For us it depends somewhat on the school. That’s kind of harsh, but if you get into a top school that would be perfect for you, I’m willing to take out loans to help you go. D23 isn’t in that situation and has lots of mid tier schools that she likes so we’ve given her an upper limit of 50k a year. We might be a little flexible but after about 55k it will be hard. S25 is coming up fast and he’s a trickier kid.
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On the common app, it asks the counselor to send a “midyear grade report“ and it says that schools understand that each school is different so there is no hard deadline for this report. However, some schools, especially if you are applying ED or EA will specifically request that you send first quarter grades. The schools that require these that will typically have it listed in the student’s admission portal or other information from college.
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It’s very difficult to put a quantifiable number on a qualitative variable. We’re probably going to be in a position where S23 will get into his in-state safeties (VCU and Mason), but not top choice Virginia Tech or UVA. After that he might get into schools like WPI, Colorado School of Mines, RPI but at a cost that’s $15K-$20K a year higher. He also got into MSU and ASU with merit aid (also Alabama but for some reason he ruled that out).
So, a school like WPI might be a great fit for him, but is it worth $80K over Mason, where he’s also comfortable and would get a great engineering education with tons of local internships?
How do you quantify the experience of going to a different part of the country and living more on your own?
It’s tough.
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It’s definitely school by school. Many schools just ask for the final transcript. However, if your kids’ stats are on the borderline for acceptance, the school may ask for first semester grades before offering acceptance. I wouldn’t worry that your kids’ first semester grades haven’t been requested.
There may also be some honors programs or scholarships that ask for first semester grades. My D23 is applying to an honors college where she will have to send them, but she’s already been accepted to the university.
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We have the exact same thinking and parameters as your family. We have set the limit at our 3 state flagships (Pitt/Penn State/Temple) which unfortunately are much higher cost than most other states. However it does provide many options of outstanding schools that will come in at or under that budget. We also have gifted our older children with their 529 balances. Our first 2 each graduated/will graduate with a nest egg head start due to wise college choices and scholarships.
This last one is tricky. She has one clear favorite school and it is a solid match. Her counselor feels it is a safety and many kids from her school have been accepted with much lower chances, but we have read enough to know that is not an accurate assessment now. She may not even get an acceptance let alone scholarship $. Using data on here and on the school’s website, we calculated that she is in the range for scholarship $$ to bring it down under our budget. If they are off but close, she will still attend. What is close enough? We are thinking an extra $2,500 a year, or $10,000 total, is more than generous. We are also keeping in mind that she may need an extra semester or year so we want to be true to the budget. We are not willing to fund the school at full price while she has other great alternatives that are inside of the budget. She will be very upset, but we have been clear since the beginning (and she’s heard this discussion over years since it is the same deal as her older siblings). We are prepared for a tough winter here. Her siblings have both offered up their 529 to offset any differences so we might be in a tough decision making place in a few months. There are many layers to this about fairness, equity, changing college landscape and so on.
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Different calculus here as we were looking for need-based aid which for us was financially better than merit in most cases - I ran NPCs and told my kid where she was allowed to ED and where she wasn’t of the schools she was interested in. If they met my number I didn’t otherwise limit her by cost (and the differences were quite large - our federal EFC is below 20k and I’m talking $8-10k differences (mostly depending on how they treat home equity). I do believe in fit if at all possible (parent loans were off the table for me but I was otherwise willing to sacrifice).
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I think it depends on the family: a family who has to make significant sacrifices would need to have the parent say that, and the student to understand that. If the parents already budgeted full-fare and are happy that the schools in play are worth the cost(however they define worth), then it may not make a difference to the parents. If the students arent paying any part of it, it may not make any difference to the student financially, and they can pick based on fit/program.
To your point of financial incentives (presumably by the parent to encourage the student to pick the cheaper option), yes that makes sense for some families, for sure. It isn’t part of the equation in our home, but it makes a lot of sense that parents have that kind of structure set up. For us the math on “worth it” is done before the app list is final, so among all the choices we had pre-determined to be worth full price (over instate, or whatever the comparison was), it was up to them, even if the final cost was different (ie merit $).
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Schools that require them should say on the website or portal. Our college counseling office encourages students to send mid-semester grades(provided great) as long as the school doesn’t say NOT to. But it is a bit case-by-case, and some schools do not want extra info—I would have your kid look at each website, if they do not have access to a detail-oriented counseling office
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This is our situation, except that our son is on the hook for the costs. Our college savings plan is that we both work at different universities and have employee tuition benefits.
If he gets the tuition exchange scholarships he’s applied for, all his schools should be 0-38K per year. Our EFC/SAI is less than 30K so he may get some need based aid.
There is a big ole spreadsheet with calculations for his budget after graduation and loan payments and retirement savings (for him). If we’re able to cash flow some contributions to his college, we will. But we won’t borrow any money. He’ll also do 1 semester of paid engineering co-op each year.
It’s his decision to make, with information and guidance from us. He could live at home and attend one parent’s employer for free, but that is the last choice for everyone in the family for several reasons. The other school where he might get a full ride is his 2nd from last choice. Some would say it’s irresponsible to go elsewhere if you can get college for free, especially since he’s happily willing to attend any of the schools on his list.
He’s been working and puts 80% of his earnings into an account for college. He can spend the other 20% on what he wants. He’s choosing to work 15-20 hrs/wk during the school year even though we’re not making him work at all. He went out with some friends and brought home leftover pizza this week. I asked if I could have some or if he’d paid for it with his own money (he has a family credit card he’s allowed to use for occasional meals out). He said “Yes you can have some, and I’ve been paying for all that stuff with my own money. I’m not worried about the difference between the pots of your money and my money at this point.” I was surprised that the realities of family working and budgeting seem to be sinking in well.
He’s always been responsible with money, so he’ll be fine. But we won’t allow him to borrow more than he can easily repay after college. We likewise won’t tell him that he can’t attend one school because it costs 10K more than another one. I think he has a good sense of what that means at this point but it’s a big decision for a 17 year old regardless. It’s a bit of a different calculus than when a parent is paying for college. But it seems that our son is thinking much like his parents would be thinking if we were paying anyway.
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We are comfortable spending 35-40k a year, which is the cost of in state public. That being said, S23 applied to one cherry picked private my husband says he’d pay the 80k a year for if he gets in. We wouldn’t need to take out any loans, but double the cost wouldn’t be comfortable. My son has gotten some full ride offers, University of New Mexico sent a letter saying he’d be eligible for full tuition, room and board for four years, and while that’s a nice offer, I just don’t think he’d get the same education. The budget matters certainly, but it’s not just about budget.
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This is pretty close to what we said… we told him we’d pay around $40k per year (and he keeps what he doesn’t spend on school), but I said if he got into Stanford I’d pay for the whole thing.
He’s probably not going to apply to Stanford b/c it’s such a high reach and he’s not in love with it anyway.
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My kid applied early action to USC. I don’t think he’ll get in, but if he does, it would be hard to say no to.
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Families have different approaches, but the worst I’ve seen is “don’t worry about cost, we’ll figure it out later”. Kid gets a free hand to apply wherever they want, gets accepted to their dream school - and then the family discovers it’s not affordable. Kid then needs a plan B in a hurry.
I’ve seen this happen a couple of times including with one of my daughter’s close friends last year. It’s terrible.
Getting accepted and not being able to go is probably worse than not getting accepted.
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Happened to a family friend, daughter got into to Stanford and her parents bailed on it at the last minute. Heartbreaking.
<<My son has gotten some full ride offers, University of New Mexico sent a letter saying he’d be eligible for full tuition, room and board for four years, and while that’s a nice offer, I just don’t think he’d get the same education.>>
Honestly, I have the same concerns. My kid has a range of acceptances, and some are viewed as more intellectual/rigorous than others.
I mean, Case Western vs UNM - no-brainer, right? But maybe not!
I think that it really depends on the kid, on the major, on the post-college ambitions, and even down to the professor level. And how do you assess such unknowns in advance? You can for some, but not for everything.
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We’re in the same boat. S23 applied ED and to an SLAC that should be a great fit for him, and had coach support for his sport, but even though the NPC looked promising I worry it won’t work out that way. In that case, he’ll be scrambling in December (long story as to why he’s not prepared with other applications!). Many of the schools he was initially interested in were just too $$ based on the NPC. The whole process has been very different from what I expected, but DS is in control of it and understands the confines of our ability to pay. A few more weeks to wait…
We told S23 up front that he can only go to USC if he gets the half tuition scholarship. It’s unlikely but theoretically possible, so he applied.
He has a spreadsheet with each school that he has applied to, estimated cost of attendance, and how much merit he would need to make it affordable. For the private schools, they need to hit that number, or he won’t be going there. His limit is determined by his 529 + an amount we can comfortably cover with cash flow. Luckily he doesn’t have his heart set on any single school.
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Similar for us - second kid this cycle and we told both that our budget is ‘approximately the same as the UC’. D20 stayed instate. With instate admissions being less predictable the last couple of years we spent a lot of time with DS23 looking for some OOS options that were a good fit and within budget.
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not sure if brought up in this thread yet - i would highly encourage her to speak to the AO to learn
more about the program. I get she is most likely not interested, but nice to show interest and she may learn something new about the 4 year program too. do you have to apply to the 5th year right off or do they also offer that opportunity later after sophomore year. the fact that the ao reached out seems to show interest to me and by talking to her - even if 5th year is off the table- may give the ao more info to recommend and advocate for your daughter at committee.
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First thing I’ll say is that basing it on X% of the cost of attendance isn’t generally a good metric to use—If your kid is looking at a college with a COA of $75k, if you compare it to my state’s flagship ($21k), 50% off at the expensive one is still nearly twice as much as full-freight at the flagship (and many qualify for automatic scholarships there anyway).
At a meaningful level our monetary metric is our older two kids—they both got scholarships that brought down their annual COA into the $20–25k range (one at a SLAC, the other at a flyover flagship). If D23 can hit that (which her Colorado Denver offer very nearly does), we’re happy.
And further, prestigiosity doesn’t enter into our calculations at all. One complication for us is that none of the in-state options (public or private) offer D23’s preferred major or anything similar. And sure, Southern Cal offers it, and they have a decent placement rate for their graduates, but heck, so does Middle Tennessee—and no matter what people here on CC say, you end up with a good education at nearly any of the nonprofit colleges across the country (and the idea of a “network effect” at hyperselectives turns out to be explainable by other factors).
So no, we’re not paying more for high-prestige places with her intended major like Georgia Tech or Johns Hopkins than we would for Colorado Denver or North Texas—and that was a factor in building the list of colleges to apply to.
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