<p>“End result is a really super kid with straight A’s is going to a college so far off the radar that it doesn’t even have a sub-forum here at CC.”</p>
<p>Good grief! There are something like 4000 colleges and universities in the US. Lots of them don’t have sub-forums here at CC but still manage to be places where a straight A student can thrive.</p>
<p>If all you saw was our family income and bank balance, and you ran into us once or twice a year at family events, you could well believe that we could afford our EFC. Well, we can’t. Happykid is headed to our local community college next year because we had the good sense to see what was affordable, and what wasn’t, and we could clarify her options long before she began the college application process. Fortunately they have an excellent program for the first two years of her major. And, luckily the parents in our area are savvy about this. It’s some of the other folks who are driving us mad with “What do you mean she’s going to a community college?”</p>
<p>Sorry, but Im not going to pass judgment on these parents based on no real knowledge of their situation. Our family knows from first-hand experience what its like to have a student be accepted to several great colleges and then have that all of them come up short with the FA compared to what they should have paid according to the EFC or other formulas. Hopefully the student in this situation chose their safety school(s) wisely and will still be happy and productive in college.</p>
<p>Parents muck things up all the time. There are parents who won’t even let their kids apply to schools where they would get aid or merit because the rankings aren’t high enough.</p>
<p>I don’t mean to make light of parenting choices, but this reminds me of when I was about twelve yrs old, gawky as heck and asking my mom why she didn’t marry someone better looking= so her kids could have benefitted.
She said that " when it was time for me to get married- if I thought that looks were still so important, I could take that into account".</p>
<p>Well.
Have to say- I DID!
:)</p>
<p>Hm. I married the perfect specimen to set off my genes – tall, whereas I am short, mathy, whereas I am language based, cool, whereas I am, well, a handful.</p>
<p>Perfect.</p>
<p>We got divorced.</p>
<p>I married a guy who is short, a handful, visual (a photographer) and not particularly mathy and had kids with him, and I love them to bits and pieces, genetic shortcomings included.</p>
<p>Just a note that some schools require you to file need-based aid forms in order to consider your kid for merit-based scholarships. Brandeis, for example, but I remember we came across others.</p>