@eandesmom Congrats to your S on the latest acceptance and scholarship!
LOL @cleoforshort! It sounds like a version of revenge-sex with your desire for that bumper sticker!
My daughter was venturing down a similar path as yours with regard to academicsâŠnot quite to the same degree (kudos to your D!). Still, she was up until midnight many nights during her sophomore and early junior year doing homework. She was crushing school. Then we started looking into colleges and realized the elites werenât happening, mostly due to finances. At least, not for undergrad. Her sights have changed to graduate school at an elite. She shifted down into 3rd gear and has kept her grades up, had fun in school, and is looking forward to finding a school that fits her, and fits (the kind I care about 
) our budget. Grades never came super easy to her, so an elite school probably would have been a bad fit. She cannot WAIT to go to college, and Iâm really excited for her.
Another vote for both as they are not mutally exclusive. My DC could fit in at many schools from those with no prestige to those with high prestige, but I am willing to pay more for a prestige school that fits. I consider it an investment. I know most donât trust Payscale, but I think there is some truth in it. As with any investment there is risk involved.
@eandesmom Congrats on Ursinus! Hope that merit is in the range you were expecting (again, looking at YOU Pitt!)!!! Thatâs exciting!
Plus, I feel just a little bit naughty saying it. Ursinus, Ursinus, Ursinis.
@MACncheez âI cannot encourage you by liking the above post!!!
@MACncheez, great parenting- of clearly a great kid. @eandesmom and @RightCoaster , congrats!
@MACncheez I actually worry about DD, sheâs intense. Iâm afraid her head will pop off. Thank God she has sports to blow off some steam.
I have wine.
Congrats on UNH @RightCoaster <:-P
Congrats @eandesmom to Ursinus <:-P
Fit vs. Prestige: we fall a little into both. My D17 wants the prestige (applied ED to a top 15) but knows she will be happy with a lower tier school. D16 was all about prestige and it bit her in the butt as she ended up at her one safety in state but with a full ride. She is very happy there so D17 having seen what her sis went through knows she will be happy anywhere.
@STEM2017 - well, itâs well respected by people that know - but very few ânormalâ people have heard of it. I even asked the guy who interviewed DD âWhy isnât RHIT more well known?â, and he said essentially (a) they donât really know, and (b) they donât spend millions on marketing. But they acknowledge that itâs an under-the-radar kindof school.
@thshadow - Sometimes there is a difference between âprestigeâ and recognition. Believe me, we get plenty of âWhereâs that?â for Mudd (and even once got a âAt least your going to collegeâ!). You might try reading through these two threadsâŠThey are very amusing, including this post regarding a conversation about Cal Tech (yes, thatâs right, someone though Cal tech was a vocational school)
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/926354-just-smile-and-nod-smile-and-nod-p1.html
^^^Agree, Penn is an ivy, but a surprising number of people donât know that and are more familiar with Penn State. So, our interest in prestige schools is for the possible professional boost not to impress average people who would only know HYP anyway.
^HYP? Haverford, Yeshiva, and Powellâs Beauty Acadamy (look it up)?
Thanks! But yeah MAC itâs a bit of a Pitt award. Not quite what was expected or hoped for. We will see what the full package looks like as the NPC bundled merit and FA. It will be interesting and a bit surprising if the FA offer really does bring it up to the NPC amount. The joys of full pay for a lower stats kid, even at a not super selective but solid school. Sigh. He may well see this repeated at all of his remaining schools. Which we are prepared for and knew could happen but itâs still a bit of a bummer.
Itâs not super high on his list, was a free app and the NPC has looked good and met all the criteria otherwise (on paper) but heâs not visited yet. There other schools on his list that are better cases for going over budget me thinks. So at the moment we are a bit disappointed.
My H and S19 say he canât go there as the canât stand the name lol. I say we need more money if I have to spend 4 years telling people the name and how to say it! Lol.
@CT1417 - Pith is my specialty 
Seriously, though, D17 is looking for both. In addition to a few reachy-reach ivies and some elite LACs that donât offer merit, most of her efforts are geared towards top 20 schools that offer Big MAC.
On her original list she had a couple of schools a notch or two down that offer full ride scholarships, but they got knocked off as she thought they would be poor fits.
@thshadow, I am 100% about fit (best fit school we can afford). D thought it was cool the first few times she got mail/email from prestige schools (Mudd being her favorite), but she got over that pretty quick.
If the other parents want to talk prestige, just tell them that R-H has been USNWRâs #1 ranked undergraduate engineering school for 18 straight years. Mudd is #2 and Olin is #3, not exactly small potatoes if you care about USNWR rankings (which most prestige-obsessed parents do). [Okay, now that I caught up with the thread I see you and @STEM2017 already hashed this out but Iâm leaving it!]
@eandesmom and @MACncheez, Iâm not sure why, but the talk about Ursinusâ unusual name (itâs really not that bad â better than Dickinson certainly) made me think of Tobiasâ personalized license plate: âANUSTART.â As anyone can tell, it is a shortened version of his philosophy on life: âA new start.â
@thshadow We are also a combination of the two in our household and hoping for a prestigious fit. My DH would have liked her to apply straight down the list of prestigious schools (from an international viewpoint) and I wanted to start applications to safeties in July. My DD is her own person and wasted little time in removing many schools from her naviance list that mom and dad had put on. Essay fatigue set in really early around here so at the end of the day who knows how many schools sheâll end up applying to. I vow down to all of you that have kids who are essay writing machines. I had no idea the process was going to be so horrible and I just want it to end so that she can really enjoy Senior year⊠I am predicting a deferral for her SCEA application but I would LOVE to be wrong.
I am with @itsgettingreal17 on the Fit over Prestige! I will say that D really has only been attracted to schools where she feels that she Fits. She has the stats for Prestige, but wants nothing to do with it. We live in an area where keeping up with the Jones is normal, so it can be hard at times. I sometimes just want to tell people Dâs scores, to shut them up!
The Rose-Hulman discussion reminded me of an old comment from someone here on CC who was talking about their child going to William and Mary and other people not being familiar with the school. The kid in question told their parents (paraphrasing because Iâm too lazy to search for the old thread) âDonât worry Mom & Dad, all of the smart kids have heard of William and Mary.â
Wise words⊠donât let the ignorance of others influence how you feel about your childâs choice of whatâs best for them and your family.
Also, I happen to love all of the âSuper-Noseyâ mailings from RH 
Fit vs. Prestige: S17 is a recruited athlete who turned down multiple Ivy Likely Letters for a school that very few in our area have heard of. After receiving a blank stare and a follow up âWhere is that school?â by most people who ask where S17 is attending, we have started to answer by saying âIt is a small school in the state of X called Yâ.S17 is not bothered by the fact that his friends and their parents have never heard of the school. He loves everything about the school and canât wait to begin next fall.
My H was recently talking to a friend from his high school years who has been working abroad for a couple of decades, When the question of where S would be heading to college came up, my H gave the answer we have been giving everyone for months. We all got a laugh out of his friends response: âDo you think I am a F***** idiot and have never heard of school Y?â
@RightCoaster, congrats on UNH! My D got an acceptance there, too. Itâs not high on her list, either, and the Deanâs scholarship for out of state students doesnât take much of a bite out of the COA, so I donât see it as a contender at this point. Seems we have some common schools on our respective listsâyour S also has an acceptance in hand at UVM, right? Weâre anxious to hear on merit at UVMâbetween that and awaiting her ED decision, weâre getting a little antsy over here!