Stanford Full Pay vs Full Ride+ at Wake Forest

College Search & Selection
101

To be fair, bias is to be expected. Few posters have set foot on Wake’s campus, while many more have visited Stanford. If your son has visited both schools, he is in a better position to choose between them than most.

Wake is a great school with a good quality of life. He could hardly go wrong with choosing the scholarship there unless he’s deeply interested in a field that Wake does not offer or one in which it has limited offerings. Most notably, engineering is still in its infancy at Wake.

I do not entirely agree with LoveTheBard’s take on PhD program admissions, but that is something so variable by field that generalizations are useless.

102

Go to Columbia.
Grad school can be funded eith fellowship/TA/RA.
You still have time to earn enough foe your D’s education. Who knows? She may get a full ride somewhere too!

103

Stanford is one of the few schools that are worth the full price tag in my opinion. I went to HS across the street and Stanford provides an unparalled alumni network.

However, a free college education at Wake Forest is pretty incredible. Maybe you could split the difference and gift a good chunk of change upon graduation.

Fortunately either choice is great. It is not an obvious decision and some unstated variables should influence the final decision.

Best of luck OP!

104

A $300K difference is too much, especially when WF is a very good school. Unless you’re going into CS. Anything but CS - where you can go undergrad to WF and then to a Stanford for grad school, that’s what I would do. Also don’t discount the fact that the NC high tech scene is very up and coming and the growth potential is much higher.

105

@Happytimes2001 It’s funny you should say that as I think it’s quite the opposite. I went to two top 5 schools, and I often think those who fetishize a few select schools on CC didn’t attend one, as I just don’t see the same reverence for these schools from my classmates or alumni of elite schools generally. If you compare the outcomes of Stamps Scholars and other graduates of elite scholarships with HYPS grads you will find no difference on average. I’m amused by those who think attending an elite school is a $300k golden ticket.

106

Not true. DH and I both attended top schools and both ended up in a top grad school along side students from other top privates as well as state schools and schools I had never heard of. Grad school opened many doors for both of us. UG has not.

I think this is the crux of the issue. The intent matters. Banking and Wall street are often brought up in these kinds of discussions, but there are other areas as well, where the UG matters. There are times where a school offers something unique that make it worth the price. For example, I can see a film student’s family stretching to send her to USC. In our case, D19 will be accepting her most expensive option (although not nearly fully pay) because it offers a program she absolutely can’t get at other schools.

Luckily for you, there are no wrong answers here. You have two amazing choices.

107

@LoveTheBard Thanks for the shout out!

Sorry if it wasn’t clear. I was discussing professional schools law med and b school only. So it appears like we actually agree on that narrower group. That’s what I had intended to say in any case.

Provably a function of the mcat lsat and gmat allowing for a broader group to acces these opportunities.

I am sure your daughters experience is representative.in the humanities. I have no idea and trust you on this.

108

OP, I do think @Twoin18 raises a great point, which is, what are your son/daughter’s future plans? If they plan to go into some careers, it will matter. If they plan to study something that isn’t germane to making money or earning a high income due to a knowledge career, then that’s another path.

Some kids want to study a subject in which the job opportunities are not altogether that lucrative. Others want to go into a career where you are evaluated based on your knowledge ( part of which is your education). Try selling WF to a client in some fields. Then try selling Stanford. Yep, there’s a difference.

Some people will pay for the difference, some will not. Personal choice. $300 K over the course of a career ( if you do the math and think it’s worth 7ishK per annum). My experience has demonstrated that those with a top education often earn far more than those with a standard/good education. ( In all the fields I have worked in that translated into far more than 7K per annum). Again depends on the fields OP pursues. Also, this doesn’t appear to be the case where a kid takes on so much debt that they are burdened for two decades. The parents have resources.

In terms of post graduate, it really depends on the program. The student might pursue a Phd and cost will be negligible, or they might pursue an MBA which might be very costly. Again, begin with a plan and you will have different results.

109

I appreciate your insight, happytimes2001, but you base it up on the assumption that of course there will be career differences based on college choice. For a very few, that may be true. But 394 Stanford students were rejected from Mckinsey offers that year, and they probably did accept someone somewhere who went to WF. It is just not the case that 400, or even 40 Stanford kids will end up at McKinsey-4 kids accepted their offers that year. So for a few, it may matter, but they likely will end up in the same place regardless, usually sorrounded by people who attended “lesser” schools. I know of no workplace or grad school composed exclusively of HYPSM grads, and all schools have different strengths and weaknesses. A different relative attends a small school far down the prestige chain from these schools, but that college runs circles around HYPSM in career prep and services for their students. Being the best, overall, does not mean the best in everything nor the best for your student.

110

@roycroftmom Good points. I think it does depend on career choices. But it extends beyond Mckinsey and the consulting world. ( Though that world is replete with people from the same schools). I actually did work in a company that only hired HYPSM grads and it wasn’t pretty. (MIT on the tech side and another school on the business side-turned into a study in dysfunction).
Every kid and parent wants different things. Ideally, I think fit is very important. For the intellectual kid, the resources at a place like Stanford are going to be pervasive rather than a group of select scholars. That means something. Not to mention the alumni network ( being able to call on thousands rather than hundreds).

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112

OP - we were in a similar position during ds’s cycle, though the full ride(s) were at MUCH lower-ranked schools. Ds received a full-ride at one school that had a Stamps, but he did not receive the Stamps there. He also received merit at a T20 - not full tuition but sizeable/significant. When he narrowed his choices, his top three were one of the full rides, the T20 offering merit, and Stanford at full-pay. Without knowing how much your “+” is over your income of $300K, we were similiarly situated to you financially, though we had about $230K saved and ds is our only. The full ride at the lower-ranked school had a program in a field that ds was strongly interested in at the time. Stanford had been and was the dream school, but my ds is pretty pragmatic. He somehow developed a spreadsheet with weighted factors for pros and cons for each of his top three choices and each school was “scored.” We used what I call the “pile approach.” The monies we had saved were ds’s “pile.” He could use that $230K as he saw fit to fund his education. If he chose full-pay at Stanford, that was going to suck up the entire pile (we were fine with covering the other $30-$35K needed over the four years he would attend). If there was money left in the pile at the end of his undergrad (because he chose one of the lower-priced options), the remaining balance was for him to use for grad school or travel or any other reasonable expenditures (save, car, toward a house purchase, etc). He knew going in that if he chose Stanford he would be on his own for graduate school should he pursue that. Med school was never on his radar.

Ds chose Stanford. There have been many allusions on here to certain career paths, post-graduate plans. Since you have not stated what those might be for your ds, I do think it makes it more difficult for folks to weigh in. Ds is now in MBB consulting, and I agree with others that for certain (narrow) fields where one attends undergrad matters. I also agree with the poster that attending one of those undergrad schools certainly does NOT guarantee a pathway into one of those fields. The competition is strong, and the number of actual hires is few, at least for MBB consulting (not sure about banking). The opportunity is there for his firm to cover tuition plus some living expenses for an MBA under certain circumstances. They won’t cover it just anywhere. I am not sure of all the ins and outs of how it works, but that is now his circus, not mine.

I never understand the “he can go there for grad school” statements. That is not guaranteed. Of course, without knowing your ds’s plans, whether or not grad school needs to be factored in is an unknown.

Your ds is clearly an intelligent young man. I understand wanting to guide him and get all the perspectives that you can. But, IMO, it is ultimately his decision. Tell him his “pile” amount and stop talking about it to him. Give him some space to ponder. He still has a month to decide. He needs to own whatever he decides. Revisit (or visit) both schools if possible. It took my ds about a week to reach his conclusion, and it was really hard for me not to talk about it/ask what he was thinking over and over again. If your ds wants your views, he’ll ask. If the pile for Stanford doesn’t work because of little sister, then take it off the table.

As someone who is an only child and who has an only child I am probably not the best to weigh in on equity among siblings. Providing BOTH of your children with a debt-free undergraduate degree seems “fair,” to me. You have indicated that little sister is likely not going to be attending the same caliber of university as her brother. Level of elitism and level of price are not, however, correlated. Only you can know how much you can save for little sister over the next four years. Only you can know the family dynamics of fairness and equity and what that means in your household. To me, making sure the dollar amount is even is irrelevant, but obviously others differ and believe each “pile” should be exactly the same.

All the best to your ds as he decides. Please let us know the outcome.

113

Great advice here and congrats to your S!!

What does strike me is that it does seem odd to offer full-pay to your oldest child IF that means you might not be able to do so for your younger child. If the plan is to build up your savings so you can have the same resources for her in 5 years, that’s fine.

But even if she’s not likely to go to such an elite college, telling your younger child she has to go to public U does seem ‘unfair.’ What if her best fit is a small, private that is not super selective but doesn’t offer her merit? If that’s where she might grow and bloom the most, but all the $$ went to Stanford, that doesn’t sit well.

This is coming from the perspective of being the youngest of three kids in my own family and a parent who has told 2 kids their max budget – and it’s the same for both.

114

FWIW The Stamps Scholarship award varies among its 30 something partner schools. At some schools, Stamps covers only two years. Not sure, but I believe that the Stamps award at Wake Forest University is the most generous in that it is a full ride for four years plus stipend.

115

OK, but even if she doesn’t seek out a national university unless she’s going to community college or your state’s public colleges are a great fit and heavily taxpayer subsidized, all that means is she’s unlikely to get a full tuition scholarship so you’ll be looking at full cost for whereever she goes. And if you haven’t already made this disheartening discovery, there’s not a huge amount of difference in the cost between Unknown Podunk U type colleges and a Stanford type college. So if she wants to go to any private college or your state schools aren’t heavily subsidized, you’ll be looking at paying approximately as much for her to go to college as your son if he goes to Stanford at full pay. Do you have the ability to pay for that for her or will you tell her she can’t choose a college that costs the same amount as you paid for your son to go to college?

116

In the end it’s a very personal decision. Everybody’s needs, resources and mindset is different. Do what’s right for you. Both opportunities are great.

117

I do think there’s a tendency to forget quite how much money is involved, it can seem like it’s just “a lot” whether it’s $100K or $300K, though in reality that makes quite a difference for things like buying a house etc.

But you can always try putting out ten $20 bills on the table, thinking about how you’d feel about ripping them up, and telling yourself that’s what you’d be doing every day for the next four years.

118

We had similar choices, and we went different ways with different kids. We laid it all out and offered the cost differential as graduation presents to the kids. The one who chose the state school was able to fund his lean years as a poor starving artist with the differential. He enjoyed his college years immensely. My kids, like yours, had the privilege of a choice.

119

Based purely on rankings, Stanford is ranked 7 and Wake Forest is ranked 27. Stanford will NEVER be worth $300K more than the Stamp Scholarship at Wake Forest. Never! Both Schools will open doors, but Wake Forest awards 10 of these scholarships a year. That amounts to 100 Elite students every 10 years which is a small network by itself. The opportunities are endless. I get the prestige that comes with graduating from Stanford, but $300K more than Wake Forest? Nah

120

@milee30 Yes - We definitely plan on paying for my daughter’s undergrad.

All - I’ve seen the question about my son’s plan of study repeatedly. I wish I knew.