I think you have a good strategy and should not stress so much about the money until you know what your choices are. Chances are you will have a lot of options and you can compare them when the time comes. Yes, that will be a very stressful time, but almost all families have big decisions to make in April.
Like @jym626, our valedictorian turned down Yale for the UGA Fellowship program. People were shocked, she had dreamed of Yale for years, the whole school knew when she got accepted early, but once that Fellowship offer came in it was too hard to ignore.
Another of D’s friends had dreamed of going to Chapel Hill. She had a budget of about $10,000 a year and we are out of state. People told her not to apply, it was too much of a long shot to even get on forget get one of the big scholarships offered to OOS kids. This girl was a rock star -not valedictorian but grades, science awards, jobs, research, first generation, everything else you can think of besides sports she had it. She knew her odds, and she knew that even if she got in she was unlikely to be able to afford i, but she said was one of those kids who said she jus couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t even try. You can guess the end of the story. I don’t know exactly which scholarship it was but she is now a freshman at Chapel Hill on a full rude including extra money for research and even money to travel home on vacations.
I know that is a super long shot, but as long as your D knows the odds why not try at a few schools as long as she has back up plans which she does.
Good luck and I can’t wait to follow along and see how everything goes!
There is a big difference, IMO, in taking a job with a top firm out of a top law school than looking at opportunities right out of undergrad.
Who knows, this student may be wiser to go to a school where she is the top of the middle rather than the middle of the top, and then go to a top grad program. Many engineering undergrads work a few years and then got for an MBA. OK, loan time again (if the MBA isn’t funded by an employer).
The daughter may want to love in an expensive city, with high rent and food costs. Maybe she wants to get married or buy a car right out of undergrad. Much harder to do if she/her family has $70k+ in loans to repay.
While anecdotal, one of my s’s went to a top 20, the other to a top 50. They both got engineering degrees (different specialties) Each started in different jobs… but ended up at the same place. So don’t make decisions based on the first job prospect out of undergrad. As many say, after the first job, its more about your job performance than where you went to college.
Oh, and I know someone who has taken high paying law jobs, and absolutely hates it. Hates the billable hours pressure and dull work he is doing. He is looking at job opportunities in legal aid where he feels he can make a difference and find value in his degree…
Hey-- I hated that high paying job too! But I knew it was what I had to do in order to go to a top school. Whatever; my point is only that there are many choices here, and only the OP and his daughter can make them. There is no one and only one way.
Schools that only offer need based aid, do take in to consideration, where the sibling attends school and how much you are paying (not how much the school costs).
If your child is at home the public attending CC part time , it is highly unlikely that it will result in an increase in your institutional financial aid, even if the FAFSA has cut your EFC in half.
The CSS profile, it asks the following questions (start at page 31)
Assuming you mean Wall Street or management consulting that preferentially recruit at HYPSM and the like, is the student potentially even interested in such a career direction?
There is nothing wrong with choosing a high paying job that you may not like… if that’s what you want.
IMO there is something very wrong with being forced to accept a high paying job that you are not happy with…in order to help pay off $70,000 in loans from Princeton… when you would have been happy taking a full ride. Not to mention the burden that this may place on the family… who wanted to spend no more than maybe $80,000 total for 4 years and has a disabled child to consider.
Of course, avoiding that debt in the first place would avoid being forced into such an undesirable situation. The OP’s kid can choose that option. Unfortunately, there are some kids who are academically suited for college but do not have good debt-avoiding options (e.g. kid from poor family in rural Pennsylvania too far to commute to a college that offers his/her desired majors).
The OP indicated that he is considering loans that would be split between the parents and student… these loans could be rather high (relatively speaking). The daughter plans to major in engineering.
What if the daughter decides that she hates engineering and wants to be a chemistry major? Or International Relations? What if she accepts a lab position or goes into research… for $38,000 a year? What if she wants to accept a position with an environmental organization… for little pay?
She can’t…because she has to help her parents pay back these loans.
Of course they are. But my point is that this decision is a long way off, and the OP doesn’t have all the facts needed to make an informed decision (ie what other offers, if his daughter is even accepted to Princeton, if she is, how much financial aid there will be, the status of his older daughter etc etc etc).
And once the OP does have all the information, there will be several paths to follow. And only he and his daughter can decide what’s right for them, not CC posters. We don’t know every little thing about the OP’s circumstances or his finances, nor should we have that complete information.
I think it is excellent all the choices and factors have been laid out. But now it’s up to OP and his daughter, not us, even if we might think he is making a mistake.
I also am looking forward to following her journey, I am sure it will be an interesting one.
Yes, and the world can end in am moment too. Once in a while you take a calculated risk. Sometimes you have to step off the curb to get somewhere. Wow, this thread is amazing.
@KevinFromOC just thought I’d toss out one other thing to consider when looking at college possibilities. My daughter is planning to be a ChemE major, but is also interested in Materials Science and Engineering. From what she’s heard so far, there is a lot of overlap between those two disciplines. I’m mentioning it because your daughter might also have some interest in it if she looks at some programs and it could put some more colleges on her list if they are affordable (CalPolySLO for example).
Princeton had a 5.77% acceptance rate last year. The first challenge is getting in. Plenty of top stats kids don’t. Really no reason not to keep it on the list though. I imagine there are plenty of folks out there who if their S/D got into Princeton/Stanford/Harvard, etc. would find a way to “make it work.”
There’s nothing wrong with casting a wide net and shooting for the stars. Once all the results are in, OP can weigh the options. It seems that OP’s D is very aware that $$$ will play a role in the final decision. But as others have pointed out, it does seem that OP doesn’t need to apply to every school that offers guaranteed admission based on stats. Or to every “she could win the big one” lottery ticket school. Pick the 2 or 3 in each category that best fit your D’s criteria and goals. Also, once she gets that first acceptance from one of the affordable options and is excited about it, see if there are schools you can knock off the list. I know we knocked off a lot of schools when the first acceptances came in. Just because a school waives the application fee isn’t necessarily a reason to apply. (Although I confess to falling for that. You still need to pay to send test scores!) Spending time on targeted outside scholarship opportunities might be time better spent then getting out a few more applications.
I also know that the costs definitely crept up each year for our S&D (HS class 2014) and that we had to file FASA, CSS, and school specific FA forms every year–times two. And, yes, both schools asked for proof of enrollment and exact figures on what we were paying. @twogirls makes a good point re: study abroad. The only reason our D was able to do so was because she picked the school that was substantially less a year than her favorite. As @cinnamon1212 points out, there are too many unkowns at this point in the game. Will be interesting to follow OP’s D’s journey.
Nonsense, @sushiritto . Lots can happen even if you look both ways. You can slip and fall. The bus can come from around a curb. You can think its is stopped when it isn’t, or think it is stopping at the light and it doesn’t. Sure one can take risks and succeed, but you can also take risks and end up with big regrets.
This thread started with a parent being clear that the family had limited finances and would not take out loans. That tune has changed.
Then again, there are those students who take out loans with no plan to repay them. Not saying this is one, but there are those who do.
Well, yes, but not exclusively. Management training rotation programs at major firms will heavily favor the elite grad as well. Again, not to belabor the point, but Latina STEM with high quantitative ability is a near unicorn. The one I know best these days was running an entire division at a major cell phone manufacturer by her mid- to late-30s.
As for career interest, well, OP has indicated that his daughter is interested in chemical engineering, not non-profits or international relations which seem to be themes on here. Funny, but the one female chemical engineer I knew well graduated MIT and never worked as an engineer. Went into finance and retired in her mid-30s. Met her husband at the firm and he retired as well - maybe early 40s - and she spends a lot of time raising her hockey player kids who were also just under the threshold for recruitability last I spoke with her.
We all have anecdotes!
Most people not used to making decisions or offering advice under uncertainty revert to the extreme loss aversion noted by behavioral finance theorists like Richard Thaler or Terry Odean at Berkeley. That risk aversion is very evident on this thread.
