<p>paperplane–you are missing the point–that ONE table is not the only place to find information–especially since it just came online what, 2 weeks ago. Instead of rambling about how she didn’t want to pay OOS tuition for her D she could have posted links to 10 other places to fine cost information for colleges–starting with the Common Data Set …it’s just a waste of newspaper space, end of story.</p>
<p>What is interesting in the choice is the 2 OOS colleges. NC has 16 college campuses and UNC-CH and NCAT are very different from each other.</p>
<p>NC caps OOS students to no more than 18%, it is legislatively mandated, and at times that number is much less than 18%, so a competitive admit. As far as big public univeristies UNC-CH is rather VERY large while NCAT is much more like a mid-sized LAC with a VERY technical emphasis. UNC-CH has no enginerring while A&T has one of a handful of accredited ABET engineering schools in NC, also has alot of ag stuff while UNC has none…it is all over at NCSU with the vet school. A&T and NCSU has the animal science majors, the engineers, the architecture (NCSU has architecture, A&T arch engineering)…UNC-CH has the other stuff.</p>
<p>So as far as schools go they are very different. Both publics because they are supported by the state but their size, missions, purposes, histories, focuses and campus feel are VERY different. COA at A&T is also much lower than Carolina. But what they DO have in common is a huge amount of school spirit.</p>
<p>I am only so familiar with both as that I have 2 sons at both schools!</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>Usually the stuff Ms. Singletary writes is savvy from a financial pespective. In this column she dropped the ball. Maybe she’ll see our CC input, but at any rate, her subsequent work on this subject should be interesting…</p>
<p>I agree with agent 99. Most parents don’t know what they don’t know.</p>
<p>I stumbled upon cc during the college research process and learned so much about everything related to going to college. I was fortunate that I started the process early while my kids were still freshman.</p>
<p>The hard to face the dichotomy that now exists. Schools are getting much tougher to get into and the expectation/confidence that a kid will get in is higher despite a trend beginning of lower and lower SAT perforce nationwide.</p>
<p>Public schools are getting better at building false confidence than they are at real accomplishment.</p>
<p>never read her stuff, but methinks y’all are assuming facts not in evidence. </p>
<p>She never said her D applied ONLY to four publics. (And as a URM with “great grades”, in prestige-driven DC, I find that extremely hard to believe that she would counsel her D to ONLY four apps.)</p>
<p>Instead, perhaps she wrote her column as IF a common person, from the position of a common family applying to the local publics. (It would not have been much of a column if she wrote that her D received boatloads of merit money from say, Emory or was accepted EA to Yale, which is out of reach to the common person.)</p>
<p>Her daughter wanted specific things in a school which precludes some very good colleges. I think she did a very efficient job if she just applied to those four. A reach school with all the bells and whistles that she wanted, another rah rah type school in the same state, and two schools in state, one the state flagship. MD has other fine schools but they don’t fit the criteria as well as the ones she selected. UMBC and StMarys of MD just aren’t the type of schools the girl wanted.</p>
<p>I’ll cut a break for Ms. Singletary, but…</p>
<p>I don’t agree with her opinion that finding out the true costs of college is a mystery. It just takes some legwork. With the coming of the great recession and yearly jaw-dropping increases in tuition, schools are publishing their COA with much clarity these days.</p>
<p>Her point about the relative uselessness of the new government “aid” to parents is is correct. But I wouldn’t look to a federal agency for that information anyway as it stands to be invariably incomplete and out-of-date.</p>
<p>
Maybe the entire column is fictitious. ;)</p>
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<p>Our D only applied to 5 colleges and was accepted at all of them. She received a full merit scholarship to the school she selected. Personally, I don’t see the need to apply to 10 or more colleges, but that’s just my opinion.</p>
<p>Give the woman a break! Now you’re saying she made up the entire column? Why are some of you so critical of others?</p>
<p>I have been reading Singletary for years and her big thing is avoiding debt and taking financial responsibility. She ministers at her church about his topic (and has mentioned it many times in her columns). She makes no bones about not borrowing $$ for college. Given her stance on this, I am somewhat surprised UNC even made it to the list, given the OOS price tag. She has made it clear in the past that state schools and reasonable price tags are perfectly fine for getting a good college education, so the fact there are no privates comes as no surprise. </p>
<p>Yes, I know, privates can offer some great packages. But you know, there are a LOT of full-pay families (or borderline full-pay) out there who are happy to find places that they can afford and let the merit $$ offered, if any, actually reduce their EFC.</p>
<p>Do I think Singletary could stand to be more savvy about the school selection process as she advises her kids? Sure. However, I would certainly hope that the schools reflect the <em>daughter’s</em> choices for the things she is interested in studying. The D’s stats are none of our business, either. </p>
<p>And if the D’s in at UMD Honors, she may well get some merit $$ as well. Not sure I would turn down in-state UMD with merit $$ for OOS-UNC at full pay. We know a couple of kids who had that choice and they picked UMD.</p>
<p>Agree,CountingDown, that it seemed surprising that UNC was even on the list,given what she said about cost.</p>
<p>Older kid applied to 1 school, younger kid applied to 3. So, for our family, applying to 4 schools would seem like overkill! :)</p>
<p>sevmom –</p>
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<p>I think we are definitely in the minority here on the CC forum. At least that’s the impression I get.</p>
<p>For those who are applying to get high numbers finanical / merit money, a lot of schools is advisable. The same with those who have mostly highly selective schools on the list. But for those who have a school with rolling admissions or EA that suits them just fine, the list can be cut right at that point either to Game Over status or eliminating all but the schools favored over that one. That happened with my one son. 20 friggin’ schools on the list, with even more under consideration but when his EA accepts came in, we were down to 3 more. When the money isn’t involved, it makes it even easier, and in MS’s case, all of the school’s were pretty much in affordable range other than UNC_CH.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse, That is how it went for older kid. But he had only 4 schools on his list total initially as possibilities-his state flagship (which he applied ED to when they still had ED), an Ivy, another top 10 private, and then another instate school as his safety. When he was accepted ED to the flagship (which he loved), he was one and done. So, technically, he may have ended up applying to as many as 4 schools but it never came to that.</p>
<p>No one is bashing Michelle’s column. It’s criticism and well founded at that. The woman writes a financial column for one of the largest newspapers in the country. Her column is of two minds – one is a critique of the new government scorecard – and the other is a very minimal dip into the vortex that is finding and financing for your child’s college.</p>
<p>I understand that she used her personal situation to show how the “scorecard” is ineffective, but she didn’t quite pull it off. It opened up far more questions than it answered, her information was incomplete.
And frankly the example she gave about the student not being able to afford college is hyperbole. What about community college? What about taking a gap year and working to save money for college? What about applying to a smaller LAC where your stats are in the 75th percentile?
She should’ve just focused on the scorecard and then tackled the larger subject of college admissions and financing at a later date.</p>
<p>
Not just surprising, but also ironic that a “personal finance” columnist paid no attention to her own personal finances.</p>
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<p>Yes,mokusatsu, Her statements that she was aware of the NPC, knew not to expect money from UNC and was clearly prepared to ,in her words,break her kid’s heart, makes the whole thing not seem to make a whole lot of sense. I really am surprised that someone that writes about personal finances seems less than financially savvy on this issue.</p>
<p>The article could be said to have done at least one thing based on this whole thread. </p>
<p>It has proven beyond doubt that depending on the govt to give us the information we need to make important decisions is one of the dumbest decisions a person can ever make.</p>
<p>Mad: I think the scorecard was an effort to get Universities to pony up the information, forcing their hand so to speak. Sadly, it didn’t work.</p>
<p>I guess the scorecard is like another ranking where getting to the top of list means saying no to more kids, costing more than your competitors, being more steps removed from the real world and having a more enigmatic admissions process than anyone else.</p>