<p>My son is the valedictorian at his school. He got into six great schools – two with full rides. He got outstanding scholarship money from other top flight schools. In the end, he chose one of those full rides over the debt he would have incurred going into another school. What influenced him was that so many people, including his friends, told him to take the money rather than all the debt that they would have after four years. At the same time, he got into some outstanding honors programs. Sure, we had a role in this decision, but in the end, he looked at the bottom line and chose little or not debt.</p>
<p>“Ranking” has nothing to do with it, but my opinion of what makes the optimum educational experience does. I would not “make” my child go to Harvard, but before I “let” my child choose BU instead there would be a lot of discussion in the household. But maybe you have just chosen a bad example for me. If my child wanted to go to, say, Carleton over Harvard, and I believed he had thought it through and considered the things I care about, then I wouldn’t have any problem with it at all. </p>
<p>It’s a very hypothetical question for me. My experience of the college process was that my kids shared my values almost completely. Those values didn’t always provide a clear answer to every choice, but we were never not on the same page.</p>
<p>I know the parents of an actual valedictorian who chose a LAC – and not one of the top three, either – over an actual Harvard acceptance this year. Smart kid, who thought about it a lot and had perfectly fine reasons. The parents were less than thrilled, but respected their kid’s analysis and instincts.</p>
<p>We have always been very clear about what our family can afford. Outside of that, it’s up to him. </p>
<p>If I didn’t feel that my child were mature enough to make a good choice for himself about college, I wouldn’t pay for him to go. I mean that sincerely, not in a mean-spirited way. So far he’s showing the self-knowledge we’re looking for.</p>
<p>Of course, we don’t believe that the rank of ones college determines the quality of ones life, so that makes it much easier to stand back.</p>
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Would I? She was and I did…but finances were an issue for her.</p>
<p>My 2010 senior is currently positioned for salutatorian and only a fraction out of position for valedictorian. He knows what we can afford. As a result, HYPS etc are not even considered.</p>
<p>We let our kids pick any college they wanted and did not influence their decision. We did not care which one they picked as long they they picked one they really wanted to attend and liked that they felt was a good fit for what they wanted in a college (and both were very thoughtful and explored their schools fully). </p>
<p>As far as your hypothetical…one of my kids was the valedictorian. By the way, she has never read the college rankings and has never been turned onto them. She had certain college selection criteria that she used to create a college list and got into most of her schools. Once she had acceptances in hand, she narrowed it down to her favorites to revisit in April and we waited to see which one she liked the best. </p>
<p>When she narrowed down her acceptances to the final three, she knocked out Penn (an Ivy) and put Tufts and Smith above it into her final pile, plus Brown. I never gave that a second thought because she liked Smith and Tufts better than Penn. In the end, she liked a couple of things at Brown better than Tufts or Smith but had she picked Tufts or Smith over Brown, that would have been fine. Her choice. I don’t care about rankings either. I also trust my kid did a thorough job on weighing the decision and many factors and criteria that mattered to her and told us why she chose what she chose. I’m GLAD she did not choose by ranking but for really really good reasons. </p>
<p>Both my kids, who have since graduated college, we feel, in the end, now that they have been through their schools, ended up choosing perfect fit schools for themselves. We could not be happier with how it turned out and had no preconceived preferences as to which school they would pick for themselves.</p>
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<p>How are the four most generous private schools in the country not affordable? I applied to three of them only because I knew I could afford it if I got in, based on their offered financial aid. I certainly would not have been able to attend had there not been assistance offered. I will be attending one of them in September. If you haven’t yet, you should look into their financial aid before dismissing them for being too expensive.</p>
<p>^^ amciw, you have to qualify for financial aid in order to get it. It doesn’t matter how generous HYPS might be if your EFC is in the tens of thousands. Those schools will not be affordable then.</p>
<p>Well, I know somebody who turned down Cornell & Yale & went to Holy Cross on a free ride and graduated with no debt, then she went on to Law School & was able to put herself through Law School. I believe she was a sal-it certainly worked out well for her.</p>
<p>I think OP was asking if finance wasn’t an issue. Of course, if it’s a consideration then ranking is secondary, or really doesn’t matter. At the same time, if finance is a consideration, is it really a student’s choice?</p>
<p>If someone wants to pooh-pooh on buying a car as an analogy, what about co-signing or helping your kid to buy the first apartment/house. My kid may tell me a loft in an upcoming(or seedy) neighborhood of NYC is a perfect fit for her now - has a bedroom facing a brick wall, a very small kitchen, but a huge living room for parties. Great, it may fit your needs right now as a single person. What about five years from now? Would you still be able to live there? What would be the resale value? Would it be wise for me to just fork over 200,000 and tell her “Honey, I think you are an intelligent person, I am going to let you make your own decision because if I didn’t then people would think you were an idiot.”</p>
<p>Education may not be a thing, but it is still an investment. Many parents may like to portray themselves as non-helicopting parents and let their kids make their own decisions, but at the end of the day, whether it’s in their face or passive aggressively done, we all played a pretty heavy hand in where our kids decided to go.</p>
<p>Oldfort–of course, I think all of us have influenced our kids as they grew up. That’s what parenting is. I expected that my kids would/will show good sense. So when a “choice” was to be made, I expect they will have reasons for their choice. After all, we are each talking about our own kids, not some hypothetical slacker throwing darts in the dark. I also know that my kids will (have) made mistakes. But they will/are ones they will grow through, and better they learn about the ups and downs of decision-making, rather than mom saying do this, don’t do that, for the rest of their lives. The OP doesn’t ask if you would discuss this with your kids; it asks if you would “let” them. Quite different questions.</p>
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Because if my child were valedictorian and I had raise him/her correctly I would assume that they have the skills necessary to make their own decisions. Doesn’t say much for my parenting skills if I don’t think my child capable of running their owns lives as adults. I don’t “let” my adult child do anything. It’s their decision with my guidance if asked.</p>
<p>My daughter is salutatorian, money is no issue and she had a choice between three schools - one being Yale. All I wanted her to know was what she was turning down should she decide on another school. After attending the admitted students days she fell in love but, in the end, it doesn’t have the program she wants so she chose another school, even though it was a difficult decision.</p>
<p>Yes, we discussed it as a family, yes, it’s still hurting my husband, but in the end it’s her choice. She researched Yale’s program extensively, speaking with alumni, profs, etc. but it really didn’t have what she wanted. Most people are impressed that she had the maturity and fortitude to ignore all the outside pressure and choose what she thought was a better school/program for her. We live in a small community so everyone knows what she did and I tease her that she will become an urban legend as the girl who turned down Yale. </p>
<p>She’s still sometimes wistful but two weeks after school starts I’m certain she’ll be very happy with her choice.</p>
<p>If for some reason I were to buy one of my children a car, and this child were to put as much research, time, and effort into his/her car purchase as most of the students here put into their college choices, I would absolutely let them choose the car assuming their reasoning was acceptable. </p>
<p>Oldfort, you have picked a losing battle here–because the question is about ranking. If you were to change the question from “Would you let your kid choose a lower ranked school over a better ranked school?” to “Would you let your kid choose a college that is obviously a worse choice for him/her than some other college?” then you would have a reasonable argument.</p>
<p>As a student (that’s right, not a parent) at a top-ten national university, I can honestly tell you that rankings are for the most part meaningless. The academic differences on average between the top twenty-five schools are pretty minuscule. As you go down the ranking, the average students’ ability drops, but good students still have fantastic opportunities.</p>
<p>Additionally, you may not think “fit” is important compared to “learning”, but this comparison is pointless because fit often determines how well a student can learn. For example, is a really shy kid more likely to succeed academically at a big state U where the classes contain 300 students or an LAC where the classes contain 30 students? </p>
<p>Finally, since I am at a school with a reputation for its incredibly hard workload and serious atmosphere, I have seen more than one person completely and totally destroyed because they weren’t a good fit and they struggled continually against this fact. A lot of times, this problem is exacerbated by parents. For example, one of my friends has a B+ average. Since he came from a family that expects a lot and he had an A+ average in high school, his family’s response to his grades was “you need to work harder”. At a school like mine, people do hit their intellectual limits and at that point no amount of hard work is going to propel you any higher. He worked himself into the ground for three years and has suffered from depression and other issues as a result, and only now are his parents realizing what they have done to their son (and they are lightening up… but probably too little, too late).</p>
<p>If a parent has any financial, ranking, or other objections to the schools on a kid’s list they should be discussed BEFORE the apps go in. NOT at the time of choosing BU v. Harvard, hypothetically. </p>
<p>When a kid reaches the “where should I enroll?” decision point a parent should be 100% behind him or her, no matter what schools are under consideration. By then it’s too late to talk about the kid’s decision-making maturity or a $200,000 investment.</p>
<p>I think the word “let” could be interpreted differently by parent/child. We may think we are just “guiding”, but our kid may not view it as such, I think that’s why OP (a student) used the word “let.”</p>
<p>Ranking in a school, may it be an overall or for a specific field of study, is a bench mark. One may disagree with it, but future graduate schools or employers do take it into consideration. I am not talking about splitting hair between 10th ranking vs 15th. But when one is comparing 1,2 ranking vs 30, 40, 50, then there has to be some very compelling reason(s). Would you pay the same amount for a house in the best neighborhood vs mediocre neighborhood?</p>
<p>well what if it was between a expensive ivy league school and a cheap public school like Minnesota? you wouldn’t be paying the same amount in that case</p>
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<p>I have to say, I’m awfully glad I don’t have a parent like this. I’d be taking out a lot of student loans and we’d probably have a pretty nasty relationship. Sorry, I’m a person, not an infant. If my mom wasn’t behind me on my decisions and they were sound decisions, I’d just take the responsibility out on myself.</p>
<p>I grew up in an Ivy League college town, where every year several students committed suicide. I often wonder how many of those top students felt like they had failed their parents by not getting top grades in college or perhaps even failing classes and losing scholarships. I wonder if any were going to the college that was their parents’ choice, not their choice. To me, being an adult means being able to make responsible choices and choosing a college is one of the first major adult choices.</p>
<p>My D is valedictorian although our school not longer uses a single val/sal. The nice thing about being ranked one or two in their class is that they usually do have nice choices, but it was totally her choice as to the school she accepted because she is the one who is spending the next 4 years in college. Our only stipulation was that if she chose an expensive school, we would only pay 4 years, otherwise we could help her with a year or two of grad school. She chose UCLA and is very happy.</p>