What have you done with your kids to get ‘Reach’ schools on the list, when you are unable/unwilling to pay full price? My D is one of those kids with high stats (So far. She’s a junior) that will probably allow her to go to a good school, with merit aid. But, it doesn’t look like she can go to any ‘elite’ (there’s that word) schools due to cost/no merit. How do you make a kid excited about this process and its outcome, if she doesn’t feel she is able to present herself to the finest suitors?
Why is it necessary to have schools? Our reach school is a financial reach, but I don’t think my son will suffer academically if he doesn’t attend a "prestigious " school. He is applying to several honors programs to challenge him.
Finest suitors? Are you buying a brand of clothing or a bumper sticker for the car? Is it about perceived prestige or is it about getting an excellent education.
Does your daughter plan to pursue a career where she needs a graduate degree? Choose an undergraduate program highly regarded for her field that is affordable and will well prepare her for graduate school.
Too many kids obsess on the name of the school and place themselves into a poor situation on many levels. They get weeded out from the major they wanted and are saddled with high debt.
Isn’t it better to be in the top 1/4 of the entering class than barely getting in? Wouldn’t it be better to be in an honors college and have unique opportunities to excel than running to stay in place in the middle of the class?
There are hundreds of schools that provide great education. It’s not 8 or 20 schools. Cure the EICD (elite institution cognitive disorder) and your daughter will be excited to go to a great school that fits her!
Her reach schools would be those where the needed merit scholarships for affordability would be reaches for her.
Have her apply to one of the very selective schools that offer a handful of merit awards, like Duke and Emory. She could also shoot for one of the service academies.
Check out Stamps partner schools (which includes several elites):
http://www.stampsfoundation.org/partners/partners/
And Robertson as well (for UNC-CH and Duke) students: http://robertsonscholars.org/
You can’t.
Her feelings are her business.
In fact, it may be your role to assure her that it’s OK for her to be less excited than some of her friends are because her options are, in fact, less exciting.
If she has a natural tendency toward frugality, then she may be excited about hunting for full rides and such.
There are some really excellent schools that offer merit awards, but getting one is like an acceptance to HYPSM…highly competitive. If she has the profile for a top school, it’s certainly worth considering applying to these schools as her financial reaches. If she gets an award that makes attending possible, that in itself is hugely exciting. So I’d say check out WUSTL, Emory, duke, Vanderbilt, university of Southern California, upitt. For lower selectivity: urochester. And for automatic merit based on stats alone, Alabama.
Yes, the merit scholarships that aren’t guaranteed for her stats, can be her reaches.
We didn’t have reaches for either D. Basically all matches/safeties. One waitlist each and we were able to compare merit aid offers. All the schools they applied to they would have been happy to attend.
Is she the one who’s not excited because “the elite” are missing or is that you? Neither of my Ds was interested in an Ivy (which was good because we would have been full pay).
@ucbalumnus She does tend toward frugality, so you’re right. I think she will find that part very exciting…the quest for the most $.
@LucieTheLakie @RenaissanceMom Thanks for the suggestions with ‘financial’ reaches.
@Erin’s Dad I know she’ll be OK wherever she goes. I’m not concerned with prestige. I just want to keep her motivated to finish strong so that she has the best possible chance, even if it isn’t an Ivy.
I had to walk down this road with my daughter recently as well. I told her what our financial situation is and what I think is the best strategy to get her where she wants to be in 10 years - a path that does not require a prestige school. I gave her a thorough briefing and analysis. Her reaction reflected how much she’s grown to appreciate “grown-up problems,” given that she’s not had to give up anything because we couldn’t afford it in the past. She had a mature, thoughtful response. "…thank you for thinking so much about my future’ were her words or something to that effect. She didn’t act disappointed, to my surprise. Over the next several weeks, we are building a spreadsheet together, and she’s quite excited about plotting her path based on our financial challenges. She’s gone off on her own to look for scholarship opportunities and has been very enterprising. You’ve raised a strong daughter, right? This approach worked for me, so maybe it can work for you too?
We did not make our D. excited about colleges, she did not care to go to any of the Ivy / Elite, despite a push from her GC, she stood firmly on her own. She said that she will do fine ANYWHERE. She did not even checked ranking, was not her criteria at all. She choose her UG very carefully, made sure that she belong there and there are opportunities there for her to accomplish ALL of her goals, not only academic ones. She did just that, even was able to go to NZ with the organized group from her college that went there every year - and that was on additional Merit award for Returning students, based on her college GPA. Well, she wanted to visit the filming grounds of the Lord of the rings and she did just that and more in NZ!
Stats wise, D. graduated #1 from the #2 private HS in our state, attended in-state public on full tuition Merit award plus some more later, graduated #1 pre-med in her UG class and was accepted to 4 Med. Schools, including top 20s. There was another private UG that also offered her close to full tuition, but it did not satisfy ALL of D’s criteria for attending. Speaking of which, the personal match is important, not the rankings, being Elite, or Ivy. Personal criteria list is the most important when looking for college. It will work the best if kid attends at the place that matches her personally. If such a place offers high Merit award, it is an indication that adcoms also feel that an applicant is a good match for their college. At the end, the student efforts will determine the student’s future, not the name of the college.
BTW, some other in-state publics did not offer D. much at all. High stats do not guarantee a high Merit at every place, only at places that feel that an applicant is a good fit for them. So, high Merit offer is a good indication that a kid will be happy there. Best wishes to a hard working girl!
OP, have you run the Net Price Calculator for the traditional reach schools? Nearly all of them – Ivies, Stanford, Chicago, MIT, Duke, Rice, Vanderbilt, WUSTL, Emory, etc. – generally offer very good financial aid. Often a middle class family, for instance, will pay the same price as they would at their state flagship, or even less.
Even non-elite schools have plenty to get a kid excited! I recently took the daughter of a family friend looking at colleges. Only state U’s. Between the rec centers, the clubs, the social opportunities and the excitement of the tour guides – my young friend was thrilled with what each campus offered.
If your daughter hasn’t visited the campuses, go!
Our D was in this situation. There are quite a few elite and semi-elite schools that offer non-need based scholarships. We gave our D the option of visiting and applying to any or all such schools. Here are a few of them: UVA, Vanderbilt, Boston College, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Notre Dame, Northeastern. My D applied to one of them. It was absolutely her top choice. We had figured she’d get in, and she did, but she received a financial rejection. It ended up being the only school on her list that we were not able to afford.
The race for merit is exciting in its own right. Once all results were in, D had 6 solid schools from which to choose. Of those, she went back and forth between her top 2 until she finally made her decision after an accepted students day.
ETA: I don’t think the college application process needs to be exciting, but I did see excitement and/or pride in my D’s eyes every time she was awarded a huge scholarship.
@prezbucky I honestly have to run more of the NPCs. When I started doing that earlier, I was a little disappointed with the results I was seeing. Plus, I haven’t seen any yet taking into account merit aid, although I heard they exist. This wouldn’t include any schools where competitive merit is possible. I do need to do that, although I would be shocked that one differs greatly from another. People keep pushing them, so I’ll give it a try. Thanks!
My daughter had good stats and we wanted merit aid. She applied to very good schools where her stats put her in the top 25%, any of which she would have been happy with. There were other schools she would have put on the list if we didn’t need merit aid, but it wasn’t an option. She received nice scholarships from all the schools she applied to and had good choices in the Spring. I think focusing on having good choices should be the goal. The glow of high prestige only lasts so long; be concerned with the learning environment and fit.
I really think if you are honest about what you can afford - and I think it’s eye-opening for kids to learn about family finances - I know mine didn’t have a clue what we paid for mortgage and taxes - they will understand. Feelings are feelings, they may nevertheless be a little disappointed you aren’t richer, or don’t live in a place with a lower cost of living, but they’ll get it. It’s fine to go after some of the scholarships that are really elite like the Robertson, if she’s really is a competitive candidate, but you need to make it crystal clear that some schools will only be affordable if the scholarships come through.