My student and I are doing the last of two visits to “finalist” schools this weekend. I’m hoping to gather wisdom from parents who have already shepherded their students through the critical milestone of deciding between two or three finalist schools. Has your student made a final decision? If yes,
What were the schools that were his/her finalists?
Which school did he/she commit to?
What was the tie-breaking factor(s)?
The first cut was finances. If the aid packages made the school too much, then it was out.
The next cut and final cut came down to fit. Simple as that. Where did he feel most comfortable and most at home. Can’t really quantify it. Like finding a spouse. You just feel comfortable.
@MassDaD68 which two schools were your child’s finalists? and which one did he/she eventually pick?
@PragmaticMom Last year we had 6 schools from which to chose. All of them were affordable since that was a criteria for applying and we had manipulated the NPCs extensively. No surprises in the FA packages, although there was a $7K difference btw the high and low. Here is the rest of the process:
So that was our thought process, FWIW. I am not going to mention schools by name because our impressions and conclusions were necessarily subjective and focused on criteria that was important to us. All his schools were excellent choices in many ways that matter.
Now almost finished with his first year, S is thriving and responded with an emphatic NO when asked if he wanted to apply for transfer elsewhere.
First cut was finances…there was a bimodal distribution of under $30K (after scholarships if applicable) and over $40K. I told my daughter that any of the 4 under $30K options were fine…ranging from $21K to $29K.
Out State U was then eliminated (even though it was the cheapest) as she “didn’t want to run into kids from middle school”.
Lastly she picked based on what colleges gave her the most credits for an IB Diploma… which ended up being SUNY Binghamton (also was most expensive but that was ok)…she ended up (with a couple of summer courses) graduation a year and half early and going to get her Masters.
As we were living overseas at the time, she didn’t get to go to admitted student’s day.
First cut for us is cost. They can apply wherever but our net price that we will pay is understood, so they had to be strategic about finding schools that would offer them the chance to apply for additional scholarships based on their stats.
Last year oldest son’s final group of choices included Oregon State University, Pitt, Northeastern and Tulane.
Tulane fell out quite early because of cost. He put a lot of effort into his scholarship application and was disappointed to not move forward. Pitt offered full tuition upfront and a chance at their Chancellor’s scholarship (full ride.) Northeastern had a good program last year that knocked his cost down to $18k/year. OSU was about the same after scholarships.
OSU fell off because he simply didn’t want to stay in state. He visited Northeastern on their University Scholars weekend (paid for by Northeastern) and enjoyed it. The same week he interviewed at Pitt for the chancellor’s scholarship, which he was ultimately awarded. I would’ve been fine with paying $18k/ year for Northeastern if he’d chosen it but he chose Pitt. He liked it better.
This year, my youngest son was interested in Colorado School of Mines, USC, Montana State University and Northeastern. Northeastern ended their University Scholars program so that one wasn’t within the price range. He was disappointed. By the time School of Mines admitted him, he wasn’t really into the gender ratio so he didn’t put much effort into the additional scholarship essay and wasn’t at all bummed when he didn’t move forward. USC contacted him about applying for an additional scholarship but by then he’d already decided to go for MSU whether or not MSU offered him a better scholarship. He ended up not even bothering to apply for USC’s additional scholarship. MSU is his final choice and it’ll cost us about $8k/year.
For both kids, after the first cut based on cost, it was all about fit.
Our process so far has mirrored others:
Finances: we are full freight everywhere, so finances played no role in the selection of 13 schools to which she applied.
She was admitted to 9, waitisted at 3 and rejected at 1.
Of the admitted 9, 7 were eliminated based on school visits (fit) and/or geography (too close to home or too remote from civilization). The two finalists include a reach and a match.
Two finalists are: UCLA and Case Western
Final decision is still pending.
Likely tie-breakers are campus life and reputation/opportunities in her field, and climate (it breaks differently for each factor, so one of those factors is going trump the other two at the end of the day). She’s a fit at both.
“My student and I are doing the last of two visits to “finalist” schools this weekend. I’m hoping to gather wisdom from parents who have already shepherded their students through the critical milestone of deciding between two or three finalist schools.”
Doing a second visit to your finalist schools is a very good idea. We also did this. One issue about visiting a school after getting an acceptance with an acceptable financial offer: It feels very real. The student knows that they actually can attend if they want to.
In general I would think that the first two criteria would be (in one order or the other): (i) Cost; and (ii) Is the school academically a sensible fit. Perhaps the safety of the school’s location is also something to consider.
My daughter was trying to decide between the top four small primarily undergraduate universities in Eastern Canada (approximately the Canadian equivalent of LACs). We live in the US, but my daughters have dual citizenship. As such, for us cost was not a factor. All were very reasonably priced, academically excellent and a good fit, and in safe communities. This actually made the decision quite difficult.
In the end for us it came down to (i) the convenience of the location (is it near where we live, near an airport with direct flights to where we live, and is it near friendly relatives); (ii) academic fit (how strong is the school academically, does it have the right majors and minors available; and (iii) How does the student feel about the school and its location, do they like it there?
If it had been my decision I would have found it difficult to make, but would have been waffling between the same two schools that my daughter was having trouble deciding between. In the end it probably came down to what she wanted to do.
We planned a visit to our last two finalist schools also. After stopping and visiting the first one I was told to call and cancel anything scheduled at the next one. Just knew it was the “fit”. Finishing up sophomore year now and loves every minute of it. No regrets.
First consideration is always finances. Then academic fit. My daughters GC said that you would know which campus feels right. She was wrong. At the time, accepted student visits caused a lot of anxiety. Facebook shopping for a roommate caused even more worry. On a follow up talk her GC said to think about your worst day possible. Where would you want to be. My daughter had many wonderful choices but only one was where she would want to be on a bad day. That was at Notre Dame and that is where she’s heading this Fall.
“What were the schools that were his/her finalists?”
Out of 7 colleges admitted, came down to two finalists primarily due to best FA offered and best educational opportunities based on S’s academic needs: Williams and Princeton
“Which school did he/she commit to?”
99% Princeton. Will commit right after the Preview Day visit next week.
“What was the tie-breaking factor(s)?”
@FarmerMom , the GC failed you at first, but hit a home-run with the next bit of advice about where you’d want to be on a bad day. I like that, at least for kids with not a ton of experience being away from home, or kids who feel some anxiety about college.
I agree it came down to fit. My D’s final 2 were Pomona and Swarthmore. This seems to be a common final 2, I have learned from talking to other students. Swat has a reputation of being very academically stressful, while Pomona is a bit more laid back. My D takes after me and gets very stressed out over her school work. Plus, can’t beat the So Cal weather (we live in PA). After she chose, one of her teachers told her he knew she would pick Pomona because she was always smiling when she talked about it. She is graduating this year and has been very happy with her choice, has a job in San Francisco.
I guess another consideration could be where they want to end up when finished, as many students stay in their college area after graduation. None of my kids wanted to stay in PA, they are scattered about the country.
It’s been a while for us…
Finances were discussed before applications were sent. Any school applied to was fine in terms of cost for us.
DD’s final two choices were University of Sputh Carolina with a McKissick Scholarship, and Santa Clara University.
She did accepted visits to both schools…and then we gave her a deadline of April 29 to make a decision…and we didn’t discuss it with her. It was her decision.
She chose Santa Clara. I asked her why MUCH later in the summer…and she said she felt like she would be more comfortable at Santa Clara…more people seemed to know one another. Basically…it was her perception of fit…and it was the right choice for her.
As long as you are okay with both final 2 choices financially, I’d stay out of the decision. My D2 visited her top 3 final schools for accepted student visits. I shared some observations from the visits (went along for logistical reasons), but then left her alone. I asked her to decide by a few days before the deadline just to avoid any last minute acceptance snafus.
About a week after the visits she announced her choice (not one she had expected to choose going into the final visits). She is a college senior now, and it was very valuable that she owned that decision fully. Her college was very challenging academically, and she has said that since she fully made the choice on her own, that helped her stay the course when it was tough.
For my D17, it was finances first then fit. She got waitlisted then rejected from her first choice, accepted to her second choice, my alma mater. Second choice did not offer enough financial aid which left her very upset b/c she had no clear choice from her remaining schools. She crossed two off the list immediately (one in state flagship and one SLAC B/c both are way too close to home). Bummer there b/c flagship was cheapest and actually a surprise she got accepted; other was a SLAC that was next cheapest due to merit aid. That left two options-two east coast and two west coast schools. She immediately crossed off one from each coast. We visited the east coast school for “accepted students day” after which I was really worried b/c she liked it but didn’t love it. She had already expressed concern about the west coast school being too far away as we live in the mid-Atlantic. She flew out for a shadow day and halfway through the day texted me saying she was ready to commit. PHEW!
The funny thing about this process - I bought myself one piece of swag last year while on a west coast tour of schools-we visited five while out there. Coincidence or premonition, out of the 12 or so schools we visited during this process, the place I bought the sweatshirt is where she has decided to go!
Tonight D17 mentioned that her friend is torn b/w two schools: Tulane and UDel and the friend asked her how she decided. D said she told the friend she compared a variety of factors that we all know -student/teacher ratio, course offerings and opportunities in field of interest, location, diversity of students, etc, but in the end, for her it was just a feeling of where she felt she fit most comfortably.
Good luck with your child’s decision.
For D, fit was number one. She is a “will grow if planted in the right place” type of person. For us to be okay with fit, we had to be sure that she will find work through college. We wanted a good alumni network and strong career center. She needs access to opportunities. She is at Bates.
^^^Subliminal advertising? 
We purposely didn’t wear swag prior to the decision (even though UChicago in particular sent both parents tons of free stuff) to avoid influencing D2. We wear it all the time now (after our kid decided not to attend there). 
What major is your daughter interested in?