You can continue to be proud…without mentioning specific colleges. Let’s change your response a bit.
“We are so proud of our daughter and her accomplishments. She has applied and been accepted to anumber of wonderful colleges. She is looking forward to sharing where she will be going in MAY.”
Repeat as often as necessary…and to the grandparents too.
Speaking as a former Recruiting Director, I would encourage she apply to atleast one highly ranked school in her field of interest that has a strong alumni network (UMich, ND, UPenn, etc). You never know what merit money may come your way.
The article shared by @AlbionGirl is terrific, and I think, gets to the heart of the issue: When people in the extended family/community feel a (loving) sense of ownership over a process whose nuances they may not fully understand. Of course a proud grandparent is eager to see their grandchild at an institution with wide name recognition. It’s validating. But you know your daughter best and seem to have helped her make smart choices. It doesn’t sound as if she’s selling herself short or going to be held back by sticking with them. If they issue were self-confidence, I might suggest giving her a little shove just to keep options open, but it sounds as if she knows what she wants.
We have the opposite problem in my circle: People tend to overestimate their chances, and I’m the one who suggests maybe they might want to cast their net a little more broadly.
@juillet It is one of my parents who wants more reaches applied to. I haven’t figured out why my parent feels this way. My little sisters got their BS, MS, and PhDs in engineering from PWIs and maybe it is a resources thing (much more cutting edge equipment and easy access to co-ops/internships). My parent may be wistful about my sisters because they got into Duke, Stanford, and a couple of Ivys but chose the in-state school’s full rides instead. I know my parent hated the administrative dealings with the HBCUs but when I ask what is different today, I don’t get a clear answer.
@camcam2022 guess you didn’t know that UPenn doesn’t give ANY merit aid…only need based aid. I believe ND has a teeny teeny number of merit awards…they give mostly need based aid.
Michigan also gives mostly need based aid.
But this student might qualify for significant NEED based (not merit) at some of these schools.
But really…she has looked at schools…she likes the ones where she applied. While some folks here (and her grandparents) think she should apply more…the bottom line is the family DID look at a lot of schools…and there are some great schools on this list…that the family likes and presumable can afford.
At this point if you start telling your daughter that her schools are not good enough, you’ll be confusing her and undermining her efforts. Besides the schools she picked are great. Its her choice. The grandparent should be happy for her and be proud. So many students don’t go to Ivies even with high stats. Let her be. She already has eleven schools to pick from. That’s another challenge for her to make the best choice
@ChangeTheGame
Are you willing to pay for these OOS private HBCU’s? These scholarships have a contingency of a high GPA to keep them, I would be wary. Also if your daughter is happy , that’s all that matters. I would tell her that she can visit these schools after acceptance, If/when she gets in.
Maybe your parents just notice what they see as missed opportunities (what could have been) maybe? Family legacy/dynasty if you will,… I’m just guessing.
@camcam2022 When my parent calls my daughter today, a reach school or 2 will be pushed her way (and may even offer to foot the bill for anything we could not afford). I honestly think my daughter is content with her choices. I did not sense any bad reasoning or fear or stress about applying to reach schools, just more of a desire of what she wanted next. What’s funny to me is she has never been the smartest (not a single A test grade in math the entire 6th grade year) or had the best grade in her life and I expect that will be the case no matter where she goes, but she will put in work, and see things from perspectives that are unique (including this college search). I am hopeful that she chooses the school just for her (fit, function, and happiness).
OP - it just appears to me that you and your daughter considered a lot of location fit and not as much about academic fit.
When D2 was going through the college process her private counselor spoke to her and me separately about what were our top considerations when it came to college selection. He then spoke to both of us together to “broker” any differences we had. He asked if we wanted urban vs rural, distance from home, size of school, co-ed vs women, diversity (economic, racial), rigor of school.
Even though she was half Asian, she didn’t want to go to a school with a large population of Asians, so it eliminated Berkeley (I also was not that supportive of her going to an OOS public as a full pay).
What a 17/18 old wants or think is is important may not always be good criteria in choosing a school. A lot of them do change their mind between now to May 1. Who knows, maybe when her best friends are going off to Duke or Columbia she’ll wish she was going away too.
I am all about options, especially when it is only $75 and few more essays. D2 is applying to law school now. Originally she was only going to apply to a handful, but I encouraged her to cast her net a bit wider and shoot for some stars. She is happy that she did because she is getting some good(surprise) acceptances. Few days ago I said to her, “Honey, why don’t you turn down some of those schools that you know you won’t be going?” She said, “Why would I do that before I get any money offer from them? I could use those offers to get more money from other schools. You always said to keep our options open.”
@VANDEMORY1342 We are aware of the High GPA Requirements for most HBCU merit based scholarships (3.30). We plan to send her over the summer to get a head start no matter where she goes and she will not take any science based AP credits (Will basically be taking Calculus I, Cal II, General Chemistry I & II, and Physics I over again in college so we are banking on a good start). We believe she will be okay but have already explained the consequences of not keep merit scholarships (she would be going to the local college). She definitely doesn’t want that.
We realized early in this process that everyone has an opinion and likes to give it (unfiltered) whether we ask or not.
My daughter has applied to 12 schools…every single one which we visited because it had the program she wanted and she liked (well one was our state school I had her apply to but does have the program ). We also visited another 12 she did not like and did not apply to.
The schools she applied to range from reach to where she was in the top tier of stats. She has been accepted to six so far all matches or where she is on the upper end for. She has received merit at 5 of these. That is why we applied to an array so she can have choices. Frankly we cannot afford full pay and need options. Which frankly is our business.
Early on in the process when the opinions started rolling in I told my daughter we would not share where she was applying to. This is a personal process and she is a teenager who does not need “adults” giving their approval or making her feel bad about a school because they don’t think it is prestigious enough. I told her it was like when you are expecting a baby…best to keep your name choices private or people will tell you what they really think…once you name the baby no one will say to your face “Why did you name him/her that horrible name” and they will just love the baby for who he/she is.
We have been telling grandparents and aunts/uncles each acceptance and how much she is getting which tends to keep their opinions out of our ears…they may have opinions about these schools but no one wants to knock her down as she is so excited and proud of her merit.
Bottom line…this is a family matter. We will share the college decision with the world in May. For now when asked we just say it is still in process and she has quite a few options to consider but since some schools will not be getting back until February/March we are not ready to discuss until all offers are in.
In May I know everyone will accept the college for what it is and while they may talk behind our backs that is their business. Ours is getting our daughter to the school that is the best match where she will thrive and where we can afford.
@ChangeTheGame
If that’s the case, I say she reaches up for schools that offer full need or state schools. Anything can happen as college is unpredictable. If one bad semester of mal-adjustment sends her packing she would be wondering “what if”. Maybe you can relay that to her.
@oldfort My daughter has looked at the academic fits to her top schools pretty hard. Her Chemistry teacher is an Howard Grad who got her PhD in Physical Chemistry from a top 50 school and her Godmother had a PhD in Organic Chemistry from a good state public school and teaches at a university and started at my wife’s HBCU. She has a large network of resources when it comes to navigating a possible career in Research. There will be some differences depending on which school she chooses, and they have been explained to her by some of that network. You are right that a 17 year may not always know what is best (I know I don’t) but she has put in the due diligence so I can accept her choices. I am really thankful for the CC family talking/thinking through this from every angle.
Who cares what other people think? Its your/your daughter’s choice. Ignore the armchair quarterbacks.
@MinnieFan I don’t think anything will keep my daughter’s grandparents opinion quiet. I can dream however.
@jym626 It’s not that I care what other people think, I just want to help my daughter make the best decision for her. And to see how others may have dealt with the “armchair quarterbacks” especially when they are family. Good one by the way.
@VANDEMORY1342 My daughter knows my story about losing my full ride scholarship after my sophomore year and what I had to do to get back to school. She is trying to avoid that track at all costs.
There have been several threads on this topic. Do a search here (sorry, cant recall the thread names) but surely a few keywords will pull them up. They may be a few years old, but the topic is the same.
@ChangeTheGame My kid also wanted to stay in the West coast, so he applied to several Honors Colleges which gave great merit scholarships, to the same UCs that every CA student with good hard stats applies annually and then applied to one “dream” college which he really did not expect to get in (he decided to apply; we just supported his decision) with the “at least I gave my best effort” attitude. Voila, my kid is attending Stanford University next year – as a full pay though, so we turned down full merit scholarships from one or two Honors Colleges. So it’s not a bad idea to apply to one dream school on “what the heck” attitude. Therefore, applying to one dream college is not a bad idea even if she thinks her chances is very low. I am all for applying to one or two “dream” colleges as long as you applied to some decent safety and match schools. Two Honors Colleges with merit scholarships and UC Irvine and UC San Diego were “safety” schools, while UCLA and Berkeley were “match” schools. To be more accurate, we were confident our kid would get into at least one of UCLA/Berkeley. None of his “safety” or “match” school was really his “dream” school though although he would have been happy to go there.
If your daughter doesn’t have a dream school, then the list is fine. It all depends on what your daughter wants and what you can afford.
A 3.3 should be O’k. See if she can pad her GPA the first year with easier General Electives in addition to retaking AP. She might also be able to get a minor in something she excels at.