I have taken the ACT 2x. The first time, I got 33, 31, 31, 31 & the 2nd time I got 25 34 33 35.
I’m nor really shooting for Stanford but would you suggest I submit both to a superscoring school? or just the first one?
Because your title says the worst advice you’ve ever heard - and you said that was to be undecided rather than declare a major.
I replied IMO the worst advice is to not worry about finances - just apply. Another poster said they had never heard “don’t worry about finances” given as advice - and a lot of people are responding to that. I’m gathering that my experience of “worst advice” is more common than just where I live.
Your advice about not applying as undecided is worth discussing, but for many of us, it’s far from the worst advice out there. It only applies to those where finances aren’t an issue. Parents can and are willing to pay for anywhere.
Personally, I think this whole thread is a good one for students and parents to read. Folks should be able to glean from it what applies to them - and learn more about others too.
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For colleges that claim to meet full need, they should take into account the fact that you have multiple kids going to colleges at the same time (financial aid packages are adjusted every year). But don’t apply to schools like NYU.
I live near a non-flagship branch of our state’s university. For kids who can live at home and commute, it is relatively affordable. It has a couple of strong programs- accounting, elementary ed, early childhood. I am sad every year when I hear about kids I know who are heading there- not by choice, but by default- because none of their other options turned out to be affordable. So I’m with Creekland on this one. It’s a combination of bad advice, or no advice, or ignoring advice- but somewhere during the application process the focus on finances got lost.
Our flagship is not commutable from many parts of the state. And once you’ve added dorming to the equation, even some of the top students locally cannot afford the flagship. So the would-be engineers pivot to “business majors”, and the “could have been” epidemiologists end up as math majors (in a program designed to train middle school math teachers).
So this makes me sad. These kids could have found affordable options out of state with programs that would have gotten them where they needed to go. Or could have started at community college and then financed two years at the flagship with the money they’ve saved. But the community college is rumored to be “for slackers” (not true of course) and so they end up where they end up because cost becomes the issue in April when their parents FINALLY focus on the gap between what they can afford and where they’ve been admitted.
Not a tragedy- but the worst advice for sure was to “ignore the costs because there are scholarships”. Getting the $1K award from the realtors and the $500 stipend from the police benevolent association isn’t getting a kid meaningful financial support…
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https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sanfranciscocitycalifornia,US/PST045219 lists the median household income of San Francisco from 2014-2018 as $104,552. So whatever measure is saying that $117,400 is “low income” is saying that more than half of people living there are “low income”.
$117,400 does get significant financial aid at in-state UCB, according to its net price calculator.
Yes, and the other factor here is that threads evolve. It’s great to get varying points of view, and others have ideas about the worst advice they’ve encountered.
I agree that ignoring finances is a giant problem here on CC. There are so many kids who simply have no clue what their parents are willing to spend. And there are so many parents who are truly unaware of what college costs these days.
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Yes, but if the family has kids 4-5 years apart, the multiple kids attending college tend not to be in college at the same time as much.
Late to the game here, just want to point out that the two “worst” advice picks are really about two different things. The undecided one is about how to do the application. The financial one is whether to apply at all. Both are valid.
The financial one has LOADS of threads about it here on CC. Which speaks to the importance of the message. Not denying that. Totally agree with the message. And it bears repeating loudly.
But as a reader, it is frustrating when that dominant theme crosses into threads about other things and takes them over. It is ok for this thread to be just about advice on how to fill out an application to elite schools. I feel like that focus got derailed, which is a shame. There was an expert (and new voice!) willing to give his two cents, others here who also know a lot giving theirs, and they gave up and moved on.
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I think OPs need to choose more specific titles for their threads if they don’t want to derail their theme.
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Most Meet Full Need colleges take into account the number of kids who’ll be in college at the same time. But you run the NPC to learn how your net price is affected. At least, an idea.
But it’s still brutal to pay. The idea a 150k family can just dish out a net 35k+ ignores life’s realities.
And on less than that? Even IF college is reduced to the 9k noted above, that’s a huge chunk for struggling families.
Meet Full Need means per the college’s formula. Not necessarily “affordable” to an individual family.
And “Need Blind” means no advantage for applying as a poorer kid. The best of these kids may be desired, for the opportunity a good college gives them. But ime the reading copy of the file excludes financial details. (Except Questbridge.)
So yes, I agree the advice to ignore costs is worst.
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The title of the thread is:
The Worst College Advice I’ve Ever Heard
This reader got on the thread expecting to see posts detailing the worst college advice they’ve heard coupled with reasons, etc.
IMO the thread hasn’t strayed. If anything, it got stuck on the original post for a long time since that really isn’t the worst college advice out there for many of us.
If it had been intended to be a thread on declaring any specific major or not it could have been titled that way and likely wouldn’t have strayed much. It would also be far more likely to entice someone who is curious about declaring a major. Otherwise, they have to have ESP to realize that’s what the thread is really about.
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The failure to consider affordability is the biggest problem, but why do students and their parents who are smart enough to seek out advice on CC fail to consider the issue? Don’t most states require HS students to take a personal finance course to graduate? Many on CC are also focused on elite colleges. Shouldn’t they be smart enough to figure out their own families’ finances?
I honestly think that people just do not understand the costs until they start seriously considering the college process for their children. When many parents attended college, it was nowhere nearly as expensive as it is now. People hear “college is expensive.” It’s only when they start crunching numbers that they understand just how expensive.
@CateCAParent , the thread was started with a general title in the CA forum. This evolution of a topic isn’t unusual or out of order. The “new voice” has, as was intended, sparked an ongoing and relevant thread in which various users will drop in and out, typical of most longer threads on CC. The fact that people are continuing to post on it means that there is still interest in it. The nature of CC is that people share information and learn. Anyone may add to it, including those who want to discuss the initial post.
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A comment. At least through high school, the emhasis is on courses, grades, and overall standing as a student, wanting to be a “top” student, perceived as popular enough, etc. Life doesn’t hit these kids. It’s one reason we see so many of them asking about chances to tippy top holistic schools and only telling us stats and some leader titles. Their perspective is limited.
Then, you get adults who think they “get it” because they read it somewhere or someone told them, or they have an anecdote, or who-knows-what. And not all adults are good at projecting financial needs. Many of them are also just focused on getting the admit, how they “think” the app should be approached, etc. We all know there are days when it’s tough to wade through all the personal opinions on CC. (Ha!) Even this thread, at one point, painted the $$ situation as overblown. Alas.
No, not all high schools offer financial literacy. Even if they do, it takes experience to make it make sense.
Btw, we did not tell our kids the deep details of our finances. And trust me, numbers would not have made practical sense to them. BUT, I knew what we could afford. And the message to them was: no school is a dream college unless the net cost, the actual offer, came through as do-able. They understood that. And the notion of an “affordardable safety,” even if it was far from their dream choice or a mega elite.
That’s why we keep telling CC kids and families to run the NPCs and consider what they can pay, in umpteen varieties of wording. Not cuz we’re “off.”
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How many states have personal finance graduation requirements? - Blog says that 6 states require a standalone personal finance course, and 15 more have personal finance content in other required courses.
In terms of parents and families knowing about personal finance, remember that many Americans are not great at managing their personal finances. For example, only about a third of credit card users pay the full bill every month. Even high income people often have high spending habits that leave little or nothing left over for funding things like their own retirement or their kids’ college, and do not think about such things until late in the game (e.g. in their 50s or 60s for retirement savings, or in their kids’ senior years for their college). Low and middle income people have also been under increasing financial pressure over the past few decades, making an already difficult task for them even more difficult now.
Also, some parents may have remembered when they graduated high school, got a high school graduate job that paid enough to live independently, and worked their way through college when in-state public university tuition was $500 for a full time semester, so they may have an expectation that it is reasonably possible for their kids to do so.
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Maybe there’s some connection between the two topics we discussed in this thread after all: 1) students who need to figure out what they want to study in college, and 2) students who need to figure out their own families’ finances. 
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I don’t know if this is worst advice or worst assumption, but many parents I know on their first child applying to college think “if they want my kid badly enough, they’ll give him more aid”. They don’t understand the difference between aid and merit nor the very rigorous financial vetting that colleges perform. I’ve heard this delivered as advice from folks who don’t know what they’re talking about.
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There are colleges that will adjust merit on their own if they visit and feel student is a match. After a visit to admissions my D18 was offered more money from a school - $5000 per year.
Now I’m sure this is definitely not the norm. I would certainly not expect it, but it does happen.
Yes schools have the ability to adjust merit. But they don’t adjust financial aid just because they want the student. For that, a family must submit a change in financial circumstances and be re-vetted. Any additional financial aid (not merit) is based on the family’s financial status. So for schools that do not offer merit, there is no additional aid without proof of financial change.
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Absolutely! I read it as they won’t give more of either.