Apologies if this has been posted/didn’t have time to check this whole thread.
Guy last year chose U of Alabama over all 8 ivies:
Many of my older S’s friends went to UMD over HPYSM, esp folks who were in STEM fields. UMD offered fabulous merit $$ and most of them went from there on to those tippy top schools for graduate programs. At the same time, a friend of mine had a son who was turned down for UMD Engineering and got into MIT. Go figure.
One of my sons had a friend who started at community college and is doing a PhD at a top university. Incredible life story.
Both of my sons turned down what others would have considered the “obvious” choice, given their interests. OTOH, they both got into their two favorite schools, so they wrestled with the pros and cons of each all through April.
At the end of the day, assuming the finances work for the parents, I would go with fit. If you’re not happy, the best in the program in the world won’t be the right place.
@itsgettingreal17 Good point. With music some of it comes down to personal connections (does he actually want to work with the applied lessons teacher for four years?). We are starting to go to more concerts on campus, visiting some of the campuses not just during tour or audition time. His private instructor says to look at the grad school not just the undergrad as those campuses offer more ensembles and more opportunities to play with higher caliber musicians… and that is where the Cal States are better than most. He is paying attention to whether he is treated like a number or like a person at auditions. The truth though is that locally almost all of the music instructors in the LA area universities (even at the community colleges) have attended either USC or UCLA at some point in their education - for undergrad, masters or DMA – so if he has the opportunity to go there as an undergrad it is something to be taken seriously… and he really likes the private instructors at those schools. He attended the departmental tours over the summer, met the directors, saw the facilities.
Once he gets his short list in April he needs to just hang out on campus all day long, sit in on ensembles, do a shadow day… Music is a PAIN with auditions but in a way you are also auditioning them.
It’s also funny how much better you like a school once you are actually admitted. He liked some of the Cal States at auditions better than UCI because the UCI people were more matter-of-fact and not so chatty during auditions, but now that he is admitted to UCI it is worth taking a deeper look at its opportunities.
He applied to a range of schools from big universities to smaller private schools and the Cal States in between but for him it is starting to come down FIRST to the people who run his department and teach the classes and lead the ensembles… and then second the prestige and opportunities of the music program, and third the feel of the campus, seeing himself living on campus, fitting in.
My son may be in position shortly where he might turn down a college ranked in the top 40 or so for one ranked around 120. The school that ranks 120 ( I hate ranking colleges). has offered him a very generous merit package and he has a spot on a varsity sports team locked in. At the higher ranked school he might get a little merit $$ every year, The lower ranked school would save us about $140,000 in tuition costs, which I think is a significant amount of cash.
We are fortunate to have funds set aside for all 4 years of college no matter where he goes. So we discusses what he could do with the cash savings if he went to the lower priced school, and it was.a good discussion.
He likes the “prestige” factor of the higher ranked school and some of the opportunities he might have there, but he he also likes having a “nest egg of $140K” to help him thru his schooling/grad school/young adult life. We told him he could use the $$ to buy a modest car, pay for an MBA, save it for a down payment on a home etc. He was very appreciative and is giving it some serious though.
I really don’t know what he will do.
@CADREAMIN , very true.
Joaquin Gonzalez, a starting O lineman on Miami’s 2001 team that is considered by many the greatest collection of talent on a college team ever (and it’s hard to argue that point) was admitted to Harvard. He was a standout student at Miami Columbus, one of those private schools that’s very solid academically and also a powerhouse in sports.
It happens.
Dear all, since I started this thread and sort of forgot about it, I feel obligated to post a status update. After heart to heart talks and discussions, we have decided to fully support our kid’s going to Stanford (at full pay in all likelihood) to study in Social Science area over other several colleges including UCs and a full-tuition and full-ride Honors Colleges due to his NMF status. I understand both pros and cons and have made this decision after a careful thought. The only remaining decision is whether to take a gap year or not, which depends on whether he gets into a study abroad scholarship program. Thanks again for your posts.
P.S. Had my kid been a STEM major, I think we might have made a decision to forego Stanford, which may seem like a weird way of thinking to some when this was definitely not the way we thought at the beginning. In addition, we probably would have chosen a way cheaper Honors College over a high-ranking UC.
@twoinanddone , I get all the “fit” and “they just liked it more” stuff. And I agree that it happens. I see it, where kids will choose the lower ranked school, but 99% of the time the schools are still comparable in those situations. as @suzy100 pointed out, if the kids are bothering to apply to the higher ranked school, there must’ve been a reason.
but your example seems kind of stretchy to me. “The val at my kids’ high school picked Santa Clara over Stanford and Harvard and I know money was not an issue. Why? It was catholic, he could play soccer, he liked it better.”
First, you do know that Santa Clara soccer, both on the men’s and women’s side, are among the very elite in division 1. While Stanford is way up there too, if the kid can play at Santa Clara, the kid can play at Stanford, and easily at Harvard. This is my world. My kid’s premier coach a few years back transferred from Santa Clara to UCLA SO SHE COULD GET ON THE FIELD. 
I’m really not kidding. Santa Clara recruits national team players on both sides. So I think it’s unlikely that the val chose Santa Clara so he could play.
Also, Santa Clara looks like a small Stanford, and is in the same area, but is a much different place academically. I can’t speak to Harvard, but I would guess that the instances of Santa Clara winning out over Stanford (money wouldn’t matter - Stanford has much more of it) are 1 in a million. I just think that’s very rare situation.
One thing we all need to remember is that none of us, REALLY, know who got in where when it’s not our mailbox. I’ve observed some sketchy stories over the years and parents exaggerating this or that point, not knowing they’re talking to a school banana like me who is aware of these things. The athletic scholarship to Cornell is a common example, yes.
You’ll see a mom post on social media that their kid’s at a Yale athletic camp and turn that into a “they really want her,” story, which itself may or may not be true - attendance at the camp means little to nothing. And in those situations where the kid was actually being recruited, it’s a lot more public “she’s thinking about Yale,” and then, BOOM! The reality of the SATs hit home, Yale’s not an option now, even with the coach. That story, right there, will often evolve into “well, she didn’t really think she wanted to be that far from home, etc. etc.”
I myself encouraged my kids to not yap about where they were applying until the answers started coming back. That way, you don’t have anything to be embarrassed about or back peddle from. Nobody really cares anyway.
@RightCoast We did tell our kid also that the 4 year tuition at Stanford is equivalent to 4 or 5 nice Mercedes Benz (to give it a more materialistic example) but he chose attending Stanford over 5 Benz or Teslas (the car of his choice). lol
One other point: there’s a difference between turning down a very highly ranked school for a very lowly ranked school, and turning down a middle-tier school for a lower ranked school.
assuming for the sake of the point that high ranking matters somewhere somehow sometimes, the interesting decisions are those between Stanford and Texas A&M, or Duke vs. Georgia, or Princeton vs. UMass. Those are worth struggling over because you are giving up something.
Once you get a certain distance down the pecking order, I don’t think it matters. Choosing Iowa over Michigan State or Baylor over Texas … at some point it just doesn’t matter. You like Oregon State more than University of Washington even though UW is much more highly ranked? Go for it. Ohio State over Florida? LSU over Alabama? I don’t think it’ll ever matter. Go where you want to go.
But based on my travels, I’d think long and hard before turning down Harvard over South Carolina, all else being equal (which is I assume the point of the OP). I know this last view isn’t popular on CC, but that’s where I stand. I, myself, am very happy that I had enough sense and guidance to not give in to how I felt about everything in my 18-year old brain. Stanford has done very well by me, but all my friends attended UW, WSU and Western Wash. Univ. My HS girlfriend, who I was nuts about, attended Puget Sound, and I really wanted to go with her.
@MiddleburyDad2 Yes, that was my point. I should also mention that the fact that the Honors College did not have a strong program in the area of his interest played a part, whereas Stanford’s program in his interest area seemed to be ranked top 3 in USA. This was not a case where my kid didn’t want to go to Stanford but I wanted him to go there – not at all. My kid consistently wanted to attend Stanford – why else would he have applied there because we certainly didn’t encourage him to apply there because we thought he would get denied – but I was trying to “encourage” him to see if he wanted to attend the Honors College instead because of what I thought were “practical” reasons and I was averse to shelling out saved up money because I thought the money could be used for other practical things.
During this process, I did ask myself what I would have done if I were in my kid’s place, and realized that I was looking at things from the perspective of a more jaded, materialistic and practical point of view, so I thought it was not fair to try to enlist my kid into my camp of thinking.
“I am always amused by these threads that peddle the notion that there are lots of kids turning down actual offers of admission to Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, etc., to attend lower cost directional publics. Not that I think it never happens. I’m sure it does. But there is a very specific, relatively small number of people who turn down offers of admission at any of those colleges …”
@JHS, as am I.
as someone else wrote, if you’re doing it for money, then there’s no point to the discussion. that’s obvious. if you can’t swing it, or don’t think it’s worth it to swing it, then don’t try and swing it.
but the number of kids saying, “hmm? no, I think I’ll chose Santa Clara over Stanford” has to be small. and that’s not a great example either, because they’re both super expensive, and the higher ranked school can bank roll you a helluva lot easier than the lower …
good read for posters on this topic:
Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania
Book by Frank Bruni
@nitro11 I did read that article or book and so did my kid. And then I realized that the ultimate goal is not the main issue here imo. I do agree though that “smart” kids will end up doing well with their lives no matter which colleges they go.
@websensation , you know, you sound like a very thoughtful parent and your son is lucky to have you. that will matter more than where he goes to school the rest of his life. but Stanford will give him flexibility in the future that neither you nor I, nor the other posters on this forum, can fathom sitting here talking about it. I think you made a very smart decision, and you should feel good both about the fact that you can pay for it for him, and that you care as much as you do to make the right call. being thoughtful and asking for perspectives is more admirable than being a know-it-all, platform-justifying pedantic who gets irritated anytime someone goes in the other direction from what they did or had to do themselves or with their own kids. there’s a healthy cohort of that on this forum.
at the end of the day, there are good reasons why the instances of a kid turning down Stanford to attend a school like USCarolina are exceedingly rare.
now back to our regularly scheduled, “it’s all about what’s best for that kid,” banter.
@MiddleburyDad2 My kid is super, super appreciative of his situation, us and his teachers. Also, he expressed his thankfulness to us that he realizes that there were a lot of things we did that made it possible for him to have this opportunity and that he was not going to waste this opportunity. I told him not to put pressure on himself to try to do too much just because he was a full pay.
@websensation Totally understand your/his decision. We’d do the same if given the same choice.
Sort of along this thread…My D applied to Stanford and we are in the Bay Area. Loooong long shot of course. Even though we have been there many times for this or that camp or event, to be fair to my youngest, I thought we should take the time to do a tour so she could see “the real” Stanford, rather than just the stadiums, tour buses, and mobs of people with cameras (the main parts a casual visitor sees). I told my husband we were setting up a tour for the next week to check the school out, to which he replies, “You mean, if she gets in…if she gets in to Stanford…you really have to tour Stanford before you know whether she would go there?..Really? Think about that.”
Not to stereotype (ok just a little), but ya gotta love a man’s brain sometimes.
Of course it isn’t that simple, but sometimes it just might be.
Congrats @websensation!
@MiddleburyDad2, of course it is rare, but that’s what this thread was about, does it ever happen. To the OP, it isn’t going to happen as they’ve decided to pay for Stanford. For this guy who picked Santa Clara, I believe that it is true because it was widely announced at the school. He missed graduation because he was running in the state track meet, and taped his speech, and that caused everyone to talk about him. The high school was of course proud of all the schools he was accepted to, and because it was a catholic high school and he picked Santa Clara, the school wanted everyone to know who he was turning down too. The part about money not mattering is my opinion because his father was the head of a hospital system so I assume that he was earning millions and unlikely to submit a FAFSA or CSS.
@CADREAMIN @youcee Thanks. Bay Area has so many well-qualified kids. Good luck.
I know kids who have turned down Ivies for artsy schools like Bennington, Bard or Oberlin.