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From the first grade, I have told her that she needs to study hard, and with good grades, she could attend any University that she wants to. Now she delivered her part, I am falling short. </p>
<p>...</p>
<p>We may have brag a little too much - that we will be able to meet any and all financial need. We really could but it means really hard time for everyone else.</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>I did a lot of irresponsible talks about 6 months ago, before the reality hits. A lot of this is my fault."</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>Me, OTOH, would rather for her to go to state U so I can do my European vacations and drive a BMW.
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<p>Sorry. You lost my sympathy with the Beamer.</p>
<p>DadII ... just wanted to check in and wish you luck working through this.</p>
<p>And to add one comment. I have a few conversations with my oldest apologizing for the parenting slips we made with her because she was the first one to pass through a bunch of life situations. While the best outcome might be different for our 2nd and 3rd kids what info we need and what issues we need to consider are pretty much the same ... the path is SO MUCH cleaner the 2nd and 3rd times through. I feel for all the oldet kids who get to be the "pilot" for parents dealing with kids in college ... it's not fair but it is the reality of being the oldest kid. I've been hanging around CC for quite awhile because this is a GREAT resource to leverage other family's experiences so my first kid's experience is better than it would have been without CC. Will we take missteps ... sure ... but hopefully we'll realize them quickly, regroup. and move forward discussing the reality of my family's situation.</p>
<p>"You posted early on: "it looks like this: Yale, Stanford, WashU, Cornell, ? , ?, ?,, state U." Since "state U" is in the mix, that might be all the safety you need -- if she is guaranteed admission in your state. "</p>
<p>A safety is no safety if the student wouldn't be happy to go there. Too many students pick whatever safety is easiest to apply to just to fill the "safety" slot in their application pool. If the students get into no other schools, they can have a very hard time because they were never interested in their safety.</p>
<p>I agree with the many parents here who suggest building one's applications from the bottom up. First find a safety that you'd be happy going to, and know you really can afford. After that, find reach and match schools.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, from what the OP described about having to delay going to Europe and getting a BMW if his student gets into a place like Harvard (a place the OP would cry tears of joy if his D was accepted), it sounds like the OP can afford to send his D anywhere, and would be willing to do so. So, on the financial front, there doesn't seem to be anything to worry about.</p>
<p>If the D really is very strong, she may even get into Yale EA, and not have to worry any more about college acceptances. It just wouldn't be wise for her to count on such an acceptance.</p>
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it sounds like the OP can afford to send his D anywhere, and would be willing to do so. So, on the financial front, there doesn't seem to be anything to worry about.
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<p>On another thread, the OP states that his EFC is 10K. I am hoping the comments about elaborate vacations and BMWs are tongue-in-cheek. Or maybe I am just naive about who gets financial aid.</p>
<p>At first I thought the OP was truly low income, because he said they "don't have time or money to visit schools", and that it would "Break my wallet just in application fees". Later posts seem to indicate that is not the case. If visits/ appl. fees are a problem financially, good luck with Harvard or Yale tuition. (I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on the BMW thing). </p>
<p>Also the OP hasn't mentioned or responded to any inquires associated with 'fit' (location, etc) which leads me to believe that prestige is the family's only concern (sole guide: USNWR rankings). </p>
<p>Also the OP has not been very clear about his D's actual stats. Unless I've missed something else, only that she got her scores in one sitting, and that a teacher has implied that she's a 'better student than another who had been on a "HS first team". Neither of these mean much in and of themselves. Now if <em>she herself</em> has been on a HS first team.....</p>
<p>"If visits/ appl. fees are a problem financially, good luck with Harvard or Yale tuition. (I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on the BMW thing). "</p>
<p>Actually, if the OP really is low income as defined by the US bureau of census, then places like HPY are likely to be extremely generous with his D, and he wouldn't have anything to worry about except the typical worries about her getting accepted.</p>
<p>If, however, he's making $100,000+ and doesn't have other kids or things like major medical expenses, he'll likely have to pay for D's entire college costs if she goes some place that doesn't give merit aid. And, unless he's making megabucks, that will mean some cut back in his lifestyle. If he doesn't want to do that and his D really is HPY quality, she probably can get excellent merit aid from a top tier school, though not HPYS, since they don't give merit aid.</p>
<p>Yes, I know, NSMom, but he indicated that they are willing to pay $20,000/yr. That, and some other comments lead me to think they are not low income. It was suggested that he run through one of the aid calculators, but he hasn't stated whether he has actually done that or not. He just doesn't seem very forthcoming to me. Just my take.</p>
<p>My take is that the OP PREFERS not to run the financial estimators because he knows the outcome might be different from his wishful thinking. In this regard, he is not different from millions of other parents who discover that the amount they are "willing" to pay is not exactly what the schools "expect" them to pay. </p>
<p>Fwiw, the OP is the ONLY person who can analyze his finances correctly and none of our collective "wisdom" and speculation will help him one iota. Our help is restricted to an attempt to bring the reality closer to home by offering examples of other incredibly qualified students who did not fare that well in the race to land a "free" education despite being solidly anchored into our middle class. </p>
<p>As we attempt to do exactly that, there is nothing that precludes well-meaning GC and well meaning teachers at our dozens of thousand of schools to throw the panegyrics with abandon at the ears of beaming parents. How many thousands of valedictorians are told to be shoo-in at HYPS? How many thousands of students are supposed to be "best in my career" of one our THREE MILLION teachers?</p>
<p>The reality is that merit aid, despite having exploded in recent years, is still a scarce commodity and an extreme rarity at the super selective school. While it is not impossible, the feat of paying little when one can afford it is not a very realistic proposition at our most selective schools.</p>
<p>As some of you have sensed, I am not a good writer and it took me a while to write something clearly. So, most of the time, I could only focus on one idea. It seems that while I was trying to address one thing and always leave some other things unanswered. Let me do a quick yes and no answers</p>
<p>Is D a top HS student? Yes
Will she get into PHY and a like? may be, with chance of <10%
If she gets in, could we afford Yale? Yes
have we even taken an Europe vacation? No
Have we ever own a BMW? No
Do I want to take a european vacation? yes
Do I want to drive a BMW? yes
could we afford both Yale and vacation and/or BMW? No even a 10% chance
Do we want to take vacation or pay Yale tuition? Don't know</p>
<p>What do we do? encourage D to apply to Universities that give merit aids. So we could go for our vacations and she gets a brand name education.</p>
<p>Like Xiggi said, we are attempting to pay little when we can afford a little more than "a little".</p>
<p>about school visits. The #1 problem is time, D is so busy with her Key club and other HS stuffs. If we had time to drive to schools, we would definitely afford a drive to several schools in one loop. However, if we have to fly to a different city to visit just one school, we would have to narrow down the list. Since D does not really know which school she like to apply, we can't really narrow it down. etc. etc.</p>
<p>Dad II, what is it exactly that you'd expect to find out from multiple school visits? Information about financial aid and admissions' policies? Information about school spirit and architecture? Or ...?</p>
<p>While school visits can offer a nice experience of parents and students bonding through a common effort, you may hear many horror stories relating unpleasant experiences. Based on your account and stories, I believe that the visit of the schools might exacerbate a number of conflicts, especially if your D judges the school without a firm understanding of what is financially doable. </p>
<p>The lack of visit (before applying) should, however, not stop you from building a very helpful set of files, filled with the information you seek. The school websites and the collective experience of CCers' should help you evaluate the most subtle of differences between schools. For the visual experience, please note that there are companies selling taped tours. In addition, many videos are available on the web. </p>
<p>The process is really not as hard as you think it is.</p>
<p>I agree that one doesn't need to visit schools to include them on one's list of schools to apply to.</p>
<p>One can also get a lot of info about the types of learning environments that suit you by visiting nearby schools even if you don't plan to apply to them. Visiting a large state university will give you lots of info about large state universities. Visiting a LAC will give info about that kind of environment.</p>
<p>I also agree that one can learn lots about colleges by reviewing their web sites, videos, and using the chat sessions that many colleges now offer.</p>
<p>After one has gotten acceptances, one can narrow one's list by visiting the colleges that you're considering going to. If one has 8 acceptances, one would just visit one's top choices.</p>
<p>Dad II, since you really do seem to exist:), the answer usually heard on cc is that each family has its own values and there is a pretty big range into which decent parenting can fall. While we might say that anyone who earns >$900,000K/year and won't pay for his kids to go to college is kind of a jerk (yes I know someone like that), and we might tell anyone who has to take out a second mortage and spend retirement savings to send their kid to Yale, don't do it, there's a lot of room in between those two extremes for families to do what they believe is right.</p>
<p>You just have to do what you can live with. Kind of like do you let the kid cry at night. If you will be a terrible mom if you let them wake you, let them cry. If you will be racked with guilt for letting them cry, causing you to be a terrible mom, pick them up:).</p>
<p>As for visits, the reason to do them is for D to get a feel for a few key parameters. Size. Rural/suburban/urban. Quirky or rah-rah dominating?</p>
<p>The academic stuff can be found out over the phone and Internet and email. The cultural stuff is hard. And you don't have to do Dartmouth, Yale, Princeton to find out if it is rural, urban, suburban - quirky or in love with the basketball team. You can do Bucknell, Haverford, Swarthmore, Penn, Drexel, for example....And they are all close together! That way the kid figures out the categories rather than fall in love with a super-selective, no merit awards, no European vacations school:). BTW, European vacations are not to be scoffed at as a reward for parental hard work...</p>
<p>One thing I haven't seen mentioned...I would assume that for some of the upper-tier schools that do offer merit aid, demonstrated interest is an important consideration (most notably, WUSTL). DadII, while you may not want to visit schools this fall, if you are on the merit money hunt, it may be a necessity. I am sure there are other CC threads here that can shed more light on this. </p>
<p>We're all preaching to the choir here, but your D needs a reality check. If she were one of my kids, I wouldn't be paying for any prestige apps until she has a realistic list that takes into account financial and acceptance realities. I would be quite upset if one of my kids didn't show respect for the financial cost college will have on the rest of the family. Has she even visited the flagship safety? Heck, the acceptance rate at our flagship is just under 50% -- not quite a gimme!</p>
<p>I am also concerned by your comment that you are going to sit down with your D once a week to talk about finances. It's the end of August of senior year...Early Action/Decision apps are due in TWO MONTHS. I have a sophomore and a senior and we've been having this conversation about family financial priorities for YEARS. </p>
<p>Your GC is not paying your EFC. It is not your job to increase the school's prestige. It's your job to act as a parent and set down some guidelines about a varied list based on geography, finances, programs, and whatever other values you and your D consider important. It won't be prestigious if your D shoots for the stars and has no acceptances come April.</p>
<p>It amazes me how some kids zealously maintain their GPAs, study for APs and SATs, rack up all sorts of accolades and then take gigantic risks senior year by applying only to pie-in-the-sky schools. You are getting some terrific advice from wise parents who have produced stellar kids. Not everyone will share personal details, but you can be fairly confident that many of the parents here have had to face these same choices.</p>
<p>If D is high scoring as in a NM semifinalist, WUSTL may send her invitation to fly her in for free. Check the WUSTL boards here to learn about applicants who had that experience. </p>
<p>It would be a good idea for you to read other CC boards of schools that interest your D. Lots of good info there including about scholarships and about what kind of students were accepted and rejected.</p>
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If D is high scoring as in a NM semifinalist, WUSTL may send her invitation to fly her in for free. Check the WUSTL boards here to learn about applicants who had that experience.
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<p>It doesn't hurt to ask or investigate, but I doubt this is true just for being a NMSF. There were at least half a dozen semi-finalists (later finalists) from my son's school alone who applied to WUSTL, so I think they get a lot of them applying. On the other hand, this is a non-feeder public in outstate Missouri, not a target school for WUSTL. Someone from a different region might be attractive enough to get an accommodation of this sort.</p>
Among those of us who depend on need based financial aid, a "dream" college admission to a school the parents cannot afford is just one more disappointment. The in-state public tends to be the most affordable, especially among those of who qualify for significantly more aid at FAFSA only schools. </p>
<p>While the break point is different for each student, there is a point at which, in order to qualify for sufficient merit aid to equalize costs, the schools likely to give sufficient aid are simply not as good as the public university, either in objective terms or in terms of meeting the educational goals of the student. Since I live in California, the bar for that break point is relatively high -- even when he was dealing with his top choices, my son struggled with the choice between UC Berkeley and the small east coast LAC most people around here had never heard of. It's not all that easy to turn Berkeley down. </p>
<p>It's not a matter of "happy"- it's a matter of pragmatism and measuring actual value against cost. Public schools get a bad rap on this board, but families of limited means need to keep in mind that this board is the virtual equivalent of browsing at Nordstrom's, where I am sure that the consumers love to rave about the high quality of the merchandise and service. </p>
<p>I offered my own experience -- I didn't tell Dad II what he should do, since I have no idea what it is he or his daughter wants. But usually the colleges that offers substantial merit aid (at least half tuition or more) -- are a step down in terms of the student's ideal. In my own daughter's situation, it also meant a step down academically -- the private "safeties" for her simply could not provide the same sort of academic offerings as the in-state public, especially since she preferred a mid-to-large size college. </p>
<p>In any case, as a parent I don't feel it is my responsibility to make the choices that will lead my offspring to be "happy" in their adult lives -- I am offering financing for college, on my terms. My financial terms have an upper limit. It was up to my kids to figure out how to structure their college lists in terms of whether their preferred schools would mesh with the financial limits. My daughter had a reach-heavy list -- it worked out well for her. If she had ended up at the state university, I'm pretty sure that would have worked out well, too. She did feel that the academics at some of the "safety" campuses she visited were not up to her expectations, so I think that she was running a similar equation through her mind.</p>
<p>It would all be so much easier if the results were predictable...at least to those of us on the outside.</p>
<p>One case in point: our S received wonderful merit money from our excellent Flagship State U. (My alma mater) Yay.</p>
<p>Then he was accepted to his "Dream School." Hmmmmm. Then he rec'd the financial aid award. What do you know: our EFC at Dream School was the same as the outstanding balance at Flagship U. Except that Dream School award included subsidized student loans. At Flagship U, S would graduate debt free.</p>
<p>The choice was S's (who is, BTW, incredibly frugal---read: cheap)</p>
<p>He chose dream school. (Other admissions to other schools, but that would dilute my story!)</p>
<p>He has just started his sophomore year and has never regretted his choice.</p>
<p>Your mileage may vary.</p>
<p>My point (again): cast a wide net. State Us, reach, dream, etc.</p>
<p>and then, as wiser people than I have already said: decide to Bloom where you are planted.</p>
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One thing I haven't seen mentioned...I would assume that for some of the upper-tier schools that do offer merit aid, demonstrated interest is an important consideration (most notably, WUSTL). DadII, while you may not want to visit schools this fall, if you are on the merit money hunt, it may be a necessity. I am sure there are other CC threads here that can shed more light on this.
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<p>While expressions of interest will not be held AGAINST you, the necessity of demonstrating it through a physical presence is one of those NACAC fishy tales, especially at the selective schools. Except for a few LAC, demonstrated interest is not very important, let alone a "necessity."</p>
<p>Schools are keenly aware that juniors and seniors have limited time, and families limited resources. It is for that reason that they organize recruiting tours throughout the country and abroad. In addition, many schools have admitted NOT to keep track of the attendance list. </p>
<p>If one can visit, great! If one can't ... no harm, no foul! </p>
<p>PS Sponsored (as in paid for) visitation trips are almost always by invitation only. Some schools will, however, recognize the recommendations of guidance counselors for a nomination.</p>