If ED is working for them, why would they do that?
I said I wish it were a requirement not that it was going to happen.
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Iâm a high school teacher. Most of my studentsâ parents and my personal friends know nothing about college admissions. Theyâre shocked by what college costs now. Theyâre shocked by how competitive admissions has gotten since they were in school. Iâve guided my friendsâ kids through the process and had them bring up budget with their parents right at the beginning of making a list. My friends were so confused until they figured out what kind of money weâre talking about, realized their kids wouldnât qualify for financial aide, etc⊠We have a college counselor at my high school and they literally never mention budget. Itâs wacky.
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Iâve said this before - I was shocked and a bit annoyed when my first kidâs college counselor (at a private school, so she had time and resources and a small caseload of kids) gave us a suggested list of colleges, not one of which we could afford.
And then I realized, she couldnât possibly be expected to know every kidâs financial situation, and so she just suggested schools based on academics.
Latest kid, same scenario, same useless (to us) list of schools that we couldnât afford.
Budget isnât something either one of these counselors felt was in their portfolio.
Maybe most counselors think this - they can say âlook at costs,â but it might be stickyâŠso most probably donât.
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This, of course, is part of the problemâeven for families with decent levels of academic cultural capital, the knowledge base is very often out of date.
As I said before, the colleges hold the cards here, especially in the selective+ sector of the market. Saying itâs the applicantsâ fault (and/or their familiesâ fault) is at best ignoring the imbalance of knowledge and power built into the system, and at worst blaming the victims.
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Wouldnât that be nice?! I would settle for schools simply being transparent about the price and provide both a financial and merit pre-read so families can make an informed decision about whether they are able to apply ED. There are several colleges, including Whitman, that starting offering both types of pre-reads. But most schools seem unwilling to provide estimated merit numbers prior to kids hitting the submit button.
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Iâm so glad your daughter is having a wonderful experience at her school, and that she has found the same things that you did! I know I loved my experience at my T10 college as well, for much the same reasons. I also saw a lot of the issues I brought up in my examples of maintenance cost.
D20 has also found much the same things you, your daughter and I found at her merit-discounted private school. My overwhelming feeling is a sense that both your family and mine have been blessed to have pretty stellar college experiences. 
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Honestly, even my friends with kids my older kids ages, â15 and â17, have outdated info now. Post pandemic test optional is an entirely different landscape.
My teacher friends ask me about college and theyâre flabbergasted by the cost. I donât know anyone whoâs saved enough money. Families are taking out too much in student loans and/or dipping into their home equity to make college work.
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I had a 17, 19, 21, and 23. Yes, things have changed on one hand, my 17 had to submit writing and subject tests, but for the most part, it is not all that different. With the elimination of test scores, I see less competitive kids getting into schools they would not have gotten into in 17 or 19. That is the most significant difference. Also, in 17 and 19, it was highly unusual to submit 20+ applications. Yes, there has been a significant change in college costs between my 17 and 23, and I also swear, merit has decreased (at least in my little world)
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I also had a 17 and a 23. Merit has definitely decreased at some places. At Baylor a professor told me what used to be fewer, larger awards with clear criteria has split into more, smaller awards with vague criteria. Professor wasnât pleased with that or with test optional. Baylor used to have a chart for merit in 2017 as did Purdue and many others. You applied knowing this GPA and this ACT will probably get you at least this.
Some schools still have that (S23 applied to a few of those) but way fewer than 17, it seems to me. Of course, my family wasnât doing a scientific survey on it, so who knows, but I share that impression about merit.
PS- I think this trend of not disclosing aid tiers might also be one factor increasing the number of applications. With D17, we knew that if accepted, she would have at least $xx merit. Now, it is totally unclear. Each time some part of the process is a black box (who gets merit? who gets in? who will get the really big full ride in the competitive level?) some families will choose to increase the number of applications to increase their odds. We didnât with S23 because he was not on board with the entire process until recently. It was a big deal to get him to agree to six applications and do the essays back in September/October. He wasnât interested in expanding a list.
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Different topicâŠ
As I think more about Richmond deferring my 23, I think they made a wise decision. My 23 applied because I asked them to do so. We planned to visit during a weekend 23 would pass through Richmond for a sports tournament. However, the tournament was cancelled. Due to the fall sport, 23 would have had to miss a game or practice to visit UR.
As an aside, 23 has also been dealing with undiagnosed-until-recently ADHD. Maybe some kids could have handled a heavy load, an intense sports schedule, other ECs and yet another school visit. Not this one.
23 didnât engage in demonstrated interest. Maybe they clicked on something. That would be about it.
All along, 23 said they didnât want to go to school in âthe south.â I encouraged this school for various reasons, because you just never know when a teen might have a different view in 2-4 months and then regret they didnât do something months prior.
My point is this: Richmond must be good at sussing out who is serious about them and who isnât.
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I get why 95-98% of the population are clueless when it comes to the whole college process and paying for it. When I graduated I happily stop thinking about it. We started having children and started a 529 plan saving what we could really without a plan. We did know it was important for our kids to do well in school and we took steps to ensure that would happen.
Fast forward to D19âs junior year in HS and I start doing the research. I was dumbfounded at the whole process and cost. We had to make a plan to have a variety of options which meant a lot of apps. It worked out solely because D19 was high stats. For D23 I knew it was coming but was not looking forward to another round.
I have seen a lot people talk lately about how older people are out of touch with current costs of many things. People who say their parents just donât understand the world today. People do get themselves into a bubble as they age.
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I also was in a bubble before my kid started high school. I assumed worst-case scenario she could do community college and transfer, but then I checked, and the local community college - which is an hour away and actually not feasible in winter - charges $9k just for tuition for the year.
Then I saw how expensive regular public universities were in our state (Pennsylvania) and got so mad that I made it my social media mission to warn people away from moving to this state with kids.
Most of us are in a bubble until it is staring us in the face. I didnât move to this state as a newlywed and think, âLetâs check college costs and policies for yet-to-be-birthed-Gatorbaby.â
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our relatives dont seem to get the costs either. Costs have grown exponentially. Itâs nuts. We value the live-away-from-home experience, and thatâs grown incredibly too; maybe more so than the tuition at state schools around here. 5 MORE YEARS!!! then we are done 
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Pennsylvania, however, has some of the best programs and benefits in the nation for kids with special needs under the age of 18.
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We value the live away from home experience as well. I think it is great practice at being an adult.
That being said it can be pricey. I was happy my D19 was able to move off campus a year early due to covid as it has been cheaper than the dorms.
D23 has 4 main schools she still looking at. 2 are 4-5 hours away and 2 are 2 hours away. While I believe it is better when they are far enough away that they canât easily come home on the weekend I wouldnât mind if D23 picked a closer school. Those move in days when you drive 5 hours move in then grab a bite to eat and then turn around and drive 5 hours home were quite long.
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At the beginning of this process S23âs top choices were in the UK, but now heâs changed his mind and wants to go to UCB, literally walking distance from our house. Weâll just have to see if he gets in 
I would like him to have the exciting experience of living in a new city, but he can always study abroad, or move after he graduates.
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In my experience, relatives also donât understand how competitive schools have become. Thus, you get your child excited about one of their options, and some aunt/uncle/grandparent etc. says, âOh, I thought youâd wind up at a better school.â Meanwhile, that public flagship has a 32 ACT average for admits or that private âsecond tierâ school now admits 20% of really qualified applicants.
Of course, one of our relatives sneered in this way at D17âs choices and then counseled her son to apply to 10-12 schools that we told her he would not qualify for, but she was going on 30 year old information and also a bubble that made her think he was high stats. As I wrote on another thread, this very nice good student ended senior year in his high SES school milieu having to admit he got into NO college. It was horrible. And avoidable. (Heâs fine now) His mother was an example of someone out of the loop but also condescending toward non-Top 20 sorts of colleges and also deluded about what it means to be a top competitive student. A trifecta of out of touch. Frankly, we felt it served her right, but for her son we wanted better. 
Edit: I should clarify we felt it served her right because she would NOT listen to any advice and was rude about it and claimed we had botched it with D17. (We had not. She graduated from a highly regarded public debt free and going to a completely funded graduate program.)
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Yes esp grandparents donât get it and who think the world of their grandchild as the best and smartest person they ever met. My mom keeps saying my child is too good for a state school. I basically had to tell her no sheâs good enough for a state school and to stop saying that comment around her.
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For every less competitive kid that gets into a school they wouldnât have before test optional, a more competitive kid is shut out. At the private school where I teach, students arenât getting into the types of schools they used to and itâs fueling this drive to put in more and more applications. When your valedictorian is ending up at an undesirable school, people notice.
When I tell my friends weâve already spent 250k on college, and my kids made economical choices, theyâre blown away. In California weâre paying over 100k for the most economical state schools. My older son was not as competitive and went to WUE school, which we were grateful for, but that was another 30k a year.
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