My kids are very close, both in age and in relationship, but they are very different people. D is a very driven, perfectionist who suffers from anxiety and depression. She had high SAT scores and was sal of her class. Just graduated summa cum laude from college, although it nearly killed her.
S has always done what is expected of him, without really knowing why, and he is now struggling with this. He also had very high SATs (slightly lower than his sister’s) and a lower GPA, so he thinks he’s not as smart. He’s on the Asperger’s spectrum, so struggles socially. We’ve been trying to build him up so that he stops comparing himself to his sister, but it’s an ongoing battle. He just finished his sophomore year (well, with one paper due this week!) and still hasn’t declared a major.
I suspect that siblings who are similar are less common than those who think they are entirely different.
In this case, I’d suggest being very open about what the family is able or willing to contribute financially, and let the second child work from there. She may - or may not - decide that D1’s school is the best fit, but she needs to be in control of this decision to the extent possible.
Showing her your trust in her ability to make important life decisions at this point could be significant for the future. While finances are an important part of “fit,” they certainly aren’t the entire picture.
Neither is reputation.
“a lackluster unweighted 3.6”.
Only on College Confidential… b-(
I think that in two-child families (like the one I grew up in and the one I raised), there’s a tendency to focus on the differences between the siblings rather than the similarities.
My (now-grown) kids think they are very different from each other, and I used to agree. But the more I think about them, the more I see the similarities.
“a lackluster unweighted 3.6”. Only on College Confidential… "
A 3.6 at my kids HS would put you in the 55th percentile of the class. I think that qualifies as a non-brilliant ( lackluster) performance. Not bad. Not great.
It seems like everyone in this thread has “good test taker” kids at least, whether or not they are driven. My sibling was below 70th percentile on their standardized test. I wish I didn’t know this. My parents told me before I had taken my tests. It’s really hard for me to avoid comparing
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A 3.6 at my kids HS would put you in the 55th percentile of the class. I think that qualifies as a non-brilliant ( lackluster) performance. Not bad. Not great.<<
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Is this Lake Woebegone? Does no one earn a C in anything?
I understand where the first poster is coming from.
A 3.6 GPA at my public magnet would likely place someone somewhere between the 25th and 33rd percentiles when I attended considering folks with that GPA and average for my public magnet’s SAT scores routinely got admitted to some of the Ivies/peer elites…though not HYPSMCC levels back then.
Granted, a part of the drop also has to do with the fact my entering 9th grade class had ~28% attrition rate between beginning of freshman year till our graduation. Most of those were those who found the high workload, high academic rigor, high expectations, and a sink-or-swim competitive atmosphere wasn’t for them and opted to transfer back to their neighborhood high schools within our first 2 years.