So I have a very fortunate but quite unexpected problem.
Youngest kid’s original top choice was Vandy, but by the time application season rolled around, ND had moved into the top slot. Kid got into ND EA in December and has really latched onto ND since then. Loves the welcoming community, loves the Catholic aspect, very impressed with the major department (biology), loves the dorm/hall system vs. frat/sorority.
So Vandy had pretty much fallen by the wayside. Until this week when, totally out of the blue, kid gets accepted with a full tuition scholarship.
The 529 right now covers a little bit more than 2.5 ND years. ND full pay wouldn’t require us to stop funding retirement or take out loans, but we wouldn’t have one extra nickel for five more years.
Or we could send the kid to Vandy (which the kid did really like), stop saving for college today, and give the kid a low six figure remaining 529 balance as a college graduation present. Grad/professional school seems fairly likely at this point, but who knows 4/5 years from now. The delta over four years (assuming COA continues to keep increasing each year) is $200k more for ND. Questions:
I know ND does very little merit aid, and the kid wasn't nominated for the Hesburgh program. Any chance that ND would try to narrow the price gap? Is it even worth asking ND about?
The kid really loves ND and so do I. But for anyone short of a hedge fund manager, is it just nuts to think that ND is so special that it is worth 4X the price of Vandy? FWIW, ND and Vandy are T15 in the current USNWR rankings.
As you lay out your particular circumstance, I think Vandy is the way to go. I think you should only be conflicted about this dilemma if the free-tuition school was a step down in some way from ND, which Vandy is clearly not. Take the deal and apply the 529 money for grad school. Congratulations!
I’d choose Vandy if the money was the same. So I’d definitely say Vandy in your situation. Just out of curiosity, how did your son hear this early? Maybe that’s how they do the full scholarship awards. @northwesty
I would agree that under the circumstances, I’d opt for Vandy. You might want to contact ND and let them know about the other offer on the off chance they might reconsider merit aid.
Have you run the NPC at ND? Does it show you getting any aid at all? If it does, then I’d definitely wait to see what the FA package looks like from ND. For my family, they were very very generous.
Also, is your son thinking of med school? I read on another thread today that pre-med at Vandy is rough, and hard on the GPA. I don’t have any info on whether or not that is true at ND.
suzy100 said “Also, is your son thinking of med school? I read on another thread today that pre-med at Vandy is rough, and hard on the GPA. I don’t have any info on whether or not that is true at ND.”. I have heard the same thing about ND. I have a student in ChemE at ND and it is extremely rigorous with difficult grading.
Vandy is hard to get into and especially with a scholarship. We love everything about ND and have no personal knowledge of Vandy, besides visiting. Given the fact that they are both great schools, I might go with the money.
You might also consider visiting Vandy again to maybe shift his interest level.
For the $$$ involved, we will re-visit to see if the Vandy love begins to grow as compared to the current ND love. End of the day, ND would likely be the better fit, but perhaps not enough to overcome the big money delta.
The kid is possibly pre-med. ND seems to do a great job getting kids into med school, but that path is a grueling grind anywhere, and lots of incoming pre-meds self-select out along the way at any school.
Anyone else have experience talking to ND about competing offers? I will give that a try, but my expectation is that will not go anywhere. Thanks for the feedback.
@northwesty I know this is an old post, but out of curiousity which scholarship did your son get? He was notified early as I see your post was back in mid Febuary. Thank you for the information
