@nw2this …wow that’s awesome! So you were surprised?
There has to be something more to it, otherwise everyone would just say “I can pay $10K a year” and that’s what they would get!! Right?
D got accepted to College of Wooster with a College Scholar Award!
My kid won a lottery and got into his dream school Stanford REA but waiting to see what kind of scholarship he gets from Honors College. Won’t get any from Stanford because we don’t qualify. Money wise, it’s an easy decision to choose a reputable Honors College offering lots of merit scholarship, but the problem is Univ of South Carolina does not have a great Program in his intended field of major. (Oh, why couldn’t he just major in IB area in which USC is ranked number 1 in nation?). $300k or less than $40k for 4 years? Lol. Never thought we would be in this situation.
My kid’s intended major? East Asian Studies and/or Int’l Relations. Not sure my kid will get McNair or Horseshoe. He should be getting Liebers and Cooper scholarships which he can stack. Again, why couldn’t he switch his major from IR to IB? One letter difference might mean the difference of $250k. Lol
I thought of something funny. If one could sell his spot to Stanford to a highest bidder and use the money to attend another school, he can go to college for free and buy a house in South Carolina. Probably.
@carlsbadbruin Same situation here.
@websensation —the “school and scholarship” exchange program idea has often been brought up here. Wouldn’t it be so fantastic?? SIGH. One could trade a scholarship for a certain school that another kid wanted in exchange for a spot at a school they really wanted to attend.
@carachel2 he applied to stanford scea and was rejected, so now d says he’s applying to a lot of other schools of similar lottery level for rd.
I don’t know his financial situation, but he appears to be middle class, and has a lot of siblings, so I worry that he’s going to take on a ton of debt. However, beyond recommending umd as a safety school, I don’t feel like it’s my placell to push more. D17 is explaining why she chose the colleges she did (they have the same major), but he’s pretty focused on the big leagues.
@MotherOfDragons - And here I thought those stories about kids with good stats that get into ZERO colleges were just tall tales… It looks like BF might prove me wrong… 
@websensation Congrats on Stanford. And, being able to LOL about $250k! =))
We are in a similar position with regard to USCar. Not a perfect major for D17 there. But, lots to choose from, and maybe cobble together something interesting. We don’t have the lottery decision, but have choices of schools that are a bit more, but have the major she wants now. Key word is ‘now’. Things change.
@MotherOfDragons Wow. Well, I hope he has better luck in the RD round. I know in Texas, the deadline for application to our two big flagship schools has closed. So he would be completely out of luck in having an in-state option for likely (although still competitive) admission.
When I did my presentation the other day to a group of IB students, they glared at me and rolled their eyes but I made them raise their right hands and swear on their pile of books on the desks 2 things:
- "I do NOT want to be scrambling for my goal test score this time next year. I promise to set a goal to be DONE with testing by May/June of 2017 so I can create my college application list."
- "I WILL apply to UTx FIRST, no matter what. Even if I KNOW I will get into X school. That way I will have an affordable in-state option as a backup in case disaster strikes my applications, my family or myself." (UTx is a regional branch of UT that offers fantastic merit aid and most of those kids would be guaranteed entry and it would be almost free for most of the kids in that room. Super strong engineering and nursing for sure.
School was interesting this past Thursday and Friday. Bunch of kids got into their EDs and EAs, bunch of kids didn’t, and the senior class has had whole-class meetings in the gym about not showing too much exuberance if they’re happy in deference to the kids who got bad news. My D17 said that a handful of kids (and there are only 130 kids in her year) didn’t go to school at all Thursday or Friday. Now there’s Christmas break and school starts up again after the New Year, giving the sad seniors time to regroup and write supplemental essays for wherever else they’ll go for. My sophomore said the general tone on campus felt strained the past two days, as the happy seniors were finding quiet corners of the campus to celebrate in and were otherwise biting their tongues.
Good luck on Park scholarship @itsgettingreal17 !
@MotherOfDragons - Congrats!
Congrats on Stanford @websensation - eager to see where your S decides to go!
QOYD . @carlsbadbruin @websensation @nw2this We are also pondering our Stanford offer and restructuring our list of colleges on our list with outstanding applications. It is an odd situation to be in because I wasn’t expecting her to be accepted. Stanford actually gave us a very reasonable offer pretty much in line with our NPC, and on paper it would maybe look foolish not to go. But it is still on the edge of affordable for us and I get nervous thinking of how they recalculate aid each year (what if our family contribution goes up significantly for some reason?) and how we have two other kids to send to college. It takes me back to the discussions about how you can get a great education many places and prestige isn’t that important.
BUT, I do think that there are exceptions to this argument for a very few schools, and Stanford might be one of them. The networking and internship possibilities, and (to all accounts) the degree to which Stanford and the surrounding area supports its students, could very well make the extra money worth it in the long run.
As of right now we are plowing ahead with submitting other apps to places I know she’d be happy at, and that offer a chance of merit money, as well as with a couple of other much less-well-known places where she could possibly get a full ride. But it’s hard to motivate her to get excited about those colleges. I guess we’ll just ride this crazy train until May 1.
Now I have my own QOTD. I’m intrigued and impressed how many of your kids seem very firmly set on their intended major, and how it is driving their college app list. My D17 doesn’t really know exactly what she wants to major in-- she loves space and the idea of becoming an astronaut, but she also is obsessively interested in women and gender issues and loves biology/psychology. We’ve talked about astrobiology (how do people adapt to long periods of low gravity? How to grow plants for food on other planets?), or maybe some kind of pre-med track focusing on the biology or psychology of gender identity. But I am well aware that it’s entirely likely she will get to college and become fascinated with something else. That’s kind of what college is for, I think. So, for those of you whose kids are already set on something-- how do you know they won’t change their mind? Or how to justify picking a much more expensive college based on the availability of a specialized, but possibly rare, major? Many of these tracks lead to graduate school anyway, so it seems to me that a more general undergraduate education (perhaps focused on a math or science track, or a humanities track, or whatever) can lead a kid to the same place after graduate school.
I am really not trying to offend anybody here. <please don’t="" be="" offended.="" i="" think="" you="" and="" your="" kids="" are="" all="" wonderful=""> I know there are certain instances where it’s very clear what a kid is meant to do, or what his or her talents are, and I think that’s fantastic. Finding graduate level Russian courses for an undergraduate, for example, is entirely necessary for someone like @Mom2aphysicsgeek 's daughter (that is you, right? Apologies if I’ve mixed you up!). But I am genuinely curious about others here. Major availability didn’t factor in at all in our college list, except to check that they offered pretty broad-based GERs and had reasonable research opportunities for undergraduates along with an atmosphere and overall philosophy that would mesh well with my D. Maybe your kids are all just more driven and focused. Any thoughts?
@picklesarenice I am with you 100%!!! My D has a vague idea of what she might like to do, but I have told her she doesn’t have to decide now. She is only 17. So she picked her schools based on her grades, scores, weather and that they have a wide range of things she could see herself exploring. I do bow down to those kids that are focused and passionate about something. But that’s not how it is in my house. I know my D will find her passion, and even if she doesn’t she will graduate, get a job and I hope most of all be happy!
Congrats on the acceptance @mamaedefamilia !
QOTD: Agree with greeny8 ^^
College majors: I like to joke that my kids are the product of a pair of academics (I mean, my wife ran screaming from academia back into industry, but she’s still in a partially-research position), and so they’re doomed.
It gets laughs, but to some extent it’s true.
Part of it is simply that, due to being embedded in academia, they know what’s available out there. To contrast, in my case I ended up in linguistics in my third year of college, but there’s no way I could have gone in planning to major in that, since I didn’t even know it existed—but if I had, then it certainly would have appealed to me at the outset.
Part of it is personality. My older three are pretty hyperfocused individuals: D17 fell in love with her particular subject early in middle school, and has been doing enough with it that she’s seen its negatives, too, and still loves it. D19 has moved within a wider band of subfields, but has similarly been settled within the same general kind of stuff since early on—and D23 has been focused on doing something hands-on medical since she was first-grade-ish and got to see an older sisters pretty bad wound and was fascinated by it. (Yes, she’s a sociopath. It’s cool, we roll with it.) It’s still very early to tell with D25, but I suspect, given her personality, that she will be much more the normal path where she’ll figure something out sophomore or maybe late freshman year of college.
It takes all kinds.
You can run the NPC at Stanford again, adding in another kid in college, if your kid 1 and kid 2 (and kid 3) will be at school at the same time. Also, you can post on the Stanford forum and ask other parents how the FA worked out for them all four years. It’s possible the FA remains about the same but the COA goes up with inflation. Are you expecting any major changes in income? These are good things to consider now.
Re: majors. Our D13 was on a STEM track until she took her first chemistry course. The experience turned her off completely. She considered Psych. Communications. Finally settled on PoliSci and LOVES it. We find it pretty funny because this is a kid who would roll her eyes in high school when her parents would talk “boring” politics.
Our D16 was deadset on a neuroscience major during applicaiton season, and was crossing schools off her list if they didn’t have the major. She abruptly switched majors summer before starting college, and changed her entire schedule. Mid-semester, her first semester as a freshman, she honed in another path she learned about, which would entail another switch in major, although in a similar field.
We also received news that one of her classmates from HS has withdrawn from a prestigious school, and for the short term at least, is not returning.
Unless you have a crystal ball, there’s no way of knowing for sure how things will go.
QOTD: I think it’s the norm not to know and to explore in college. Most colleges don’t make a student declare until sophomore year (end) and, imo, consider “finding yourself” part of the college experience. In my case, D17 discovered she wants engineering after being inspired by several teachers in high school but decided to apply to engineering schools that are part of a larger university so if she discovers it’s not right for her she can find the right major.
@picklesarenice My kids have yet to change majors in college. The older 3 have all stayed with exactly what they planned on. I don’t see this Dd changing either except maybe her specialized international focus. Russian and French will still be there. My kids do have very different high school experiences than ps kids, though. They design their own courses with me and take the classes they want. Their flexibility allows them to do a lot of exploring in high school that most kids don’t get to have.
In terms of Stanford, my kids don’t apply to schools like that bc we know upfront that we can’t afford them and aren’t willing to pay for them even if they do get in. I also would want my kid to truly be a superstar but resolute enough to face being bottom of the totem pole and not letting that dissuade them from following their dreams. I wouldnt want them feeling incompetent and needing to change their career goals bc suddenly they think that maybe they aren’t as good at whatever as they thought they were and it crushes their desire to pursue it further. Self-perception can impact performance and all the connections in the world can’t resurrect a crushed self-perception that gave up and switched to something else just bc they thought they weren’t good enough.
@mamaedefamilia --CONGRATS on the acceptance and the merit $$$$!! Big day! <:-P <:-P