We had some early veto votes and I did a TON of curating based on her requirements, but when the decision came down to her final four, that was all her.
However, I am not dumb enough to throw down with either of my daughters at a stage where they think they should be driving the bus. All the manipulation/string pulling/ vetoes were done so early in the game that the choices made in the endgame were all good options.
Yes, one can always use stealth ninja mom skills to help maneuver an acceptable outcome. 
Looks like we’re the same as a lot of other families. S gets to choose from a list limited by A) where he gets in, and B) what we can afford.
We handled things like so: I came up with a list of schools I knew - or at least had strong suspicions - that we could afford. I told S I would be responsible for the research on those schools.
S is also allowed to apply to any school not on my list with the understanding that he does the research himself, and we get to exercise veto power over any possible acceptances if the school is not affordable.
My daughter was free to choose from any of the schools that accepted her. We could afford to send her to any of them, so there were no financial constraints on her final decision. However, we would not have allowed her to apply to any school that we were not willing to pay for her to attend, and I did require her to apply to, visit and consider with an open mind one “mom’s choice” school. Fortunately she never had a school that we objected to on her list.
Had a chance for various reasons to work with a lot of young people and my advice always is to visit their top choice schools and check out the fit, …and the older students. Those juniors and seniors are who you will become, so it better feel like a great match.
Even though we want to sometimes, my observation is that parents can never really make that call about the fit… and that turned out to be the case with my own kids. One had a huge scholarship offer from one school and a decent one from another. But after visiting the campuses, the college with the smaller offer (but still within the budget) was simply my DS’s choice hands down because of all the intangible factors that make one campus feel like it could be “home.” It literally took about two hours on campus to know “this was the place.”
On the other hand, DD visited 10 campuses beginning in her sophomore year, and finally got down to two - and both offered something special… but in the end she solidly decided on one. It took a lot to find the place that matched her and where she felt right. (And yes, visiting that many was expensive - we tied visits into other travel whenever we could…and my wife was the master of college research.
But as long as the options are within budget (and that has to be the parent’s call), I haven’t known many parents who can judge these intangible issues even when it is their own child.
And if the fit is wrong, an awful lot of money is going to be spent poorly.
My two cents…
First time poster here. My child also attended the same scholarship weekend as OP’s. Just want to provide some context for discussion.
Among the 60+ finalists who attended the event, more than half came from the southern states, which probably helped explain a conservative stance on some issues (child-rearing philosophy, family dynamics, etc.) So no surprise here if college decision is considered part of a family decision with Mom and Dad providing input, feedback, and guidance. After all, if the scholarship committee had invited and paid for parents to come along with their children, and actively engaged everyone in their weekend programs, do you really think they consider parents don’t count in the decision-making process? Of course they want the student scholars to ultimately own their college (and possible scholarship) decisions 100%. But as of now, this is a luxury only a small number of attending students and their families can afford to enjoy because the parents and their children have been in sync on their decision page and they knew it. Many others though simply don’t have that level of clarity, and are still trekking through college admission trails unsure of when and where to let go.Too much of a paternalistic instinct has been kicking in perhaps.
But who is to say a paternalistic instinct doesn’t deserve a high-five? Last time I checked, there were 1.2 million views in the parents forum for the Class of 2017 thread, as well as countless threads chronicling, among others, the ups-and-downs journeys of even experienced, prolific parent posters over the years with posts alternating in mood between hope and despair, sorrow and bliss, fear and audacity. It’s a stage thing and understandably so. Some of us may be all set with clear financial parameters while others may tolerate a moving target contingent upon finding the best “fit.” Some have already been crowned at the podium while many are still tripping over hurdles. Some have subtly locked into Zen mode while others are still hearing hello from the other side for many weeks to come.
Therefore a 100% decision, be it from whom, will be hard to come by, and anything that approximate to a polarization in opinions will likely leave much to be desired.
I don’t think @TreadmillDaily is who I had the conversation with I certainly understand that some parents had some reservations and while I hadn’t considered that they may be among conservative lines, I do recognize that there were parts of the program that not all parents were comfortable with. This was a parent who just didn’t think their child was mature enough to be making that kind of decision on their own. Having met the child, I would have disagreed - but as I always say to my kids - I’m in charge on you guys, not anyone else’s kids.
My question more was - is it unusual to let your kid decide? I am a little unusual. If we did meet as some other point of the weekend, I’m sure you already know that much. But, I didn’t know if letting him make the final decision was. I was certainly left with that impression after that conversation.
But it does sound like others allow their kid to make the final decision within pre-set parameters, so I feel slightly less unusual. On this specific point as least.
She chose. We certainly gave her our opinions. But, yes, I agree with @ucbalumnus , it seems like we are all setting parameters first (in effect, making the initial decision), then letting the kid choose. It doesn’t seem unusual, judging from all these responses, to let kids choose.
You have to bear in mind that the people on this forum are a bit self-selected. We are generally super clued up about this process. We know that there are usually no bad choices when they have to deposit. What I see often though, as indicated by the students posting on the chances and college admissions forum, is that there appear to be plenty of kids whose parents force them to accept a particular college. There are definitely plenty of kids who are forced to apply to certain colleges.
My D and I went through the process together from researching schools, visiting them, and preparing spreadsheets. I set two budgets: one that allowed her to take no loans and one that included student loans for her to take out and pay back. I vetoed two schools on her list after visiting but let her narrow the list after that. In the end, about a half dozen schools came in at or under budget and she chose from that list. What I did impress upon her was that if she didn’t like the school she chose (whatever one it might be) her only transfer option was the state flagship d/t lack of merit $$ for transfer students. End of sophomore year and we are both very happy with her choice.
Aid packages can be so unpredictable. I can understand going home and running numbers first to make sure the school offering the scholarship is affordable. Other parents limit choices due to health issues, learning disorders, and level of maturity. Some kids just do better close to home. The choice of major can matter too. If a kid who’s undecided in the fall is leaning toward a low paying career choice in the spring, some parents will limit choices to less expensive schools than they’d allow if the career was in a better paying field. Every spring we see plenty of “is it worth it” threads on CC. When financial aid packages come in and the numbers are real, I think the reality of the cumulative cost can be a shock for some people.
1214mom said:
“My son wanted JHU. I told him I couldn’t afford it and I wouldn’t let him saddle himself with the loans necessary to cover what I wouldn’t pay. I told them We had X amount (cost of in-state tuition, room and board) saved for their school, and they old have to pay if more than that.”
For anyone reading this thread who is new to the process, please learn the facts about loans. Your child can take only a limited amount of loans in his own name. Any more than that have to be cosigned, probably by a parent. In essence, those loans become the parents’ loans. If your child misses payments or can not make payments the cosigner is responsible. If your child drops out or fails to graduate, you all are responsible for repayment.
(This is just a clarification of 1214mom’s statement, not a judgement of it. We all say we don’t want to saddle our kids with loans. But really, we also don’t want to saddle ourselves with their loans, either.)
@austinmshauri I think setting upfront parameters is completely okay. While I initially phrased my question about choosing school with similar financial parameters, I do think it’s completely okay for parents to set up parameters (preferably at the beginning of the search) regarding whatever is relevant to their search. I was asking more specifically - assuming two or more schools fall within whatever parameters have been agreed on, should the students have final say?
(As far as referenced scholarship, it covers everything so running numbers wouldn’t be the issues. There are admittedly other relevant discussions regarding the program that others might have. I chose to have them before the weekend and gave the kid final say but I can understand that - just not the blanket, I choose, not them.)
To the original post, which was about who decided whether the student accepted a particular scholarship - S chose not to go to a scholarship competition weekend where he had a chance at a full ride. That particular school had dropped down on his list, and he already had significant scholarship offers from his top choices that put them well within our budget.
If it were me, I would have gone and competed. He knew what he wanted, and already had other offers, so I did not force the issue.
I think that’s wonderful! Good for both of you!
If, after the weekend, my son had come to a similar conclusion, I would have supported him completely. He was in love with this particular program but I can totally see how it wasn’t for everyone.
With my S who has been out of college for a few years now, we let him make the decision. It ended up not working out so well because when kids visit a school they look at very different things than a parent does. As a parent who has been to a school that was a bad fit myself and transferred, I should have been more involved in that decision in retrospect. He ended up transferring as well.
Now on to D…trying to be a little smarter this time around. She applied to a few safety schools that I allowed because I wanted her to have a safety net, but they have more of a party school atmosphere and I would not be happy if she attended one of them. We haven’t heard from her top schools yet, so my fingers are crossed that she will have some more academic oriented choices. I will definitely use my parent powers to help “guide” her to a wise decision.
We are allowing our son to decide but under financial restraints. It would be irresponsible for us to allow him to bankrupt his life to chase a dream. I tell him he can be bankrupt just fine without college.
We have a hard max of debt equal to the gov’t limits. He needs to find a school that costs between $30-$35K/year max. That is all we can do. If it is not enough, then he just needs to cry it out and curse being born poor. He lost the birth pool. He needs to understand that the kings and queens have it different than the poor.
It’s their life, it’s their decision. We’ll give them advise but in the end, which college to attend and which major to pick is a personal decision. Just because I’m sponsoring it, it doesn’t give me right to dictate my decisions. Just tell them what you can afford, rest is upto them. I would let them command mission admission. They may make some mistakes and learn how to correct them. Well, if they aren’t able to handle admission process on their own, they aren’t ready to go to a four year college, enroll them in local community college.
We were heavily involved in making the list of schools to apply to - making sure all schools on list met our family determined criteria. But once the acceptances were in- it was D’s choice. In the interesting vein - the school she chose for herself was probably NOT the one her dad and I would have picked for her. She had a really great FA offer that was super tempting at one, and an acceptance at a school that was pretty dang high up the prestige scale at another. But in the end she chose the school that she felt most connected to - and she loves it there
I did not tell my S which schools he could attend, but I certainly told him which schools I would not (could not) pay for. The rest was up to him.
I don’t think it is 100% the kid’s choice unless they can pay for everything.
Otherwise I need to pay for tuition, room and board, books, travel to and from.
I also would not cosign large loans…the boost a better school might give them is not worth $100,000 in loans.
I would also make sure the college they are interested in meets their needs.
But, within those parameters I left it up to them.