The failure by families to research costs properly (and be honest with themselves about the costs), exacerbated by the COVID pandemic, and dropping of testing requirements, has led to this year’s admissions chaos.
Many of my son’s friends have applied to up to 18-20 universities as a result, and this also aggravates the chaos.
This is why I hope everyone can commit to their choices and withdraw from their applications as soon as they reach a final decision, because so many applicants are living in this limbo.
We are in Northern Virginia (hence my Nova name) and my son applied to UVA in RD. But UVA has basically filled its incoming class with ED because of the flood of applicants, meaning my son has to look to OOS schools (he doesn’t want to go to William & Mary or VA Tech). At least UM is trying to take care of Michigan residents, whereas UVA is becoming out of reach for most NOVA applicants (even legacies and URMs).
Fortunately my son got into a flagship state university as an OOS applicant, and that university gave us merit $ to bring the cost down to in-state VA levels. Otherwise, the admissions chaos would be inducing even more nausea!
@NovaLox Just curious, how much of UVA’s class was filled by ED? I loosely followed the UVa thread, but wasn’t paying complete attention since my D21 is destined for a CA only (instate) school.
Yes, you have my sympathies. In Maryland, it’s basically UMCP or bust! Besides VaTech and W&M, GMU, JMU, VCU are pretty good schools! I think UMBC or Towson would probably be at the level of CNU or ODU in VA. I would rather send my kid to NOVA CC and transfer to a 4 year school than send her or him Frostburg or Salisbury.
For anyone wondering, i just talked to the financial aid office and they said that they will not reduce your grant/loan/work study offer until your fafsa EFC is exceeded.
Thankfully my son got into UMCP! lol. He didn’t apply to any other Maryland schools. He did apply to VA Tech though, we didn’t bother with UVA because it’s ridiculous to get into UVA as a Maryland resident. Didn’t want to just set our money on fire.
My son wants to wear blue and gold – not orange and blue or maroon and orange or green and gold – so fortunately he has a spot at a university with those colors that plays in the ACC (you can figure this out).
But he really wants to wear Maize and Blue! Like his dad!
Agreed. In addition to doing research on the front end and having realistic expectations, families need to prepare finances years prior to enrollment. I know several families who complain about tuition but spent the prior ten years not saving enough because they wanted to live a higher lifestyle. I feel for the student but their are consequences to actions.
Similar story here in Illinois. It’s hard to get into UIUC for Engineering, not the easiest for Business either and anything else is not that difficult. We aren’t like Michigan, Texas, NC or Indiana, etc that has decent backups if you don’t get in there. It is also really expensive for in state. One can choose to attempt to go in through DGS but that’s not recommended and very risky. Not worth it unless you’re willing to settle for some other major if things don’t go your way.
I also agree with others that parents and students have to be prepared for the high costs associated with college. It also just doesn’t end with the COA numbers either. You have to take into account clubs, business clothes (interviewing), greek life or other social clubs, “fun” money, travel, 12 month apartment leases in later years, groceries, etc. Often people think they will get 100% financial aid but that’s highly unlikely. Research in advance to know which schools provide merit so your student has options. There are some good mid to upper mid level schools that good students can get full tuition scholarships. I’ve been putting money away since the day my kids were born. By the time each were a freshman in college it’s more than 18 years of savings/investing. It can really add up fast believe it or not especially as we’ve been in a bull market for many years. NO one should take out any debt to go to college. There is a college for everyone that is affordable. It is not worth any amount of debt, period. Doesn’t matter if it’s this school, or an Ivy League. You’re not doing your children any favors by setting them on a path to debt at 18 years old. Many will still be paying for it in 20 years from now.
“families need to prepare finances years prior to enrollment” ~It is what it is. Wealth or lack of wealth is not stopping kids from getting into and going to top colleges. It is the competition from other kids and the level of parental involvement in preparing their kids to be competitive. At our kid’s public high school, families prepared their children to get into tops colleges before high school started. Parents decided who had a competitive chance for Val and Sal. Typically, at our high school, kids take their first AP class, geology as a freshman. Some of the parents were proactive in successfully lobbing our high school in allowing their child to take 3 Ap classes as freshmen. The top rank kids are graduating with 19 ap classes(full years each) and additional online AP classes from places like Northwestern and likes. We had friends who had their 6th grader taking the ACTs and years later it paid it off with their child becoming a presidential merit winner and hopefully will admitted to their dream school. If you want your child to be admitted to Cal Tech you need to send your child to summer math camps at Stanford and Berkley to give them the edge in being admitted over hundreds of kids who are super passionate about math and science instead of whatever your child wants to do over summer vacation. None of it really matters. What matters is being alive, enjoying life, being kind, compassionate, and flowing with life. For the kids admitted to top colleges without full pay parents you either take on debt or follow the merit $$$ to another school. Trust and follow your intuition. Life will be amazing.
UVA has a higher percentage of in-state students than Michigan does, but it is a smaller school.
I agree though, the in-state admissions are haywire at uva this year because (from what I’ve seen) a surge in test optional ED and EA applicants.
“What matters is being alive, enjoying life, being kind, compassionate, and flowing with life.”
100%! 10 years from now, no one really cares who was the valedictorian or salutatorian or how many AP classes they took, but they will remember if they were a nice person. And, if you’re that kid, you don’t want to look back in 20 years and say, “my parents never let me be a kid”. I have always tried to let my kids drive their choices, as long as they were reasonable. When my kids got really into Chess, every Sunday I sat there all day at chess tournaments. Then one day, bam they had enough. When they played LAX, sat there in the freezing cold watching them play until that too ended. I had one kid that loved taking classes in Northwestern’s CTD program, and others that wouldn’t go near there with a 10 ft pole. When the opportunity came for them all to take the SAT in 6th grade, we kaboshed it. Plenty of time for that later. They’re kids. Summer was the time to wind down and have fun going to day camp, then overnight camp. Wildly happy that our school didn’t assign summer work for AP courses. I was a single mom with 4 kids and I ran around like a chicken with its head cut off and worked so my kids could have fun and have extras but so they could be kids. They didn’t take AP classes that I told them to take, but that they wanted to take. Period, simple as that. I had someone recently say to me that she didn’t want her son to take AP courses next year as what was the point if he may not be able to use them in college? I replied with “because they’re interesting to him and because he may find them challenging”. That is why. Not to get ahead. It is not all about getting ahead in the game of life or speeding through.
And the ironic thing is, even with all of that, I had a kid get into an Ivy League. No summer studying, or classes, or SAT in 6th grade. Just a kid who was a kid enjoying life, going to camp and not a math camp, but a regular camp in the Northwoods of Wisconsin and life was grand. Those days were great. When we wish we could all go back to just being kids and having no responsibilities!
Chess… Yep I was a chess dad… My son played on a top ten 10 high school (usually), and when much younger trained with one of the top state teams. It teaches so many lessons. Wish more would just learn the game…
But reading the above comments, many are fortunate including myself to start a 529 when the kids are young. But as you know many don’t have the same opportunities as us. Many can’t spare the extra /month to do so. We are fortunate. Not all are.
Saying that, yes I know way to many people that hardly saved and now are facing their consequences… But live in expensive houses and have the latest cars etc… For some it’s priorities. For others it’s keeping up with the joneses…
UIUC is way over priced. As you know you can go to many OOS for less. And you are correct. Not many options except the Privates if your not looking at Lacs.
Yeah I never understood the idea of living in a huge house, having expensive cars, fancy vacations and then suddenly realizing you can’t afford to send your kid to college and/or you didn’t put money away for them. If you can afford those things then you could easily have afforded $100/month in a 529 account for 18 years. Even with no gains and no interest it were just a straight money market 529, that would be over 20k and clearly a lot more when you take into the fact that money could’ve been invested instead.
Everyone unfortunately doesn’t have money to live in a big house or drive nice cars etc but they also don’t need to go to the most expensive colleges either. There are paths to get degrees from those schools if that’s their dream without taking 4 years of loans or they can just go to a less expensive school from the get go. You don’t need to go to a top 20 school to be successful in life. Plenty do and aren’t. It’s the person you are that defines you. These parents should instill that in their kids.
My son got into UVA and their COA is 77k! They don’t have a top engineering program so while UVA is a fantastic school and of course would open doors even with their engineering program not being as strong as others , for 77k we can take a pass and he can go to one the other less expensive schools he got into. There’s a right place for everyone!
Heh, how did you get in here…thought we locked the door .
Purdue is really a great bargain when comparing to other schools. For some reason it wasn’t held in the same regard with high school students when compared to schools like Michigan. I think that has changed over the last 5 years and now that parents are shopping cost to ROI… It’s truly a great school and bargain.
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