<p>It’s so interesting how different people are. S had two EA schools he was admitted to so he only applied to schools he really wanted to go to. The financials were all about equal, but there was that special one. The day the acceptance came (my birthday) he signed the
Card, dropped it in the mail and threw everything else out. We are a very intuitive family and have never used a spread sheet for anything. I guess I’m passing on my wicked wicked ways, as Errol Flynn said.</p>
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<p>That’s a great outcome for your son … congrats.</p>
<p>But here’s the thing … if a student gets accepted to a couple Ivy league schools or their equivalents and also applied to a range of schools including matches and safeties … then they likely got into almost all the matches and safeties … and also probably received merit offers from a bunch of these match and safety schools … then having cheaper options is the expected situation come decision time.</p>
<p>If the student has a high need for financial aid then the Ivy might well be the cheapest school. However for a student whose profile determined expected financial contribution is quite high is will most likely be the opposite … the Ivy is likely to be the most expensive.</p>
<p>Going to a cheaper alternative certainly is a reasonable option … however lots of these posts make it sound like it is the only option; that the family should make/strongly suggest the student take the cheaper offer. </p>
<p>This is going to sound weird but if the family is going to push the student to the cheaper option in the end then allowing them to apply to Harvard, Cornell, and MIT is almost a cruel bait and switch move … if they get into Harvard, Cornell, and MIT they will have much cheaper options. I think parents who are going to push the lowest cost option to be honest about it up front and cut off the no-merit applications before they are submitted. </p>
<p>Most of the responses in this thread have not advocated either extreme position (take the Ivy at whatever the cost … or definitely take the lowest cost option) but families struggling with the trade-off of the ivy (or equivalent) versus the cheaper merit scholarship school. It’s just evidence the merit scholarship policies work … schools are in the hunt that would have been without the merit aid award. The whole point of this post is recommending that families of top students (who will not get a lot of financial aid) should plan on (and discuss) being put in this situation because it is the most likely outcome.</p>
<p>Haven’t read every posting, so here’s my suggestion: Since you are able to pay for either college and hadn’t had the money talk before, split the difference with him. If he goes to Oberlin, he gets half of what you save because of the merit aid.</p>
<p>I don’t, personally, think it’s fair for a kid to make his/her parents spend a bunch of money unnecessarily. I would appeal to my son to help save money for future endeavors and/or possible unforeseen emergencies. Another argument you might like to use is that Oberlin is listed as #24 in the US News and World Report rankings, while Kenyon is only #33. Maybe that could sway him a bit.</p>
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<p>I assume the OP’s son is aware of these compelling data.</p>
<p>OP, we are in a similar situation. My D was accepted to OSU with full tuition scholarship along with a small merit scholarship that would lower cost of room and board. She was also accepted to Kenyon with a wonderful scholarship and grant. Still, Kenyon is going to cost us about $10k more out of pocket. I know for many on here, this isn’t a lot but for us it is. She loves Kenyon and will be attending but it has been very hard for me to turn down the $ for OSU. However, Kenyon fits her better for many many reasons. I think this means a lot and I guess I am going to be spending 10k a year for that fit. Hmmm…</p>
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<p>I’d only use that as a justification to get Kenyon to kick in a lot more money and same/better scholarship terms. </p>
<p>In practice…the main differences between the two colleges IMHO are location, academic strengths, and campus culture. </p>
<p>If someone doesn’t fit Oberlin’s campus culture or can’t/isn’t willing to try tolerating it for 4 years…it can be very trying. It’s certainly no campus for someone who doesn’t want to be around politically minded folks who love to argue/debate things into the ground…at least when I was there. </p>
<p>On the other hand, from what I’ve heard from several friends/acquaintances who went to Kenyon…if you’re too radically left/neo-hippie leaning, vocal about it, and/or don’t want to be around a more preppy center-right leaning type of student…it wouldn’t be the right school for you. </p>
<p>Granted…this is all from experiences of attending both schools in the mid-late '90s so YMMV.</p>
<p>Those rankings seem very similar to me. There are many meaningless metrics that go into those ranking. Still those seem similar.</p>
<p>I also think the assumption that if a student gets into Ivies or other reaches that s/he has been accepted to all their safeties is quite erroneous.</p>
<p>Both my kids did better with high matches and reaches than they did with the so-called safeties. It made me think that the idea of a safety is somewhat false.</p>
<p>I think many decisions are made on fit, not stats, at least at LAC’s.</p>
<p>Uni’s are more stats driven.</p>
<p>The op’s situation was unexpected and when the numbers came in and one school was signifigantly less than the other the game changed. The family has every right to reevaluate where they stand now. It doesn’t matter what led up to this point at all. The reality is what is on the table now.</p>
<p>As a core family unit we try to make decisions based on the common good for all of us. We make the best decision for the entire family. If Johnny was a great student and gets a great scholarship this impacts the entire family. It frees up money for the other familty members. For us it is a pack mentality. No one person is more important than the next. </p>
<p>This is not a popular point of view on C.C. but it works for us.</p>
<p>I have a suggestion for people who read through this thread, but haven’t gone through any of this with your kids yet: be sure you know where you would come out on these kinds of issues, and tell your kids in advance, before they choose a list of colleges.</p>
<p>“Son, what’s your dream car?”
“Well, I guess my dream car is a BMW.”
“OK, if you do well in high school, I’ll buy you one when you graduate.”
A few months later:
“Well, Dad, let’s go get my BMW.”
“Actually, son, I’ve found a really good buy on a similar Mercedes. It’s not the color you wanted, and the features are a bit different, but it’s $5,000 cheaper. So I’m no longer willing to buy you the BMW you wanted, unless you kick in, say, half of the $5,000.”
A few decades later:
“See, Dad, there is this other nursing home…”</p>
<p>Nothing you could do now, might not bother wasting your time. The time to act has passed. When he applied, he should have applied only to places that for sure would give him Merir awards. Also, money situation had to be addressed.
We did not address money at all, however, D. had applied only to colleges that would give her Merits. She got some at every place and has chosen to go on full tuition Merit for a reason other than financial. It was no discussion at that point.<br>
As of now, he has to go where he wants, all these figths are going to make situation worse, much worse than financial side of family life.</p>
<p>Hunt post #191: My snort du jour. Thanks for that.</p>
<p>*This is going to sound weird but if the family is going to push the student to the cheaper option in the end then allowing them to apply to Harvard, Cornell, and MIT is almost a cruel bait and switch move … if they get into Harvard, Cornell, and MIT they will have much cheaper options. I think parents who are going to push the lowest cost option to be honest about it up front and cut off the no-merit applications before they are submitted. *</p>
<p>OK, so I have a question about this, directed to anyone who cares to weigh in. My D is a high school freshman who I believe she will end up with high stats. My EFC will be fairly high, but I will not be able to pay nearly what I believe a school might expect. However, I have seen FA packages that are all over the board from some top schools. Are people here saying that if you know that you will need lots of merit, then don’t even apply to any top schools?</p>
<p>suzy - I’d say just be informed about what aid you need and can expect from various schools. If you are sure your EFC (using the CSS Profile method - try the online calculators) will be too high at a school that offers no merit aid - then your D shouldn’t apply. Some top schools give FA up to fairly high income levels, but most don’t. Then research the schools at the time that give good merit aid and apply to those. Remember that a lot can change in three years regarding financing and what schools are doing - so just keep checking. Most people aren’t informed at all, so just by knowing what questions to ask you’ll be way ahead of the game.</p>
<p>DS applied to a range of schools last year (he’s a freshman) and, to our surprise, was given significant merit awards at several of these schools. We had not counted on his receiving any merit despite his high stats and excellent performance; I do wish we had been better counseled on this by the GC. At any rate, he ultimately chose his favorite school, one at which he received no awards, and we are fine with that. Since the awards were never expected, we could not ask him to attend a lesser choice. That said, hard to turn down significant money, and our DS is aware of sacrifices we are making, but this was part of the deal from the beginning.</p>
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<p>I’m sorry to sidetrack but this is too funny and too true. My FIL, when first widowed at age 89, was placed thoughtfully by his five sons into a somewhat costly private home with assisted living, out of his town but closest to the son who still had some teens home for grandpa outings to cheer for sports. Also, there were nice curtains, visiting speakers and a single room. </p>
<p>Two months later he was miserable because he wanted to go back to the city he’d lived in for 89 years, to the grungy all-male Veterans home with the sleeping roommate in the old industrial city where he grew up. No intricate programming, but plenty of bingo. I guess, basically, he asked to transfer back from the prestige school to his local community college. Anyway, he was happier because he knew where he was when the other in-town son took him out to Starbucks! Although…he couldn’t understand why a cup of coffee costs $5, but that’s another story.</p>
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<p>I would consider that a drastic response, even if I knew which schools you would therefore be intending to drop from consideration. You mean leave off schools that don’t give merit? Well, maybe your own sense of what you can afford will evolve and maybe some schools will be more generous than you expect they’ll be. A better approach, IMO, is to make sure your list includes at least some schools where your child seems in line for merit, based on her stats and other qualifications. This could include very good schools such as Kenyon, Oberlin and many more that people may or may not consider “top” schools, but where your child could be sufficiently challenged and academically fulfilled. (I happen to find the hair-splitting between tippy-top, top and so on to be alternately amusing and distasteful, depending on my mood.) </p>
<p>Most important is to know what you are comfortable paying and let your daughter know. There are many, many resources for finding out, roughly speaking, what kind of aid a school gives; these are not foolproof, but you can certainly find out whether a place meets full need or not, how generous they have been in the past with people in your income bracket, etc.</p>
<p>OP: Please don’t forget to know what you all decided. Our thoughts are with you.</p>
<p>Thank you all for the advice. I have already touched on this with my D, and told her that many schools that she might want to consider may be financially out of reach but that we can worry about that more later. Reading through some of these threads has been pretty disheartening (but enlightening!), and I am hoping that there may be a window that I can leave open on this, and I think there probably is. I’m trying to keep my dream-killing to a minimum. ;)</p>