<p>S received $20,000 merit scholarship from Fordham, accepted EA...
Also accepted EA at Villanova, but no merit scholarship offered at all at this point.
I suspect since nothing has been offered by Villanova as of yet, nothing will be offered, especially since S does not qualify for need-based aid...
Fordham is not his first choice...
Villanova, of course, is his "dream" school...
He truly wants Villanova...
It's killing me to walk away from an $80,000 over 4 years merit scholarship...
I'm sure this is a common occurrence...
Any suggestions?</p>
<p>That’s the problem with having “dream schools”. (For the record, I’d prefer Fordham to V. straight up.) You’ll have to decide whether your monetary situation allows consideration of V. at the price offered. $80,000 buys a year and half of medical, business, or law school, 15 trips to Europe or Asia, two years learning to paint in Italy, five years doing unpaid public health work in AFrica. Of course, if it isn’t HIS money to spend, it is unfair to expect him to take that into consideration.</p>
<p>You’ll just have to decide what you’re willing to pay.</p>
<p>Can your family afford to pay for his first choice? If not, then it should be communicated to him. Maybe it will help him with decision making. Good luck!</p>
<p>We faced almost the exact same question this time last year with our son. We had literally been saving for college his entire life so the money was in the bank but I still struggled with the idea of paying that much more for his first choice school. In the end my wife pointed out that the reason we saved all along was so that he could go where he wanted to go, and so he did.</p>
<p>Will your son be responsible for any of his college costs? If so, let him know how much in loans he will have to take for each of the colleges he chooses. My son knew my husband and I would only pay X amount. He had to choose between 2 final colleges, both of which he liked equally well but for different reasons. The 1st college costs would end up being paid entirely by us because of the scholarships he received, and the 2nd college would cost him about $12,000 a year over the scholarships he received there. This would be $48,000 for 4 years. We asked him as he was on the fence, was the 2nd college worth that extra money in loans. I guess it wasn’t because he picked the first school. (Yeah, I hate to see kids in so much debt when coming out of school, especially as grad school might be a possibility.)</p>
<p>That much money would be tough to walk away from. It sounds like you probably can pay the full amount but are trying to decide if that’s a good decision. We’re in the same boat. mini brought up the point of dream schools and whether it’s his money to spend. Is the dream school thinking based on valid reasons (major, athletics, fit, etc.) or the sometimes uninformed and recently decided views of an 18-yr. old? How close a match or possibility does he consider Fordham? And would saving the $80K enable you to pay for grad school or celebrate his graduation (or earlier event) with a car or similar assistance?</p>
<p>Does it he just really dislike Fordham? He must have seen something he liked to have applied. Tell him to try to see himself four years down the road. Think of all the things he will want to have/do that the extra money might afford him. Four years seems like an eternity to an eighteen yr. old but it goes by so quickly. S1 took the scholarship money at our big state u. and was very happy to have a tidy sum still sitting in his college savings account when he graduated.</p>
<p>Are you so sure he won’t qualify for need-based aid? I’m pretty sure the only way to get $20,000 exactly at Fordham is to get the Dean’s scholarship (10k-22k), and it only goes above 10k on account of financial need determined by the CSS Profile. Maybe you will get some aid.</p>
<p>How about offering to split the $80K savings with him? See if V is so important that he’d give up the financial benefit himself.</p>
<p>I have read several threads here on CC in which a parent is lamenting the fact that their student enrolled in their dream college only to decide it was not for them and now wants to transfer. One kid announced on the second day of school that he hated it and wanted to transfer out ASAP. Chances of getting merit aid as a transfer are not good. </p>
<p>Find out what it is about Villanova that makes it such a dream. If your son can’t give mature answers, then it may not be worth the extra $80,000.</p>
<p>We had a similar situation with D1, great scholarship from her number 2 school, no money from her first choice and “dream” school. We laid it all out very clearly what each school meant in terms of money for her and us. She could walk away from UG at number 2 school debt free with us having the ability to help with grad school or other financial needs that may arise. If she chose school number one it would mean debt for her and us and really no ability for us to help her out down the road. She ended up going with the financially sound choice and is happy. She still sometimes"dreams" about the other school, but still points out that she is happy to know that she is on more financially sound footing. She is getting plenty of rigor at her current school which was one of her early on concerns.
I will say the process of getting to the decision was hard on all of us and H and I felt bad that we couldn’t just flat out say pick either its fine with us. We strongly felt we needed to show her the reality of either choice.
Good Luck – one year from now your child will be happy because he has two great choices!!</p>
<p>Couple of questions to ask yourselves/son:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Is Villanova’s academic programs/internship/job/grad school prospects so much better to be worth the extra $20k/year?</p></li>
<li><p>Is he willing to be responsible for the difference…or paying the entire cost himself if you & your spouse are so inclined?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>IMHO, the differences in #1 between the schools aren’t worth the difference in costs. That is, unless I am missing some info which demonstrates Villanova tops Fordham in those areas.</p>
<p>Which school one goes to for UG has impact on life after, and that needs to be carefully weighted. I don’t know much about either one of those schools, or what your son wants to do someday. 80K is a lot of money for anyone. It would be hard to throw it away for “Just because I like V better.”</p>
<p>We faced similar situation 4 years ago. D1 had a full scholarship at a second tier LAC, and full pay at a top 20 school. D1 asked us if she could go to the higher ranking school if she were to chip in 10K a year (summer job, and loans from us). H and I agreed to let her go to the school she wanted because she was willing to help out and ultimately we believed it would help her with her job search someday. We are happy with our decision, and she has a job when she graduates this June.</p>
<p>In our case, 20K merit was less that need based financial aid. Of course, D left all those full ride NMS scholarships.</p>
<p>If he received $20,000/yr from Fordham, then you must have qualified for some need based aid. As BiilyMc stated, the Dean’s Scholarship is $10,000/yr and any more than that is based on financial need. </p>
<p>You may want to call Villanova and let them know about what your son received from Fordham. See if they’ll match it. It’s a long shot, but worth a phone call.</p>
<p>Also, I just realized that you’re inflating the difference between the two. This isn’t a $20k/year difference, it’s a 10k/year difference. Fordham’s cost of attendance is between $56,500 and $58,000 (depending on if it’s Rose Hill or Lincoln Center), not to mention the costs of NYC. Villanova’s is $47,000. So Villanova has a $10k/year advantage naturally, so half of the $20k from Fordham goes to closing that gap. So this is a $40k difference over 4 years, not $80k.</p>
<p>By the way, I’m not saying anything bad about Fordham (I was accepted with scholarship and didn’t apply to Villanova), just trying to be helpful.</p>
<p>If it was a choice between full pay at Villanova versus a $20,000 scholarship at a third or fourth tier school, I would say go to Villanova, if you can afford it. If it was a choice between Villanova and a secular school and your son wanted a Catholic higher education, that would be another valid factor. However, Villanova and Fordham are both great Catholic schools and academically comparable. There should be no real academic reason to choose one over the other.</p>
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<p>Actually, from what I’ve heard from high school classmates and from colleagues, it seems Fordham has a slight edge in the internships/career opportunities area and are comparable in other areas. </p>
<p>I will also admit a slight bias because a few Villanova grad students gave such atrociously poor presentations at a grad student conference some years back that many attendees…myself included were taken aback. If anyone gave such a poor presentation at my LAC, the Prof would have failed it and the rest of us would wonder if he/she waited to the very last minute and the research was cribbed from a smattering of cliff notes, political polemicist hit pieces, and taking them all at face value with little/no analysis. It didn’t help that one of those grad students’ body language clearly communicated an “I cannot be bothered to listen to other presentations because mine is the best” attitude when others went to present their papers.</p>
<p>Both are great schools. I know several successful people who went to Fordham (both campuses). The best history professor I ever had went to Villanova for his undergrad (then Georgetown, Penn, Peace Corps). Though he attributed his teaching style to a professor he had at Georgetown, he says that Villanova was great. I have heard a lot of good things about both schools (and some bad about both, of course), and both are good schools.</p>
<p>villanova COA</p>
<p>Out-of-state tuition and fees: $39,930
Room and board: $10,620
Books and supplies: $950
Estimated personal expenses: $900<br>
Transportation expense: $600 </p>
<p>Fordham COA</p>
<p>Out-of-state tuition and fees: $38,602
Room and board: $14,491<br>
Books and supplies: $840
Estimated personal expenses: $1,540
Transportation expense: $790 </p>
<p>their COAs are not that far apart…one has a higher tuition and a “too low” estimate for "personal expenses…the other has a higher room and board. </p>
<p>Villanova is NOT worth $20k more. If Villanova won’t match the scholarship, I would choose Fordham.</p>