<p>thank you; yes, Princeton seems manageable but Brown/Wesleyan at full cost would require either some significant borrowing or other major adjustment; given that we are in-state to UCLA/Berkeley/UCSD, we are concerned about taking on debt for Brown/Wesleyan, but they are perhaps a better fit for DS who wants intellectual environment more than pre-professional one… of course acceptance is a reach for all these schools so perhaps we are putting the cart before the horse; intended major now is history but also enjoys political science, economics, possible minor in art/design (loved access to RISD at Brown); mathmom thanks for the info on CMU history, sounds like we need to rethink that one…</p>
<p>Pushy- before you start making your lists, I suggest one very painful evening (but which will save you tons of stress and aggravation down the road).</p>
<p>Sit down with your tax returns for the last few years, your checkbooks/cancelled checks, all your credit card statements, all your recurring expenses which you may be paying automatically (car insurance, gym membership, cable). Basically your entire financial life.</p>
<p>Figure out what the last few years have looked like for you. You will see trends… like every year in August you have a large and unexpected expense. One year it’s the roof. One year the fridge dies. You will see that every year in December you plan to take your tax refund and put it in your S’s college savings account but by April you need it for a new transmission or the orthodontist or whatnot.</p>
<p>So get a handle on your household- what is the actual cash flow you have right now which can be diverted to college- either tuition, or loan payments. What have you saved which can be diverted to college- whether in a formal college savings plan or just a mutual fund account. If this represents the bulk of your retirement planning than you cannot afford to spend it on college. If your retirement plan has been to sell your fully paid up house and move to a cheaper community, then no- you cannot afford a home equity line of credit for college.</p>
<p>Etc. You get my drift.</p>
<p>don’t wander into the college list making/visiting process with a vague idea of “Princeton is manageable but Brown is just a maybe”. That leads to a kid who gets into Brown with a package you can’t swing, with everyone aggravated and sad and mad. Figure out your financial limitations now. You are really doing your son a favor.</p>
<p>Completely agree with Blossom. There’s nothing sadder than kids who get into a lot of colleges they can’t afford. Especially if their parents weren’t upfront about what they can afford. It’s one thing to say you can go to X if the aid package means we pay Y, you can even say, “I’ll mortgage the farm for Harvard, but nothing else” (though I think that’s a silly stance), but do be realistic. The all need schools are usually pretty predictable, the merit schools often less so. It’s really not fair to your son not to let him know what you can manage financially.</p>
<p>And Mathmom- in the good old days (maybe pre-2008) that farm might actually be mortgageable. With so many people still under water, good luck getting the homestead to pretend to be an ATM for a couple of years.</p>
<p>OP- not to get you depressed- but if your financial situation isn’t likely to change over the next year or two, falling in love with a bunch of schools which won’t give your son the aid he needs really doesn’t move the ball forward. Having a secret plan to “come up with the money” if he gets admitted to dream school usually means no plan at all. In my experience, people’s assets and expenses tend to be pretty regular. Your house isn’t going to double in value over the next 6 months. You are not likely to double your salary in the next six months (but if it is- get going on that plan!)</p>
<p>There are a bunch of kids on my block now commuting to the local, non-flagship state U campus. It’s a fine place but it was nobody’s first choice. From what I can tell, it became the fail-safe option when the super secret plan to pay for NYU or BU or another place that routinely “gaps” fell through. </p>
<p>So go into the process with a couple of numbers under your belt- what you can afford on a monthly basis for college. What assets you can liquidate to pay for college. How much cash flow you will have long term to service the debt if you decide to borrow. What lifestyle changes have you identified that everyone is on board with making and what impact will that have on your finances.</p>
<p>That will do the trick. Don’t declare, “We can always cut back” if in fact- nobody is willing to give up the second car, the dance lessons for a younger sibling, eliminate eating out for ten years, etc.</p>
<p>Yes, thank you, we have carefully assessed our budget and continue to do so. </p>
<p>I’m posting first, before I read through the posts. Not sure if this has been mentioned yet or not. Brandeis, from what I’ve been told numerous times, offers very little aid. (of any kind) Have you looked into Vanderbilt or URochester? And…as far as Brown goes…they reject far more applicants, it seems, then almost any other school out there, even for kids with outstanding credentials. Okay, now I’ll go back and read the thread! ;)</p>
<p>I’ll just add that you may want to consider the Wash DC schools as was mentioned. Georgetown, George Washington and American are the three that come to mind…</p>
<p>Admissions were pretty crazy for the UC’s last year. One of D’s friends got into Harvard, rejected from UCLA even though it was his true 1st choice. D’s class valedictorian was rejected from UCSD and UCLA (got Berkeley… which was bad because she had hoped to live at home.) We were surprised by kids who were accepted and rejected from Berkeley as a whole too. We know a few kids that were strong candidates and totally shut out of the UC’s this year. We know some seemingly weaker candidates that got into almost all that they wanted.</p>
<p>Your son looks like a great candidate and I’m sure he’ll have some great choices but if the UC’s are truly the financial safeties, I’d throw in another like UC Irvine or a CSU like Cal Poly or San Diego State just for some piece of mind.</p>
<p>Thanks for the heads up about the UC’s! We’ll definitely put a few more on the list. And maybe a DC school – American seemed to appeal. DS wasn’t wild about Georgetown.</p>
<p>Thought I’d post my son’s final list:
Lewis & Clark
Bard
Brandeis University
UC San Diego
UC Davis
Oberlin College
Macalester
UCLA
University of Chicago
UC Berkeley
Brown
Princeton
Columbia
Stanford</p>
<p>It is a long list but all the UC"s are one app.
He’s still deciding beween SCEA Princeton and EA Chicago, Bard, Lewis & Clark.</p>
<p>Thanks to all for the comments.</p>
<p>Hadn’t seen this thread until it ended up on top of the heap with your note today.</p>
<p>We’re in northern CA. S14 got a $15K merit scholarship to Brandeis (my alma mater, which was likely a non-factor) with a much lower GPA but ?higher test scores (SAT = 2340) than your son, with few EC’s (and no leadership). We turned Brandeis down despite the aid after the whole debacle when they cancelled Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s honorary degree. Can’t stomach a place with no intellectual diversity.
And BTW, if it’s helpful info he got rejected from UCLA, wait-listed at UCSD, and into UCD and UCSB.</p>
<p>Feel free to reject my two cents, but I think he’s probably a long-shot at Princeton. Don’t know why he’d want to do EA to Bard and Lewis & Clark (if it means giving up the SCEA to Princeton), as he’ll get in RD and will have other options (on his list). Finally, I’m biased against Chicago after they cut down so many trees sending S14 innumerable mailings over the course of the last two years!!</p>
<p>P.S. Love your screen-name!</p>
<p>I hadn’t seen this post before either. I know you probably aren’t interested in considering adding to your list, but as we were looking for merit opportunities last year, I also know how difficult that can be. I have a good friend with two very bright boys whose interests sound a lot like your sons. They attend Lawrence University, which has a well known conservatory in addition to a LAC. I’ve heard they have good merit awards, although we didn’t specifically look into it as they don’t have my son’s major. Good luck - your son sounds like he has some fascinating interests.</p>
<p>SCEA at Princeton is highly likely to lead to either a deferral or a rejection, and probably has no impact on the overall odds for an unhooked kid. EA at Chicago helps a bit because Chicago counts interest, and it is a great way to develop some interesting essays some of which can be repurposed for other apps. I very, very, very much encourage EA or rolling apps to a safety or two. For my DDs it was a tremendous relief to be in somewhere (they both had their first acceptance by Thanksgiving), and it let them cut down on additional safety school apps.</p>
Hi,
Thanks to all who chimed in with help and advice. @1012mom you were right – deferral at Princeton. He took Chicago off his list and really wanted to try for Princeton despite the odds. I think he is now realizing that a smaller school may provide a lot of flexibility for his many creative interests, so he added a couple of those, including a couple that are more known for Merit scholarships. I will post another update in April!
I’m not sue if anyone will see this but I am posting an update, We are still waiting on most of his reach schools.He has been accepted at UCLA ( lowest cost), Grinnell, Macalester, and Brandeis. Still waiting on Ivy’s, a few other reaches, Oberlin and UC Berkeley. Cost is not dramatically different between the schools (in-state for CA, but others provided merit, etc.).
He likes art/design, economics, history, playing rock music, geography, and philosophy. He likes the atmosphere at a big school like UCLA, and we would save about $8k/year if he goes there vs. financial aid at Mac (still waiting on some of the aid packages). However, from what we hear, it is difficult to take courses across the schools at UCLA - so we are concerned about whether he’d be able to explore the interests that are not in the school of arts/sciences i.e. studio art, computer science.
Anyone have thoughts?
@1pushymama – If you’re in-state you must know that all the UC’s, including UCLA, are ‘impacted’. It is difficult for kids to get into the courses that they want in a timely and/or efficient manner. I don’t know the exact data, but graduating in four years (having taken the courses you wanted to take) is difficult. Add an extra semester or two and the cost difference shrinks.
That all said, I don’t think that he could go wrong between either UCLA or Macalester. Both are wonderful schools. Of course, there’s a BIG difference in climate between those two. . . Our S16 thought that he wanted a big school, but ended up at a medium-size school (7,000 undergrads) because it was a better fit from a number of perspectives. He’s deliriously happy. One’s experience in college is largely shaped by a relatively small group of friends/classmates, and the overall size of the school may not matter all that much. I think some of these kids think they want a big school, but the truth is that they don’t really know what they want. At least mine didn’t.
If he got into UCLA then Berkeley is not such a reach. And unless he gets a great financial aid package at Brandeis I can’t imagine it being in the mix. I’m a Brandeis alumnus, and the school has become a parody of political correctness. The only political discussions there are between the socialists and the communists.
Anyway, congrats as you guys pull down the homestretch. He has some wonderful choices. Helps to have a pushy mama!!
UCB and UCLA have among the highest four year graduation rates of public universities (around 70%; additionally, UCLA has said that the 12 quarter graduation rate is around 80%, indicating that some who take longer than four years do not actually take more than four academic years’ worth of school).
The “not getting the courses you need to graduate” claim is really overblown. Most late graduations are student-related, such as late change of major, not wanting to take 8am classes, failing and needing to repeat courses, needing remedial courses, etc. – obviously, many of these are less common at more selective schools, which have higher graduation rates. Some other reasons are innocuous, such as taking a semester off of school and returning later, which extends calendar time, but does not mean extra semesters or quarters.
He’s got excellent choices, he’ll figure it out.
Thanks for the replies!
@Aleepatthewheel – I am surprised to hear the criticism of Brandeis. He really liked it a lot when we visited, and we are hopeful that the aid will match that from Macalester (we now have two in college, since our youngest child decided to go to college early – so that changed the financial picture). We thought Brandeis would give him the chance to take smaller courses in a lot of different disciplines and figure out if he wants to do art, film, computer science, history or economics. I still can’t figure out if he is allowed to do that at UCLA, since, for example, film and computer science aren’t part of the School of Arts & Sciences. I suppose when he visits he’ll find that out and make a choice. He liked the Social Justice history at Brandeis but he’s not a super left-wing kid, more of an open-minded, generally liberal one.
@ucbalumnus – My note was based on what I read in the lay press and water cooler conversations with other parents, not on any direct knowledge. Your points are well-taken.
There is a real lot to like about Brandeis. As an alumnus (and financial supporter for more than three decades) I was furious this past year with the whole fiasco regarding Ayaan Ali’s honorary degree. There were a couple of other incidences where one could really question whether all political viewpoints are welcome there, e.g., http://www.wsj.com/articles/sohrab-ahmari-how-to-fight-the-campus-speech-police-get-a-good-lawyer-1420241639
But you should trust your and your son’s take more than mine. And if he’s even a bit left of center he’ll do fine.
I’m sure your questions about his access at UCLA to courses outside of Arts and Sciences can be answered by someone.
Keep us posted.