@menloparkmom : We’re driving to Scripps. We’ll hit UCLA and Cal Poly SLO on the same trip! But wouldn’t you fly into Ontario, right next door, vs. Burbank? Or doesn’t SW fly there?
And Southwest flies into Orange County and Ontario, both also closer.
Tangent: My very first thread on CC was this one: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1948587-huge-differences-between-fafsa-efc-and-individual-college-net-price-calculator-efc-numbers.html
I went into this process as a clueless dad with respect to financial aid, and that thread and CC in general taught me a lot about the process and its nuances. But that thread took on a life of its own, with my D’s overly ambitious college list and her chances taking over the conversation. I had argued that since her academic record all but guaranteed a spot at a UC and Cal Poly, it was pointless for her to apply to private LACs that were not highly selective. We took a calculated risk. At the same time, we had also spent the time and money to travel the country and look for LACs that were the best fit for her, so it wasn’t like we copied and pasted the USNWR National LACs list into Common App. People were also concerned about whether applying during a gap year (versus applying senior year and deferring) was a good idea. I may have come across as overly optimistic and delusional as a dad. 
I see some of the folks on that thread on this thread, and I know people were dying to know where she would end up getting accepted. Since that thread is closed, I’ll share her results here. I do this because I want to give other parents hope in the future. My takeaways:
- This process seems so arbitrary, and the private school admissions process is not transparent. Doing your homework doesn’t always yield expected results. But sometimes, hard work pays off.
- Did applying during her gap year hurt my D in any way? I don’t believe so. On the contrary, it might have helped since she had time to think clearly and craft sincere, honest, thoughtful college essays. And the schools got her complete H.S. transcript. There was no mystery about how she might finish off her senior year.
- If you are a parent with an accomplished child reading this in the future, and are scared away by statistics and rankings and college counselors and other parents who make it look like the sky is falling: have safeties, be realistic, take calculated risks, but DO take risks. Never keep your child from aiming high.
- If your child has a strong record, apply to colleges with merit scholarships. They’re still out there, and don’t let the chances dissuade you. I didn’t know that going into this process. So long as the probability is >0, there is a chance. For daughters, women’s colleges are fantastic in this regard. They provide opportunity.
Where my D applied – all regular decision/action – and her results:
Harvard College - Not yet released (applied because it’s my alma mater; 3% chance of acceptance RA based on last year, so not holding my breath; she was traveling out of the country before and after the Early Action deadline, and I forgot to send in my $3 million donation)
Smith College - Waitlisted
Amherst College - Rejected
Swarthmore College - Waitlisted
Williams College - Waitlisted
*Haverford College - Accepted
Bowdoin College - Rejected
*Scripps College - Accepted with Scripps Scholarship ($108K)
*Carleton College - Accepted
*Bryn Mawr College - Accepted with Presidential Scholarship ($100K)
Pomona College - Rejected
*Oberlin Arts & Sciences - Accepted with Oberlin Scholarship ($100K)
*Whitman - Accepted with Brattain Scholarship plus Higley Music Scholarship ($76K)
(Thank you, @intparent and @LKnomad for bringing Whitman to my attention, otherwise, she would not have looked into it or applied. She even interviewed over the phone before applying. We are grateful for your advice.)
And here’s why the list above was not a fool’s errand - we are Californians:
UC Berkeley - Regents’ and Chancellor’s Scholarship Candidate - waiting ($10K)
UCLA
UC San Diego
UC Davis - Regents’ Scholarship ($30K)
UC Irvine
UC Santa Cruz - Regents’ Scholarship ($20K)
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo - William Frost Scholarship ($80K)
(Rejected by UC Santa Barbara)
I’ll let you know where she ends up going! This is exciting. Sometimes, I wish I could go back to those days. (Then I remember finals week. No thank you.)
Dad- thanks for posting and best of luck to you and your D as you make your decision.
Since you have posted a comprehensive summary I’d like to do the same for any newbies who are reading this and were not part of the original debate- your D’s results are almost exactly what many of the old timers on CC predicted what would happen-- you generated some private “chatter” in emails back and forth, except that none of us could calculate exactly what the amounts of the merit awards would be.
I say this not to be snarky… but your point about the process/results being arbitrary and opaque is incorrect. You didn’t want to hear the message that your d was applying to too many schools- and of course, it’s your prerogative to apply (and pay for!) as many applications as time and your budget can allow. But Amherst rejection? Not a surprise. Bowdoin rejection? Not a surprise. Pomona rejection? Not a surprise. And the waitlists from Swat, Williams and Smith are only a surprise if your D ends up getting in to those but since the only one that’s possibly affordable will be Smith if there’s some merit involved (highly unlikely off the wait list but you never know) that was also the old-timer’s predictions.
I’m not being mean. But it is just not necessary to apply to so many schools and pay so many application fees plus the costs of sending test scores, plus the cost of visiting Amherst from California. That chunk of change right there puts you ahead of the game when you sit down to figure out a payment plan going forward. Your D is fabulous, no doubt. And it’s great that all of you have ended up with no regrets about shooting high- again- a fabulous result. But another family could look at your process and come to exactly the opposite conclusion- that you probably cannot afford Carleton (especially with another kid in the pipeline), and that you guys need to sharpen your pencils to figure out if Bryn Mawr with the costs of traveling will work vs. Scripps or possibly Berkeley.
Which is where the old-timers predicted you’d be- plus the suggestion of Whitman which is extremely exciting as an additional option to consider.
Good luck to you.
Blossom, I do think that is a bit harsh. The girl had a 35 ACT. I thought her list was fine because the UC’s were there. If anything, her geographic location probably generates a lot of applications to those colleges. I am surprised Smith wait listed her. If they could swing it financially I would work that wait list hard. Perhaps in the wait list process they will take demonstrated interest?
The dad’s error was in letting her apply to Carleton when the EFC looked unaffordable. However it is an error many people make wishing in our secret heart that somehow the aid will be there.
The marketing etc by the accepted colleges has begun and will work. She will be fine wherever she attends and a little bit wiser for having lived a tough decision.
edited to add: I appreciated that she was willing to leave her home area and get to know another part of the country. Not everyone leaves their comfort zone.
Snowball- are you surprised by a single one of these outcomes? This is a lot of applications for a kid who is no longer in HS (running into the guidance counselor in the hall) to process, manage, track. It clearly worked for THIS family- my point is that the parents of juniors who read this thread do not need to takeaway from this that the trick is to apply to 13 colleges, only some of which are likely to yield merit aid, plus 8 UC’s.
That’s a lot of application fees. Shooting high is great. Busting the college budget on visits before the first bill comes is a stressful proposition for some families.
And again- the D is fab. No taking away from that. And her results are fab and she’ll end up somewhere great.
To be honest, I don’t think you can take Cal Poly SLO off the table just yet, so it’s good you’re planning a trip there and to Scripps. What is the net price there? You’re still talking ~40k annually at Scripps and Bryn Mawr. Maybe 2-5k at SLO? And other UCs around 10-15k and UCLA a little higher? And you’ve got another kid coming around the bend.
Tough decisions coming up. The cost differences are not insignificant and going back to your initial question … the difference in ROI between SLO, UCs and Scripps/BMC can’t be ignored.
As for the Blossom and Snowball comments above, imo your main lesson-learned from an applications standpoint is not to apply to schools that you KNOW you won’t be able to afford … Carleton and Haverford specifically, but that would extend to many of the schools that rejected you that Blossom mentioned, such as Amherst, Swat, Williams and Bowdoin. My guess is that Blossom’s point is that it is ‘not a surprise’ that ANYONE would be denied admission at these schools. And the additional financial aid rules at these schools makes them that much less reasonable to apply to.
lz, thanks for making my point better than I did.
A super high stats kid can look at the Naviance data from their HS and expect that all things being equal, schools like Tulane, Emory, Vanderbilt will have relatively predictable results (for this D I would have expected her to be admitted to all three). All bets are off once you are talking about Amherst- it is small, it is selective, and because of its commitment to needy kids (who need big time aid) they don’t give merit. So the trifecta of problematic…
Have one of these trifecta schools on the list. And add Harvard because the kid is a legacy, sure. But more than one or two? To me that’s spending money you’d rather put towards tuition or books, plus the time and care and expense it took to visit, apply, track, write a kick&* “Why Amherst” essay.
Whew. I just had to go back no read the first thread by this OP (mostly to,see my responses).I agree with @blossom . No surprises in terms of the rejections on the list. And some happy surprises in terms of the acceptances. Bit lots of applications…probably too many. But I said that in December.
You say in the OP that your kid perceives that premed courses will be easier for her at a smaller LAC. I’m going to,say…premed required courses are doozies regardless of,where they are taken…I mean really…organic chemistry is organic chemistry. It’s not like it’s an easier course at a smaller school.
You are looking at some significant debt to send this kid to Carleton…it’s a great school…but so are the others on the cceoted list…at less cost. You need to decide if you really want your kid to have undergrad debt…AND medical school debt…which frankly could approach $300,000 or more. That is a huge chunk of debt…even for a doctor. Remember, doctors don’t earn $300,000 a year right out of the gate. The years they are in residency and fellowship, they WILL be paying back those loans…on incomes less than $65,000 a year,
You need to put your jet shoes on and visit those schools where she got accepted…maybe her top three choices.
But really…if the finances will break the bank…ditch any school that will do so now.
Obviously the decision regarding how much of a financial stretch is too much is personal and depends on the family and kid. One of the hardest things I found, and why I like CC, is that I could not talk about this with friends. If they had chosen full-pay and accepted a big ‘stretch’, it felt like I was criticizing them when I expressed my reservations about doing this ourselves or I felt like I was judged for valuing ‘name-brand’ enough.
Some observations:
Our D’s feelings about schools were quite different when she went for the accepted student days and esp for the one for scholarship awardees. The visits for accepted student days/overnights were totally different for her. Buyer versus seller sort of perspective.
We were willing to go full-pay if our D really wanted the 65K+ school—we had saved so it wasn’t impossible for us. But we laid out what that choice would mean for her. We would be financially strapped and that would have consequences for what she could do in the summer, her choices for semester abroad (because she would have to earn money for that in summer), her ability to do unpaid internships after graduating, our ability to help with grad school, coming out loan-free versus with loans, etc, etc.
So that definitely factored into her decision.
@blossom , @thumper - We were not willing to dismiss a college outright because of NPC results. Turned out that Carleton and Haverford did better than their NPCs predicted. For some people, that difference could have been enough to tilt the decision in their favor. Unfortunately, it isn’t sufficient for our family. Also, privately, I have heard from families who made the decision to stretch and go for the expensive school anyway, because they did thought it was worth the premium to send their D/S to their top choice. So I think different parents will have to make a call based on their financial priorities and values.
The other benefit of my D facing the decision she has before her: it is forcing her to think really hard about pros and cons at a very granular level and learn to do cost-benefit analysis. Little things suddenly matter. It’s no longer about name and status and rankings. True, she won’t be able to go to Carleton or Haverford, but she is thinking about what attracted her to those places, and if she can find some of those qualities at these other schools. By May 1, she’ll be able to truly articulate why she decided to attend her college of choice. I think that’s a good thing, as painful as the decision is to turn down her first choice school.
My daughter had the exact same choice to make–choosing between Carleton and UC Berkeley. Bryn Mawr was also in the mix coincidentally. Carleton was a great fit for her. We were full pay and the difference in price would have been $120,000 maybe more after transportation costs were figured in. We told her that we could and would pay, but that there would be less discretionary funding available and less help available after graduation as she has a younger sibling that we also needed to send to college. She made the decision to attend Berkeley. I think she might have had a “better experience” and more “fun” at Carleton, but life is very long, way longer than four years of college. She did great academically at Berkeley and is finishing grad school this year. She has zero debt and we will use $120, 000 she saved us by going to Berkeley to help her buy a house or apartment when she is ready. Maybe now her young adult life will be less stressful and more fun than it would be if she had more financial worries. Carleton is a really special place. I can see why someone would pay in full for it, but like I said, life is very long and with so many good choices most likely your daughter will do great wherever she goes.
The title of the thread asks about ROI. There would be no additional ROI for Carleton for a premed. Doctors don’t earn more money based on where they went to school.
“Do you know what they call a graduate of a no-name medical school? Doctor.”
True…but in the US, there are no “no name” medical schools. All of our med schools are excellent and hard to get into. Anyone should be honored to get into any of them. NO one is too good for any of our med schools.
Or to any of our D.O. schools. All doctors at the end of the day…and should be proud they got there. 
Perhaps the op and his daughter could benefit by revisiting the “dream school” marketing concept.
@mom2collegekids - Oh, I know that. I’m just quoting something someone told me when I was young. Clinical education is uniform in our country. The weeding take place before you even get there. Honestly, the difference between the “prestigious” medical schools and the ones you don’t hear about all the time is the research. That can matter for the MD/PhD types, but not so much for anyone looking just to practice medicine. At least, that’s what the million doctors in my extended family say.
(And we have one D.O. in the family too.)
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The weeding take place before you even get there. Honestly, the difference between the “prestigious” medical schools and the ones you don’t hear about all the time is the research. That can matter for the MD/PhD types, but not so much for anyone looking just to practice medicine.
At least, that’s what the million doctors in my extended family say.
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True. The approx 40 med schools that have the MSTP programs are typically the ones with more research opps. Not a big deal for many med students who aren’t seeking a top ranked residency…and many aren’t. Having just been thru Match Day with my son, we saw a few strong med students purposely seeking closeby residencies because they’re in relationships or want/need family nearby to help with their babies.
Crazy story…one of son’s classmates is probably within the top 5 of their med school class. This guy purposely ranked UA-Tuscaloosa residency as his #1 so he’d be able to go to football games. Lol…oh my. He could have matched into a tippy top program on the east or west coast! Oh well… It’s a big win for the student health center! Roll Tide!
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At least, that’s what the million doctors in my extended family say
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I wanted to add this. You have a lot of docs in the family, but if they were accepted into med school 10+ years ago, their premed/app experiences will likely be quite different than what’s expected today. Likely they didn’t have to do shadowing hours, research, or medically-related ECs and volunteering. Their MCAT scores (percentile-wise) and GPAs may not have had to be as high, either.