Just want to say I appreciate that I’m not alone in my feelings of having difficulty letting go.
I feel like no one in my circle is honest about that.
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I think I worry about college stuff just because I wish I could fast forward and know my kids will be okay. But, my oldest taught me to pause and not push them away trying to over plan and make everything perfect. The kid has to have a voice and know their parents will support and love them no matter what path they choose. Don’t forget to enjoy your teens while they are still home. Let them have fun.
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Right now I kind of want my boys to fail. They are pushing themselves too hard in school, EC, testing and college selection. I find myself saying well if this or that doesn’t workout your college list will be easier, probably not the best way to put it, but I’m not used to such driven kids.
One twin re-took SAT last Saturday and instead of being happy when I picked him up, he was worried non-stop about 1 math questions. At the last minute he changed the answer from a correct answer to an incorrect answer (at least according to internet chatter). So he was so upset that he won’t get a 1600 (don’t think he would have anyway). My biggest goal for them this year is for them to learn how to handle failure with grace and as a learning experience.
And the other twin is now talking about re-taking SATs if his brother beats him or if he decides to apply to CMU, apparently a 790 in math is no longer good enough to be considered for comp sci at CMU.
My mantra for years and for older boys college search is fit matters, ranking and prestige don’t. The older boys didn’t listen to a lot, but they did listen and form balanced lists. Twins have been hearing this since kindergarden (oldest son was a HS sophomore at the time).
Maybe there trying to plan and control so much is their stage of grieving, but they will learn one way or another, as the saying goes - Man plans and God laughs. Also, no Williams is not a safety.
The only thing they aren’t pushing to do is get their licenses, that would make my life easier.
Forgive me if this reads as a rant, I spent 3 hours on the phone with one last finance company regarding an inheritted IRA. This is the last tiny piece of estate business until tax season (even had a short smooth zoom conversation with estate lawyer today who said we were done). I have sent 3 different set of forms, faxed, mailed and emailed, talked to more people then I can count and gotten 15 different stories, all for about $1200. I do have 6 large bags of stuff to donate to charity waiting for pickup tomorrow, I guess I am also trying to control everything, apple doesn’t fall far from tree.
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My s23’s friends have all scored in the 30s on their ACTs (of the 6 that we know of, every one scored between 32-35 on one sitting). They are just barely in their junior year and are all in honors or regular precalc. the school suggests testing later because they haven’t completed (barely started, in my s’s case was over the summer) precalc, but they all tested over the summer or in September. A practice test or two but no other prep. My older S struggled with the ACT although did with some effort get it to a 30. I am sort of flabbergasted that they are all doing so well! It seems kind of absurd! And now that it is test optional, now much will it help?
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That is a strong group of kids! The competition is fierce. I think great scores (along with the rest of the application) are very helpful toward successful admissions. As far as I know, many colleges have yet to decide about TO for the 2023 applicants, so it is hard to predict how much of a role test scores will play! The difficult truth is there are thousands and thousands across the country who got 32 or higher unprepped in 10th grade, so by the time application time comes, there will be tens of thousands more who have that score range, and the ones who were already there in 10th likely score even higher. There is a post somewhere on CC about “Average excellent” kids–there are just so many bright kids competing in the college application world, it seems testing is only a small hurdle, and yes maybe a less important one in the test optional world.
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Unfortunately, it’s true, especially at certain big schools where merit appears to be mostly formula driven. At Temple in Philly for instance, historically the difference between a 33 and a 35 on the ACT for an out-of-state student was a 16K Dean’s Scholarship vs a Full Tuition President’s Scholarship. A 34 puts you into the “maybe” category.
So yes, one ACT point is potentially a $70K+ difference in out-of-pocket costs over 4 years. Makes it worth the extra try if you know the history where you are applying, and think that extra prep could bring up the score.
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The talk about standardized tests and merit makes me reluctantly ask a tough question. As @Poochie21 said above, “I hope I don’t get torched for saying this.”
How many of you have discussed an actual college costs budget with your kids? A real budget with actual numbers, such as in the following hypothetical conversation:
“Between what we’ve saved and what we can pay-as-you-go, we can afford to contribute $32K per year to your total annual school costs (tuition, room, board, and fees). On top of that, you can choose to add a federal student loan that maxes out at about $5.5K additional for freshman year. We are not willing to do co-signed Parent Plus loans for additional debt. This mean you can go to a school that costs $32K out of pocket annually (after merit + need-based aid + work study) with no debt or to a school that’s $37.5K per year if you also take out student loans that you’ll need to pay back when you graduate. If you choose to go to a school where you need to take the maximum federal student loan amount each year, you’ll have $27K in debt when graduate. The monthly loan payment on this student loan after you graduate will be about $300 per month for 10 years.”
Obviously the numbers are different above for any given family, and the parent willingness to co-sign for additional Parent PLUS loans is also unique to each family. If you are willing to take PLUS loans, this hypothetical conversation would include an upper limit and loan payment info for that as well.
To tie this into the merit discussion… with research into various schools, you can then also say: at school A, you probably need test score X to even consider applying there.
I know that these financial discussions with our not-quite yet adults are hard, especially in families where the family finances are kept very private from the kids. This conversation was ultimately really valuable in our household for our first two kids.
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We have with both kids. Our talk was very simple. It went like this – we will pay for a state school in NC of your choosing for 4 years. We have $XXX saved in 529 and assuming our financial situation does not drastically change, you can graduate without debt. If you choose to go somewhere different, you have to sort it out. We are not co-signing any PLUS or private loans.
My daughter is going to a state school. My son will likely do the same.
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We have been very open with our children about the budget they have to work with when it comes to college costs. And we started those conversations (with budget #s) in 9th grade for each of our children.
We didn’t tie the budget number to specific test scores as we thought that would introduce an unnecessary stress to our girls, not all of whom are excellent test takers. The simple reason was that we knew the budget we were providing would work at a range of schools and all of those schools are excellent institutions, though not the most highly ‘rated’ as per USNWR or other ranking orgs.
We’ve gone through this rodeo once with D20. It worked out better than we could have imagined her junior year in high school, so with D23 there is definitely an element of us just trusting the process.
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My s23 is very budget conscious and doesn’t want to end up with big debt. He will have options, but will be limited. He knows this. He’s choosing to have fun in high school versus stress and worry about grades too too much.
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Yes, with all of our kids.
Ours has gone in the opposite direction, starting with college costs, looking at scholarship possibilities, seeing what likely costs are, and then talking about affordability from there. For our kids that direction has been useful because it let them see the wide variety of costs out there for what are, generally speaking, very similar products before talking about what a college education might be worth in relation to our family finances.
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This is actually more similar to the process we’ve used than the hypothetical conversation I mentioned. All three kids refer to it as “The Spreadsheet.” It has full costs, likely merit, possible max merit, net costs for each, and other aspects of the school (distance from home, number of undergrads, size of school). They know going in what schools are no issue, and what schools are in the "you can apply here and see if you’re the unicorn they are looking for to get that “Brendan X. Snaggletooth Memorial Full Ride Scholarship” – but that’s the only way it works.
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How many have not even figured out how much you can afford to pay and really have no idea? (Hiding my head and raising my hand). In the scenario above, D23 will have about 2 years of tuition in a college fund. I guess it’s time to figure put how to pay for the rest, I have been avoiding it and have no idea where to start. She also has no specific list, just an idea of dream schools, from what I have heard our state schools have some of the highest tuition. We also have the possibility of tuition exchange program. I have a lot of research to do on how that works as well.
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They both say they prefer the ACT over SAT. I think it’s the same thing here…not internalizing the seriousness of what that one test score can mean for our family’s finances. They both just loathe standardized test (and I can’t say I blame them!). It’s like they’re just being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn lol.
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We are a split household and I have ZERO clue how much my ex has or is willing to pay. However, I pay 100% of our older childs tuition but my ex is semi-estranged from him while S23 is currently the “good kid”. My youngest tells me she fears they will kick s23 out in the future just like they did the oldest so Im not holding my breath of my ex contributing any money to college at all. Ex makes a very good 6 figure salary but it seems its his new wifes intent to ensure none of “their” money goes towards “our” kids and only her child (not my ex’s). Fun times.
I would be very happy with 30-32 lol.
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@dfbdfb Your explanation is exactly what we did as well, said so clearly. All of our college conversations started from a place of knowing the budget and working from that knowledge.
Looking back at D20’s college search, I think the best two things we did were being upfront and very clear about the exact budget numbers and also asking D20 what her ‘ideal college’ would have - not the name of the college but what she wanted from a college education.
Her list was as follows:
School characteristics:
Small College (less than 2000 ideally - which was much smaller than her high school)
Good foreign language program
Strong STEM options
Prioritized Study Abroad options
Good feeder school for PhD programs
Experience Characteristics:
Needed to have museum/symphony/arts in commutable distance from school (one at least, more preferred)
Non-chain restaurants easily available
“Aesthetically pleasing” physical campus, defined quads preferred
Above the frost line (as she hates bugs with a passion and wanted to know they would be gone for at least part of the year)
Not in-state (so Illinois was a no go)
We were able to find a couple dozen schools that fit 90-100% of her criteria within our given budget (some schools affordable at full price, some only affordable with merit). She visited, explored, researched and ended up with 8-10 before her senior year she was very interested in, and ultimately applied to 3, one Early Decision. When that acceptance came in (with top merit), she was done.
@AnonMomof2 I am a planner so I did have a plan for how were were going to pay the budgeted number we had determined. Advice I have seen on this board (and have given as well) is to figure out right now how much you think you can pay out of pocket per year, and start saving that RIGHT NOW (If you think you can pay $24k per year, start socking $2k per month into savings). If part of what you think you can pay is currently going to bills that will stop right before, or at the same time, college starts, figure out how to automate the shifting of that money so none gets ‘lost’ in the transfer between obligations.
Also, when thinking of your budget number - don’t forget to add in those extras you or your child might be considering but haven’t thought of the extra expenses. If your child wants to go Greek, figure out how much that costs on the different campuses they are looking at. If they want to study abroad, find out if financial aid can be used for the semester or year abroad, and where the rest of the study abroad money will come from. Will your child be looking for paid or unpaid internships…and where does the living expense money come from if they get summer opportunities away from home?
We built individualized answers to all of those questions into the base budget number we gave D20. We ended up with a fairly conservative base number but with the promise that she would be able to take full advantage of study abroad and either paid or unpaid internships with summer living expenses covered by us (her school also subsidizes unpaid internships up to, I believe, $7500 per summer). Other families make different choices with how to allocate resources and how to determine a budget number.
We also took in account that while her merit money amount would not increase, most college’s COA does increase every year. Again, we put that $2-5k/per year estimated increased COA into our initial budget number crunching.
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We have been very upfront and honest with all three of our kids about college costs/budgets and what we can and can’t afford. Our S23 know that we’re chasing merit and what that entails. If they don’t want to put in the effort to raise their ACT/Scores to make them competitive for merit aid, then they will be commuting from home to one of the 3 public universities in our city. We will not take our Parent Plus loans at all. All 3 of our kids also know that they will have maximum federal student loans on them. We will cash flow the rest. They are responsible for their own personal expenses, books etc.
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@AnonMomof2 we’ve had more tee up discussion at this point although my S23 was certainly aware of conversations around my D19. The messaging has always been about viewing college as an investment, and keeping your end goal in mind.
At this point I don’t think they need to know a specific number but if like most people there is a limit you can provide some guardrails when they start to look.
What is her idea of a dream school? and what does she like about it. One way to help steer the conversation is to help them form their list. Create a spreadsheet make sure to include the cost of attendance, information about potential scholarships and grants, etc. For my D19 I acted like the administrator and would update the spreadsheet for her.
I would suggest you do open up a bottle of wine and try and get a rough idea of what your budget is. Better to have those conversations early, you don’t want to get to a point where her heart is set on Hogwarts but the cost is 2x your budget.
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I am normally very much a planner. I am not good with budgets and numbers and neither is my husband. Luckily we are both fairly frugal. I was a stay at home mom for 10 years, then worked a very low paying job trying to find a job in my field for 3 years. During that time, We did not save anything beyond 401k’s. The college funds they have were started by grandparents when they were born. Now, with the new job, another financial change is her boarding school tuition (which is heavily subsidized by her financial aid). So our finances have changed a lot in the past few years, which has made it hard to know what exactly we CAN afford, and I dread sitting down to do it. My husband will be no help. He has no idea what we have.
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