This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a parent tell a child they’d pay for an elite school that cost more than they wanted to spend because they assumed their kid wouldn’t get in and they wouldn’t have to be the one to say no, and the kid ended up getting accepted. These situations don’t always turn out well.
Since you can afford to pay and you told him you would, I think it would be unkind to make him choose a lower cost school. If you were facing financial hardship or offered to let him have the difference for grad school or an apartment and he was willing to take the lower cost option, that would probably work out well for all of you. But if you spend the next 4 months trying to sway his decision he may give in just to make you happy, and both he and your wife might resent you for making a promise you never really wanted to keep.
My daughter didn’t turn down really highly ranked schools, but she did choose to attend a school that was ranked much lower than some of her other choices, overall and more particularly in her major. She chose her school because she liked it better. It was also less expensive, but she did not need to make a decision based on finances as we could afford any of her choices. That said, I’m pretty sure she took cost into account to some extent. It was totally her choice, although the choice she made was also the choice I would have made (my husband preferred her 2nd choice school, so I think we cancelled each other out and didn’t influence her).
My daughter’s final three choices going into late April were Princeton, Georgia Tech, and tiny Messiah College. She liked each for different reasons, and it was a tough decision, because each offered a unique situation. Ultimately she chose Princeton, but it had nothing to do with rankings.
I guess diffrent folks diffrent strokes. I’ll add one more reason to this list. Some kids are afraid they won’t be able to fit among highly accomplished student body of top colleges, they feel intimidated. To be fair, just looking at resumes of top students here is enough to make one think twice.
@websensation - my ds was also a NMF and had a couple of free options within Honor’s Colleges at Southern public universities as well as other choices with nice merit, including Rice. He is also our only. He chose Stanford where we are full-pay.
I do understand where you are coming from, especially since you have some great in-state public unis. We used what I call the “pile approach.” We basically told ds that there was a designated amount of cash for his education. It was enough to cover undergrad anywhere he got in. However, the “pile” was all we were going to contribute to the entirety of his education. Thus, if he chose an undergraduate school that used up the pile, he was on his own if he wanted to pursue graduate school. If he chose something less expensive or free, then anything remaining in the pile was available for graduate or professional school. If he chose not to pursue that, that money could go toward a car, a down payment on a home, etc. Not a wild free-for-all with the rest of the pile, but basically, that money was designated for him. I’m not saying it’s the only way to go, just offering it as an option.
However, it sounds like you are now resistant to spend your promised “pile.” I understand. It’s a lot of money. It’s your money. Only YOU can decide if you want to go back on your word about paying for Stanford if admission was gained. The fact that you didn’t anticipate admission does not alter what you promised your child. We laid out the pile approach from the get-go before ds applied anywhere, so I get the situation is not the same. And maybe you don’t want to pay for anything other than undergrad anyway. But, maybe you could apply the pile approach now if you think grad school might be a good idea for your ds’s area of interest.
We took a lot of flack for paying full fare at Stanford. Many think we’re nuts. Many will tell you you’re nuts if you turn down Stanford. As I have written here before, “You’re d@mned if you do, and d@mned if you don’t.” What others (here on these forums or IRL) think shouldn’t matter. I would think, however, that the trust level between you and your ds would.
Agreeing with #40 and #44 about trapping yourself in a promise that you may not want to keep…
Here are older threads from a parent who initially wrote that “money is not a factor in the decision” (in the summer between the student’s 11th and 12th grade), but later wanted to back out of paying for the more expensive school that the student got admitted to.
I know someone who turned down MIT for Ohio State (OOS), because he thought MIT was going to be too stressful and he wanted to have a life in college. He knew he’d be happier at Ohio State, and thirty years later, he still doesn’t regret that decision.
One of my former classmates turned down UChicago and other top schools for the University of Rochester, where she’s in the combined BS-MD program and is having a blast.
Let him go to Stanford. If you don’t, he may regret it for the rest of his life. What’s money? It’s just stuff you trade for something else, and the opportunities he’ll have at Stanford will be priceless. If he shines, he can get a fellowship for grad school so you won’t necessarily need to pay for that. Education is about more than just “book learning”–traveling far from home and meeting people from all over the world is a consciousness-expanding experience you can’t necessarily get at your local flagship.
Not that a stranger’s opinion matters, but I think Stanford is such a fantastic launching pad with a wonderful energy and truly great people that it is worth every penny! D graduated from Stanford in June 2014 and has already paid off her student loans while still managing to live well and travel. So even if the student were to borrow a moderate amount of money to ease the financial burden of attending, it shouldn’t be a big deal to pay off some loans with a marketable elite degree. DS graduated from an Ivy and paid off his debt even quicker (didn’t take the vacations his sister did.)
If he got into Stanford and you can pay, do it. Stop thinking about it.
Most kids that get into top 20 schools get scholarships from safeties, and many have to do that for monetary reasons. Just let the kid go to Stanford. I mean, seriously, you get a bumper sticker…isn’t that worth it?
It’s unfortunate you told your kid you would pay for Stanford before looking at all the options. Since you did so, you seem stuck unless you want to look like a total jerk to your son. Unless an unexpected financial crisis has come up since you made this pronouncement, you may just have to let him decide and send him off happily to Stanford at full pay if that’s what he comes up with. These kinds of things make me so glad we told our kids what our financial limits were upfront.
@TheGFG , I have had the impression your kids were not full pay at their elite schools? A moderate amount of loans for an elite education does seem doable. Full pay at an elite may or not be the best bet if there are less expensive alternatives that will provide a great education, good recruiting, and a solid alumni network. Schools like Stanford excel at these kinds of things but so do many other schools.
The UCs are much different than USCar imo. I can see going to one of them over Stanford. Some of them are pretty strong in IR/Asian Studies. Much stronger than USCar.
If you’re not going to pay, consider letting DS and DW know soon, before they get too comfortable or locked in. Give them time to process your decision.
One needs to weigh the circumstances and the value add and it is not only about the money!. My D1 chose Pitt over Harvard and UPenn for undergrad! She did receive a full scholarship from Pitt but I would have been happy to pay for Harvard (my alma mater - HBS). The main reason she chose Pitt was that she got accepted to the Guaranteed Admissions Program (GAP) to the School of Medicine (top 15 in the country).
She is very happy with the decision; she is in the 1st year of the SOM now. In addition to regular research/academic opportunities, she has been fortunate enough to be on 2 volunteer missions to Argentina and Malawi and her team just received a big grant for fairly ground-breaking work in China.
@websensation has gotten enough peer pressure by now, but I have to say that I’m with @austinmshauri, @Hoggirl, @ucbalumnus, and the rest in saying that – assuming you can indeed afford it – letting your kid apply to Stanford with the understanding that you would pay for it if he got in, and subsequently changing your mind because you’ve found some better deals out there, seems rather unfair. Ultimately, however, it’s your money, your kid, and your conscience, so you’ll have to decide.
We are in a similar situation – CA residents with an NMSF/NMF kid that’s an only child. We encouraged D17 to cast a wide net and try for merit aid at all of the top 10 - top 20 schools that she felt had programs of interest to her. She’s been diligently cranking out apps for whatever merit scholarships are not automatically offered by Admissions and require separate applications and/or nominations. She has also applied for and has been named a semifinalist for a number of outside scholarships and plans to continue to seek out scholarship options.
She got into her SCEA HYPS school (Y), yet still continued to submit apps to most of the schools that were on her list. She knocked a couple of LACs that would have been full pay off her list, and threw in a couple of other schools that offered the possibility (however remote) of a full ride or full tuition merit scholarships, as well as the rest of the HYPS (minus the Y) for good measure and with the hope of some FA. Once all the dust settles and we see where she gets in and what it will cost, we’ll take if from there.
We’ve taken very much the “there’s a pile of cash” approach that @Hoggirl described. We expect that whatever D17 ultimately decides, we will support. The bottom line is that we expect it to be an informed decision. We are delighted that our daughter is not approaching this process with any feeling of “entitlement,” just a sincere desire to be in a place where she will thrive academically and socially. We are also delighted that she is doing her best to have some “skin in the game” in applying for scholarships, etc.
@websensation we also didn’t think our son would get into Stanford. Our agreement was that we would pay the equivalent of full pay for a UC out of our income (we’re in CA also, and will have two kids in college for the next three years), and anything above would need to be covered by merit. Of course Stanford doesn’t have merit, but he applied anyway since it was the only school we thought might be worth loans. DS wants to study Computer Science, and is also interested in UCB, CMU, and Harvey Mudd. He has no interest in grad school at this point. He’ll have a difficult decision in a few months as he determines whether the extra $$ to go to Stanford is worth it over his other options.
DS18 seems to be poised to skip the elite college admission gauntlet altogether. Although unhooked he has the stats and I believe he would have the option to go to one if he applied broadly enough. He seems content to apply to schools where he will have automatic full ride opportunities (anticipating being NMF). As the parent and the one who would have had to write the check I have been slower than he has to agree with this path, but I am more and more on the same page with him. With our income and assets I don’t expect any meaningful need-based aid. Full pay and with the current thought he may want to go to med school, I just don’t buy into the value proposition anymore. I could afford to pay, but we certainly would feel a $250k impact on family net worth. It would mean staying in the workforce longer someday than I would otherwise need to. Opening a fat acceptance envelope to an elite school with a $250k 4 year price tag vs. opening an offer of a full ride to scholarship to a decent state public U - the latter just feels like the better prize to us. To each his own.
A distinction should be made in a lot of cases. Students aren’t “turning down” Princeton or Harvard for lesser known/ranked by equal choice. Opting for a lower ranked school due to financial considerations should be in a different category. Their decision wasn’t opting to go to the lower ranked school…it was kind of a forced decision. Not so for fit, distance etc…
@TheGFG My daughter chose her school for sports and merit $$… one of her HS teammates was recruited into a very high level D1 program and while she isn’t academically behind, she isn’t the tip top either and my D said she is always being tutored to keep up the grades she needs for college – they are both seniors right now.
While she will get in no doubt, it sounds like a lot of pressure to me. I am much happier my D is going to a school that won’t be over difficult for her academically as playing a college sport is a big commitment in itself.
They ARE turning down HYP They are making a choice to go to a school they believe will give them a better value, to save their money to use for grad school, because the other school is closer to home, or whatever reason. Whether they do it for money or because they want big D1 football or because the foreign languages are better, it is still a choice.
My daughter’s choice had little to do with money. We could have made the higher ranked school work but didn’t think it was worth it. For her, it wasn’t the best fit so why not save money?
No one is saying those schools aren’t higher ranked, but they are not everyone’s first choice.
I personally had sticker shock too…especially when we realize that we are being double squeezed… On tax time and tuition time. D did EAs, and got to U Chicago and Georgetown and like @LoveTheBard’D, she also applied for a bunch of merit schools and other schools for RD. We will see how things fall, but the way I now look at it…we are privileged to have our kids select school based on their love and desire, instead of financial situation. We will support her whatever she decides.
Also she wants to go to consulting or Wall Street after college, so hopefully our payback period is lower than average…and return on investment is high!!
