I disagree. Why bother to make up stories? This person is not a nice person to be speculating to your face about your finances and predicting your daughter would drop out. No interest in making such a person “feel better.” Walk away.
I agree with post #260, why lie? It’s crazy. It causes more stress by lying, could shorten one’s live. That’s why I feel telling people the truth is a stress buster. It’s not my problem they can’t handle it.
Personally, my belief is that you shouldn’t do what makes you happiest, but what you think is best for your kids. Which may entail spending a lot more on college but may also entail not spending the most you can on college (if that means you can help them out more later or will help them develop in other ways). Really depends on the kid, goals, etc.
Re @awcntdb post #257: I’ve met people who don’t pay or pay very little of their kids’ college tuition, but have the money to buy nice cars and spend for expensive hobbies. It might just be their belief that kids should be responsible for their own college cost? I’m not sure. Then of course there are more who are trying to find college for their kids at a “bargain price” even though they could afford more, which may just be out of the ROI consideration, justifiably so supposedly.
I had to chuckle on this:
I didn’t know judging someone as tacky is being chill.
I also don’t know how chill people in CA are. It has one of the most booming private college counseling business, outside of NYC area. Someone I know very well from CA is paying $250/hr for GMAT tutoring for his son. Not sure how chill that is.
For 25+ years of my career I worked at places where they mostly recruited from top tier schools. I recently started a new job outside of NYC area where they hired locally because frankly many graduates from those top tier schools don’t want to work there due to the location. To compete for top talents they are opening up tech centers at more desirable locations, paying up and hiring people outside of their own industry (like me).
Employers will hire from schools where they get the best result. If your company is a regional company located in a middle of no where, you are not going to attract as many students from top tier schools outside of the region. Those students have more options as to where and whom they want to work for, so of course those regional companies would want to recruit locally or schools where they already have a strong ties with. But it doesn’t mean if those companies had the option of getting some graduates from some of those top tier schools they couldn’t do it.
When I worked in NYC, I got so many resumes from Cornell and CMU engineering and CS (friend of a friend, friend’s kids). Now I work in a less desirable location for young people, I have no choice but to recruit locally more.
If employment is important after graduation, students may want to go to a school where there are some companies they want to work for in the area, and it is a place they want to live in.
College talk aside, having friends (and family) in both CA and the East Coast, and having visited both - my general impression is that CA folks are, indeed, more “chill.” 
East Coasters seem to have a certain amount of formality - not exactly like Southern formality - but more like Western Europe’s. CA culture seems way more casual, in general.
We are from the South. It is rumored we are among the most “chill” ones – so chill that we are occasionally labeled as “being lazy”. Fair or not, DS had the experience (a couple of times) of being labeled as such after he had moved to the East Coast. He often considers himself as one of those who do not work the hardest. (An example, I heard he would quite often set aside some of his precious time, especially during his off-time to cook his own food just because he does not want to eat unhealthy restaurant-like food or even worse, fast-food like food too frequently. How many people in his age and in an arguably quite busy schedule like his would do something “unimportant for their immediate future career” like that! Maybe he is indeed more chill.)
Down South when they ask about your granddaddy they are asking about lineage.
“People who do not know me you can see them wondering about me driving that car and many bring up conversations about it - and many times you can they feel bad or me and my older car. And all the time I am thinking, “Get a life.””
I think you are deluding yourself if you believe that people who don’t know you wonder about the car you drive. And if they don’t know you, we are supposed to believe they spontaneously come up to you and express their condolences over your car?
I haven’t read this whole thread, but I see constantly rising tuition rate as significantly harming the value of mid-tier and lower-ranked liberal arts colleges in the long run.
Mediocre Liberal Arts College Such-and-Such may have been worth $20,000 in tuition per year when I was coming through, but Mediocre Liberal Arts College Such-and-Such isn’t worth $60,000 in tuition per year when local state universities are significantly less expensive but often comparably ranked. Tens of thousands of extra tuition dollars pear year for “atmosphere” and other intangibles that Mediocre Liberal Arts College Such-and-Such offers are hard to justify.
@HappyAlumnus, if you’ve noticed, mediocre LACs with high list prices have been heavily discounting (with “merit” money) for many of their students in recent years. These days, the only kids who are paying full-price at mediocre LACs are mediocre/poor students (who obviously come from wealthy backgrounds). But eh, I will not complain. After all, they make big merit awards (that make their costs comparable to or cheaper than publics) at those schools possible.
Spot on, PurpleTitan.
@oldfort said
And yet both of her kids and one of mine went to Cornell – located in a small community with few career opportunities other than those at the university itself. (Cornell has had to create jobs for the spouses of its current president and the two who came before her. In other places, this would be called nepotism. At Cornell, it’s simply a necessity. There’s nowhere else they can work.)
And my other kid, who went to the University of Maryland and could have found plenty of job opportunities in the DC area, moved to California after graduation and has stayed there ever since.
Our kids are our counterexamples.
Nevertheless, oldfort has a good idea.
“IF one or both of my kids dream of a Harvard medical school or Yale law (I seriously doubt it, but IF), then have we hobbled them for life by sending them to University of Arkansas?”
@fatdog11 - hobbled them for life???
I think some mistook your statement about this. I understood you to say that you were concerned that your dc would not be able to get into top med/law schools if they chose U of A for undergrad. I think some thought you were comparing outcomes as between UAMS (yes, Arkansas has a medical school) and Havard Medical School.
I do not think that 8th grade is NOT too early to be thinking about colleges. We started thinking about it in 7th grade when ds took the ACT for DukeTIP. There certainly wasn’t a “dream school” at that point, however.
I agree with others that your dd should take the most rigorous path she can regardless of where she applies. I am unsure as to whether you are still in rural Arkansas or not. Or perhaps you are elsewhere in Arkansas. If Arkansas is on your list, you should know that obtaining Fellowships at the U of A and/or obtaining the Arkansas Governor’s Distinguished Scholarship requires impresses stats both objective and otherwise.
My ds received both of those. We would have paid nothing for him to attend U of A. He received outstanding merit money at other Big State Us. He received some merit money (around $20,000 per year at most schools) at his match schools. He was accepted into four Top 20 Universities with merit at one of those. He chose to matriculate at one of the full-pay Top 20s. We can afford it. If you can’t afford it or don’t want to pay it or want to save for med school, that’s fine.
I think there is a lot of guilt associated with the inability to pay for education that doesn’t exist in other areas of life. I would add that you are five years away. Perhaps there are some changes you can make during that time. Perhaps not. I would only suggest that you let your dd know ahead of time what you are willing to do.
And, I promise you, she won’t be “hobbled” by attending the U of A. My dh certainly wasn’t. My father (who also attended med school in Arkansas) wasn’t, and my father-in-law wasn’t.
I am definitely in the no bumper sticker club. When my ds was applying, there was much negativity. “Isn’t the U of Arkansas good enough for your ds?” Yes. Of course it is. That’s why it’s one of the schools to which he applied. “Joe and I would NEVER pay $50,000 per year for undergraduate school.” Okay. Well, it’s actually quite a bit more than that. And after his freshman year, “Is he going back?” Well, yes, he is. “A lot of kids don’t make it being away from home.” Well, he is making it just fine, thanks for asking. There was and is a lot of insecurity among parents, in my experience. It’s tough when you live in the area of your state flagship and choose to go elsewhere.
Because we are spending so much on undergraduate school, we will not be helping with graduate school should ds choose that route. He knew that going in. I will say that (to my f-i-l’s chagrin) medical school has never been on his radar. He basically had the pile of money he could use for education, and he chose to spend it all on undergrad.
I do think that 8th grade is a bit young to be thinking about the necessity of saving for medical school. JMO. I do see a lot of comments about choosing less expensive schools on CC based on anticpating medical school down the road. I understand the idea of keeping costs low to save for medical school and needing to earn the highest GPA possible. What I always wonder is how many students who go this route (choosing less expensive state school) actually wind up going on to medical school. So many kids change their majors in college. So many pre-meds don’t make it through Organic. My ds applied to several schools based on programs in the area that he thought he wanted to major in. I am truly thankful that he didn’t choose one of those because his major has changed.
Sorry for the two posts. Posted too early on the first one and had to finish up via an edit. Thus typo in post #274. Should read, “I do NOT think that 8th grade it too early to be thinking about college.”
I like the book - What High Schools Don’t Tell You 300+ Secrets to Make Your Kid Irresistable to Colleges by Senior Year.
My daughter’s best friend from childhood did. She now has an MD and just started her residency. She doesn’t owe a dime.
But she was such an outstanding student in high school that she received a full ride merit scholarship to our flagship state university. Given her ability, it was pretty much guaranteed that she would get into medical school unless she goofed off outrageously in college. The only risk was that her interests might have changed during college. They didn’t.
Does SUNY make car stickers? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one.
No one has ever said anything rude about our college choices. The usual comments are: “That’s a good school isn’t it?” and “Where is ____ exactly?” (Both school virtually equally ranked around #26 this year.) They both turned down schools with more name recognition.
I have seen “Stony Brook” stickers and license plate frames on cars in California.
Come to NY. You’ll see plenty of SUNY stickers.