Don’t forget to get one for the state that they where they will be going to school. My DD went out of state, so we had to get one for home and school.
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We were told by our attorney that, as long as we did one where we are all considered residents, we were covered.
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Did you use an attorney, or just download a form and use notary and witness signatures?
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My son became Coco-Cola Semifinalist today.
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I just want to say how glad I am for this community and the knowledge that I have gained here. I mean, I was already doing ok because I had done the research that led me here in the first place, but last night I had dinner with a co-worker who has an S24 who wanted to do video a specific CS program and had identified a single school of interest, which was USC. Then she revealed she didn’t know the difference between EA and ED, and that they were just going regular decision because they needed merit scholarship money. I suggested she have a second school that was a real safety and she conceded Rice. 
She didn’t care her kid wasn’t top 10% because she didn’t like any other schools in Texas anyway…
I also knew from this board that USC required early application for merit scholarship consideration and mildly suggested she might want to look into that, and she was like whatever, I don’t want to worry about any of this because it will stress him out. It’ll be fine if he just goes somewhere and has to transfer after his freshman year.
I know that everyone has their own process, but I couldn’t help but feel I was watching a train wreck in slow motion.
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It’s funny because I think for those of us on here, we feel like most people have all this info pertaining to the college application process, but what I have realized is that the people on here are a tiny fraction of the “real world” and most are very uninformed about the process. At our local high school, we only just had senior night and the presentation was on what Common App was how to use it, how to use Navience, etc. We were sitting there feeling awkward because S24 had already submitted all his stuff by then. This meeting really should have been in the spring of Junior year. I am very grateful for this board because while in some ways it can add worry, it has also been a place where I have been able to commiserate, ask questions and get valuable advice from non judgmental people who have been through this process.
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My only “critique” of this board is the lack of a great search function. Ive also noticed that when I did some Google searches, some of the topics that we’re really interested in, were from CC posts 5-10 years ago.
Im not sure if CC was much more active then.
For example, my D24 wants to go to law school so we did a search on grade inflation/deflation at certain colleges. Another search we did was on curve grading. Things that showed up on the search were CC posts from awhile back that may/may not be relevant now.
Not sure if most of the traffic is now on Reddit. Kids use Reddit more and parents seem to come here. That’s my impression.
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Now that S24 has decided on an ED school and a possible ED2 we have moved onto the next step. We are full pay so what schools are worth the COA vs what arent? I just posted a thread looking for LACs that offer excellent merit. We decided some schools even with the merit he would get are not worth the price (Fordham is the big one) but when do you decide that a mid range LAC is worth a 25-40% discount versus a top one for full price.
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I think it’s mostly subjective.
There are certain schools that really excel in some areas. But from visiting many many places, they all seem kind of similar and the actual experience your kid will have is unknown.
We’ve narrowed it down to 5 main catergories that’s important for us:
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- reputation for collaboration
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- job outcomes (what companies recruit the school)
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- alumni network
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- location
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- grade inflation/deflation (important for law school)
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The outcome part is hard. Depends so much on major and location right? So Binghamton which costs about 1/4 of Williams has a first year salary average that is only about 5k less. Is that because most kids there are form downstate/nyc area and go work in a higher cost of living area? Seems the roa is much higher for Binghamton but probably not exactly true.
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D24 wants to to do either IB or consulting so target schools are really important.
We knew someone who went to Northeastern and they werent a target school so they had to network really hard to get a job at UBS. My co-worker’s daughter went to South Carolina - same story. She had to do a lot on her own to land a job at Bank of America. Colleague told me to pick the right school otherwise it’s a real uphill battle.
Our safety school is the state flagship. I reviewed their top employers - a lot of the companies that recruit there are insurance companies. Insurance companies, in general, pay the least in financial services. The upside of going to the state school is our D would start off with 24 hours of 4.0 due to the dual enrollment credits so that could help her get into a T14 law school. And it would be free because right now she’s #2 in her class.
But given the choice, we’d rather have her attend the school she wants regardless of cost because it probably offers a higher career trajectory.
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C24 has started getting invites to “group chats for interested students” from some of the schools on their list. I’ve encouraged them to join for schools they really like (with all of the caveats one would assume for any kind of social media usage). But this is something I haven’t heard of before, either here on CC or in the (far, far too many) admissions podcasts I can’t stop listening to. Is this new? Are the chats monitored by admissions personnel? Is this one of those “demonstrated interest” things? I’m so curious if anyone has any insight.
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So personally, I think very rarely does any sort of financial return on investment calculation work out in favor of a significantly more expensive college, within a broad range. When it comes to outcomes in life, too much depends on the individual student, their interests and abilities. And then so many colleges are really good at giving their outstanding students good opportunities. So reported statistics often much more reflect student interests and abilities, not anything the colleges are really doing differently.
I know there are people who believe there are very specific exceptions, and maybe, but I think the vast majority of people really are not facing significant personalized outcome differences when making their college choices, within a reasonable range. And then COA will dominate a personalized ROI calculation.
And some parents who believe that then just mandate their kid go wherever in that range would be least expensive. I believe that but am not enforcing such a mandate, because I believe the intrinsic experience of college, and the way it can help you develop as a person, is a form of value not captured by these ROI calculations. We also promised our kids that if they did their best in school, they could then choose their own college (with limited exceptions), as long as it was affordable for us. And fortunately thanks to starting early on 529s, we can afford to give them broad choice.
But that is just us. Each family has to evaluate how to balance financial cost versus what I believe are mostly non-financial benefits.
People sometimes compare this to deciding how much to pay for a vacation, which I think is often intended to suggest families should not pay more for college than strictly necessary. But I actually see it the exact opposite way–we take our vacations really seriously! And we will pay more for an apartment in a better location, with better space for hanging out, or so on, because it maximizes the value of the time we are going to spend together in this special place. But not arbitrarily, and we will rule out places where the added cost is not giving us enough more of what we value.
So to me that is a helpful analogy in the sense experiences do matter, particularly when they are involved in important relationships. But you still have to impose limits based on what you truly value, and that is a very personal decision.
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I believe this to be true. My oldest went to USC and she is doing very well in her career. My next went to our local --where Dad works – university. She is also doing very well. Her income is not quite up to older sisters but getting closer. The difference is USC kid will be paying back longer than free school kid 
Now as far as the student experience that is a whole different story. Fight On! 
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Don’t ignore the possibility of doing a masters at a higher ranking school after graduation, which may work out cheaper in the long run. For the most capable students, there are various prestigious graduate scholarships (Truman, Marshall, Rhodes etc) that all but guarantee job opportunities at MBB consulting firms, regardless of where you went for undergrad. Being a big fish in a small pond may be very useful in getting attention from professors and building the resume needed to compete for these scholarships. For example D’s freshman year roommate (at a mid tier state flagship) was picked early on (end of freshman year) as a potential candidate and had attention lavished on her to help prepare for these applications, and she ultimately won a Rhodes scholarship.
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The Zee Mee groups? My D23 joined a few, she said they were mostly silly, people mostly posted their insta and Snapchat links.
But there was one stupid kid who posted a picture of drugs of some sort on one of the groups and had his admission offer rescinded. So I guess the admission officers are on them or someone screenshot it and sent it in.
So after two final school visits this week, D24, who was certain she did not want to ED anywhere, has now decided she wants to ED to a reach school. I totally support her decision, but am now quite nervous as well. Don’t want to wish away these final months, but really would love to have a crystal ball about now!
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Please ensure it’s affordable and you’re ok not seeing other offers.
Good luck.
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Thank you. It is affordable.
Turns out after a very long discussion on the ride home that she has been afraid to admit to having a favorite as she doesn’t want to be disappointed. As I ran through every potential outcome she said she would always wonder “what if” if she did not do the ED app. She signed up for a meeting with her college counselor to discuss it one more time, and we will see from there. She has a few safeties she would be very happy at, so DH and I are ok with the ED app, just surprised at the turn of events. Also surprised that the other school we visited this week went from a maybe to a solid number 2. Just when I think I have her figured out she surprises me.
I so appreciate all of the knowledge and support of everyone on CC, and hope for great outcomes for all of our kids.
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Many posters on CC advise students not to have a “Dream” school. We always advised our two kids to have a few Dream school - something to aspire to. We also told them that they may not get admitted, and that would come with disappointment. But, handling disappointment is a part of life, something to be managed.
Later they may a dream graduate school, or a dream job. I say let them dream.
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