<p>Don’t talk down the state schools. Don’t say “well, you can always go here if something else doesn’t work.” I hate the idea of a safety being a lower grade of education. We found my daughter’s school at a school fair because no one was talking to the rep. I joked “we can afford this” and so in junior year she went on an informal visit. It was January, it was Wyoming, she wasn’t impressed. But she wasn’t finding anything in our budget she liked more, so started looking at it on line, had a bunch of brochures sent to her, and said okay. Then we visited in Sept when it was beautiful, she was treated like a queen by the theater dept. and she’s never looked back. We focused on all the good things it has for her (club hockey, horses, close to friends and relatives, affordable). She loves it and doesn’t feel she settled. It was an academic safety, a financial safety, and her first choice.</p>
<p>She wanted to go to California, but I told her before she could apply she needed to SHOW me how she was going to pay for it, and she wasn’t willing to do the work to gather scholarships or grants, so I wasn’t willing to shell out the $40 for the application. She wasn’t disappointed when I couldn’t afford it because she didn’t even apply.</p>
<p>^^ Agree. But it is also hard to motivate kids to extend themselves and take the more challenging classes, if their only option is the Big State U they can get into with reasonable assurance. I have tried to say it is a good option and would be fine, but if you work and got merit money, you can go some place you might like better. </p>
<p>Don’t forget to tell them that if they do better in high school, they will likely to better in college, in addition to having more choices of college (from either an admissions or merit scholarship standpoint).</p>
<p>Just want to say that I agree 100%. I’m a senior in high school and my parents didn’t talk to me about this until my offers were mostly on the table. It made things unnecessarily complicated. Luckily everything worked out well, but knowing what was going on beforehand would have really been better.</p>
<p>I think that before high school is way too early for it to sink in at all. I could see mentioning it in passing, but I kow that my kid would have said, “I am just starting high school, I don’t want to think about college yet!” (Mind you, she knows what I could afford–not much–and she will attend a school that gave her substantial merit and need-based aid and she’s delighted to be headed to a college that really wants her.)</p>
<p>Agree that it’s not all going to sink in for a 14 year old, at that age you can give the high-level message of “there are limits to what we can afford” (if that’s the case). There are just too, too many families who at that point are telling their kid “if you get in, we will make it work”. Then those kids go out and work their little tails off because they’ve been told that if they get accepted all will be well. </p>
<p>I have a Jr and an 8th grader. And am a financial aid professional. Both of my kids know exactly what the factors are for choosing a school. The Jr is targeting OOS merit schools ( she should be at least a NMSF). The 8th grader thinks, for now, she wants to aim higher and go for some of the comptetive scholarships at higher level schools. She knows that if her plan does not pan out, the work she has done to be in the running for such scholarships will means she has a lot of other options. Some of her friends would not be ready for this conversation, but some are. It depends. Every year so many families call and email me, so surprised about their financial aid packages. Really most of that drama could be avoided if parents AND kids understood well in advance …threads like this are so important!</p>
<p>Here’s a point I made on another thread, that I’d like to repeat here: the decision of where to go to college is an adult decision, and adult decisions need to be made based on the facts. So don’t keep the facts from your kid about the finances. Don’t say, “we’ll make it work somehow” or “just let us worry about the finances.” You may think you’re protecting your kid by doing that, but you aren’t.</p>
<p>This candor may be difficult for some parents. For example, it may mean that your kid will understand that there is a distinction between your willingness to pay and your ability to pay. But I think that’s also something that you should be honest about.</p>
<p>It is never too early to start talking about college finance to kids. I let my 8th grader know she would need to work hard to get some merit aid or she would not have many choices for good schools. Junior may be too late to start as PSAT is long over by now which is one of the best opportunity to get scholarships from many schools.</p>
<p>As with everything else, your oldest child is a bit of guinea pig. Unfortunately, if you make mistakes on the college learning curve, the consequences are much higher than if you didn’t put the kid into volleyball until 2 years after everyone else did and she couldn’t ever catch up.</p>
<p>I have noticed our younger kids are watching and paying attention to the pros and cons of what is going on at home all on their own. </p>
<p>And the willingness/ability balance can tip both ways. We have heard from/about both parents who are able to pay but unwilling to and those who would be willing (maybe too willing sometimes) but are unable.</p>
In some states, you need to work hard to get in to Big State U rather than Unimpressive Directional State U.
Working hard also gets you opportunities at Big State U that you might not have otherwise. State universities are usually generous about accepting AP credits to satisfy graduation requirements, so if you work hard in your AP classes and do well on the AP tests, you earn considerable academic freedom. And some Big State Us have special perks for the very best students – like honors programs with special, smaller classes and priority registration.
So even if you’re like my son – for whom Big State U was his first-choice school – there’s a case to be made for making an effort in high school.