<p>My husband and I are having a disagreement about this...i can't call it a fight because neither of us are sure of our viewpoint :)...so thought i'd toss is out to you all. </p>
<p>D is a junior and we've been visiting colleges from Duke to Georgetown to NYU. We have a trip planned to Boston to visit BU & Tufts. We can afford these trips...we do them cheaply...and our kids are in public school and that's given us the latitude to spend money ons smaller things like this.</p>
<p>my husband's concern is not that our D will be devastated if she doesn't get into one of these colleges (she's a happy kid who would likely shrug it off) but that she <em>will</em> get into one of them....and then we cause a big brewhaha because we can't afford to send her. Or, rather (and here's where it gets confusing), we are right on the cusp of being able to afford it...but it would be a major/huge financial undertaking for us...doable...but still a bit scary. And my husband would rather not have to face that choice...that is, go the smarter financial route. Now here's where we really differ...he believes we shouldn't even visit because it paints a picture of false hope. Your opinions (and I'll give more details as our discussion grows :) </p>
<p>Which colleges have you visited that you can afford- and did your D get excited about those schools?</p>
<p>Visiting Duke only to tell your D that she’s going to (pick the ugliest, non-flagship U in your state) isn’t a great use of anyone’s time IMHO. Have you run all the calculators with various scenarios to figure out a list of schools which are within your budget?</p>
<p>We are only visiting schools out of our price range if the school gives merit money. My D knows that the school will be an option only if she gets merit to bring it down. We took Tufts off the list because they don’t give merit. </p>
<p>There a number of ways to look at this. When we were in Pittsburgh for a college visit, it was doable and made sense to look at Duquesne, Pitt and CMU. Did them all in one day. Made for interesting comparisons, even if some or none of the schools were even on the list or possible. You can learn things from college tours even if they are not affordable schools for you or schools for which you have the stats or schools for which you have any interest. It can help narrow down the lists in the future. So a number of colleges we have visited were because the opportunity to do so was there. </p>
<p>Most of the colleges we visited were financially doable with some conservation on our parts. We decided we could pay for these schools. If you absolutely cannot pay for these schools, your kid won’t get merit or need based aid, and you absolutely will say NO to an acceptance and matriculation, I would NOT visit.</p>
<p>To me, that is like looking at a $1,000,000 home when you absolutely can’t spend more than $300,000. </p>
<p>I’m with thumper1. The most important thing is to get the parents on the same page and then be transparent with your daughter. If the absolute most you would be willing to pay is $40k/yr, tell her exactly that. If a school costs $60k, she’ll need to get merit to cover the rest. I think it’s reasonable to visit only schools where there’s at least a slim chance of getting that merit. </p>
<p>We knew we had a high EFC during sophomore year of high school. We made a policy that every school had to give merit scholarships. We visited Northwestern which only gives need based aid because we were in Chicago for spring break and looked at 2 other colleges. It wasn’t a great tour/visit but helped with that mid-size category that we hadn’t explored. </p>
<p>If you have all the time in the world and love looking at colleges I suppose you could visit everything, but it seems like a huge waste of time and bound to end up in disappointment. I think setting the budget is priority number one. You can apply to schools that you aren’t sure you’ll be able to afford as long as you are crystal clear with your kid what your limits are. In these days of online calculators though, there are less likely to be financial surprises (good or bad) than you might expect.</p>
<p>All that said, I do think it’s okay to visit colleges that your kid won’t be applying to, to let them stand in for types of colleges. So for example, I took my kid to see Bard because it was close to Vassar which we were also visiting that day. I knew he would think it was too small and too rural, but I wanted him to see up close what small seminar classes looked like and to hear the spiel about doing senior projects. </p>
<p>I also have a junior and we are only visiting schools that are affordable. We are headed to Boston in a few weeks and have taken a school there off the list because it’s simply not affordable.</p>
<p>we visited a school (alma mater) that is need based aid only. now it could be a problem, because we don’t know what our need will be calculated as, or if we can afford it. but how do you say “you can’t visit the college i graduated from”?</p>
<p>Using houses for sale as an example, I know plenty of folks that love touring houses so open for inspection, and many do go to home tours way over their price range. They look for ideas. </p>
<p>But when one is dealing with young people, it’s wise to take into consideration how that student would take it. Would looking at HPY likely get the kid thinking that is it in terms of what would be the best places to go? Or can the student extract from the visit thing useful in assessing other schools? It all depends.</p>
<p>We were in a similar boat. While at Georgetown, we left the tour once we learned they gave no merit aid. It was early in our search (and we knew NOTHING about college financing) and we were in DC for a vball tourney anyway. Much later in our search we really wanted to see Northwestern while in Chicago for a wedding but nope, no merit aid, no tour. We did, however, go to see a number of Ivys that give no merit aid because we wanted to experience those first hand. We also went to Vandy and Duke who aren’t known for substantail merit aid but at least there was a possibility. </p>
<p>And then we visited a lot of schools w/ merit aid to pick the ones that our kids liked best. (Fordham, Northeastern, Pitt, Miami, BU, GW, OSU, UMD, UDel etc., etc., etc.). </p>
<p>So our plan was to visit schools with merit aid and Ivys. We are 6 weeks away from making a decision and frankly, we are thrilled with how our plan is working out. We have a number of options, those that would cost our EFC and those that will cost 1/3 or less of our EFC. </p>
<p>We have done a bit of both–driven around schools that were in any area we were visiting for vacation or other purposes and also spending a bit more time at schools that we thought were realistic in terms of $$$ and academics for S. It was always our understanding with S that he could only attend a school where he got significant merit, so that the school was more affordable. He ended up at a school that gave more than 50% tuition, which worked for us & he was happy there.</p>
<p>We visited many many schools most of which we could never afford – we then applied to probably the most expensive private schools in the country. We have gotten very generous scholarship ( merit ) offers with our acceptance letters and now are waiting for the final financial award letters… so far for example on a 60k a year school we got a 25k merit scholarship then got $8,600 additional school scholarship leaving us to pay 25k a year in loans split between parents/student. State ( or generally cheaper schools ) gave much less aid and are ending up costing us the same as a super expensive school… so just saying … I would visit all the schools</p>
<p>These are all great comments. As the OP, I guess I’d say that we get great enjoyment out of these visits…much like touring a house that I can’t afford…but my husband does have a valid point that something that has been a lark until now, might turn serious if my D fell madly in love with a particular school. </p>
<p>We went to mostly colleges that we thought we could afford if DS got merit aid. There was only one college that DS didn’t like at all and it had to do with the campus itself. He called it the “Brick City” and was adamant he did not want to go there. Funny thing is though my mom who went there and thinks it has a beautiful campus…So I would visit any campuses that you are pretty sure your DD wants to apply to just to be sure… </p>
<p>I don’t think that it’s a good idea to visit schools that you know you can’t afford. I think it makes much more sense to focus on visits to schools that are in your price range. I do think it’s fine to show your D some schools that will only be affordable with merit or need-based aid. The whole process will go much better if you are honest with her about the financial realities from the beginning. </p>
<p>I think it’s a complete waste of time to visit schools you know you aren’t going to go to, unless perhaps it’s very close by and you are going early on in the process just to get the idea of that style of campus (urban, small LAC, etc). It’s hard enough to keep track of all the schools you may be seriously interested in. Just make sure you’ve investigated enough to cross it off the list.</p>
<p>You know your kid. Does dad have a good reason to think based on how sad she stilll is over a pink stuffed bunny that she lost at camp at 8 that this would be devastating or can you tell her this college is like considering dating Justin Timberlake/Usher (or whomever) ie mostly fantasy and not to get too attached. </p>