@FoxWarrior what do you mean by being a year ahead? And what’s wrong with being a year ahead?
Don’t make the decision for him. I am a college student on a full ride academic scholarship, and I would HATE to be paying for school. Maybe discuss the limitations of going to other schools with him, but it’s ultimately up to him. Hopefully he chooses the free path. There is absolutely nothing wrong with going to an “average” school; he just has to utilizes the resources the school provides. I think it is also important to consider what he wants to major in.
He is a full year ahead. Looking at 15 or 20 credits ahead. Depends on the day if I think it is good or bad. I tell him to use the extra time to focus on a second major as he can now fit it in and still graduate in 3.5 or 4 years tops. Each semester sooner is money saved. Don’t get me wrong I love the state university for all it offers. I guess now in college he has become more focused. Test scores don’t always predict results. For him it was money and test scores that limited his choices.
@FoxWarrior - I was not a fan of the undergraduate school I went to and wanted to get out asap. And so I got my bachelor’s degree in two years. Summers, winter session, and because of the scholarship I had, I could “challenge” courses - take the final during registration week and get course credit without have to take the actual course all semester - which meant I loaded up on credit hours every semester.
That meant I had very little debt when I graduated and was able to afford grad school - where I thrived, and which launched my career.
There’s no downside to him being ahead! Graduate early, save the money, go on with your life/post-bac.
Gatormama glad I found someone similar to my son. Any advice you have could you pm me? You two sound very similar.
@FoxWarrior I’m not seeing the problem. So he came in with credits. Great, a university catalog is overflowing with interesting courses and not enough time to take them all. Your son has room to take interesting classes outside of his major, complete a minor, or perhaps double major. That’s not a negative. 15 or 20 credits isn’t even that much. That’s only one semester. My D started freshman year with 5+ semesters worth of credits. She still doesn’t have room in her schedule to take everything she’d like to take.
@Hdiflfodj585902, the problem is partly that the kid can’t take out the big loans. The parents have to, and they are on the hook for the money legally. So leaving it up to a 17 year old jeopardizes the parents’ finances.
@bgbg4us It’s hard to say what would be best for her. If I had it to do over again, I’d like to have studied illustration, but my cousin did that and found that the market for her work shriveled up.(She did magazine and newspaper work, I like kids books.)
People are always renovating their houses - so my business as stayed pretty steady!
I actually have taught art classes after school through the PTA. It’s not for everyone. I was exhausted after an hour and I came home every time and had a beer because I was so frazzled. I was actually pretty good at it, but as an introvert it just took too much out of me. I far prefer to deal with people one on one. I’m okay with giving spiels before zoning board meetings and the like. I was good at math - and probably would have enjoyed being a structural engineer - I loved all my structures classes. I’m also really interested in local history. For me particular how towns grow, but also the history of redlining and desegregation - which our neighborhood took an active part in fighting.
I will say, that being an architect is nothing like school. No one ever asks me about a “parti” like they did for every project in school. I’m just solving problems. Better flow between rooms, opening kitchens to the rest of the house, adding on master suites. No big ideas. More like solving jig saw puzzles. There’s a huge variety in my day - sometimes I’m looking at stuff with contractors, sometimes I’m presenting before the public (Architectural review, zoning and planning boards) and sometimes I’m drafting. I like the variety - and as a solo practitioner I do a little of everything.
Anyway she might want to spend a day or two with a real architect and see how different it is from school. Maybe she would like it better. Otherwise figure out what her skills are. What makes her feel more energized at the end of the day? What doesn’t?
This entire thread is so interesting. Thanks to everyone for your candor, your views, your experiences. These are our kids – so it’s very emotional. It’s an enormous decision. The diversity of opinions on here speaks to the complexity of this entire college-application-what-do-I-want-to-do process, how predictive it can be for future outcomes, financial considerations which are often the primary driver in decision-making … and all of these weighty matters on some very young shoulders. And what’s most interesting to me is the access to information which I did not have when I was making college and grad school decisions. No Internet or forums to ask probing questions and get back honest, bare-your-soul answers. I had a Peterson’s guide (an actual printed book with, you know, paper pages), and I had my own eyes and ears if I was lucky enough to visit the campus. Maybe it was better that way. Not sure.
One other thought when it comes to finances. I just read that we can expect interest rates to rise, so the cost of borrowing money is going up.
And costs at schools go up every year as well.
Just my opinion, but bright students at Big U can find challenges if they seek them out. Will every class be a mind-blowing intellectual experience? Of course not. Will every fellow student be a brainiac? Of course not. But surely, there are opportunities to use your brain power & talents outside of the classroom. Working with organizations, working with professors, undergrad fellowships, getting a job…
We have a kid who is on track to graduate in three years. She could drag it out by adding a minor. We don’t see this as a bad thing. We are also pleased she is being exposed to academic diversity, to offset her experience at a small private HS where she got the impression that everyone got a 32+ on the ACT , etc. Her classes at Big U are not crushing her, at least not this year, and it’s great to see she has time to DO something besides study all the time (which would be a repeat of four stressful years at her college prep HS).
She has plans for grad school to earn a professional degree, so it’s good she is pacing herself.
Yeah, there’s something to be said for academic diversity, @Midwest67 … had a funny experience taking my kid to visit WVU and OU - after years of being considered merely average at her high school (she doesn’t make dean’s list and most of her friends are headed to Ivies), she positively glowed with delight to realize that her current SAT score and GPA guaranteed her admission - and she’s only a junior. She was so heartbreakingly thrilled to see that she had really decent stats compared with the overall admissions stats.
Our oldest got a huge confidence boost at community college, which certainly helped her when she transferred to our state flagship.
Good luck to your daughter, and thank you for sharing that story!
I’m a parent not an architect, but from my son’s experience I’d concur with Mathmom that working for an architecture firm is quite different from studying architecture in school. My son liked architecture school – both the studios and the structures side – but became fatigued toward the end by the constant pressure on abstract creativity. He finds working as an architect much more rewarding as the focus has shifted to solving real design problems and interacting with people with a wide range of perspectives.
Is your daughter in a BArch or a BS/BA program? What does she like and dislike in her program?
If she’s doing a BArch she might see if she could move into a BS or BA program in architecture, architectural studies, art history, studio art or environmental design which would allow more room for experimentation in other disciplines. She could also go back to architecture on a graduate level, no matter what her undergraduate degree is in.
Architecture is a broad industry with many adjunct careers that don’t require being an actual architect. Urban and regional planning is one closely related field, though often approached on the graduate level. Several of my son’s MArch classmates ended up not actually working as architecture, instead migrating into tech (especially architecture driven tech), construction and real estate development, teaching architecture at college level.
I think you need to let the applications play out a bit more. As others have said, there is a big range of schools between ho hum state school and a reach school like Cornell. Your state flagship(s) should be strongly considered. You son may need a rejection/acceptance or two to truly wrap his brain around his choices.
The big decision is how committed your son is to the specialty program where he was admitted. Some kids would think, “this is what I want to do; the degree is more important than the school.” But your kid doesn’t seem to have that mindset. And students do change their majors in undergrad.
What we did was set a budget and told our 3 kids that they could apply anywhere if they could get it within that number (with merit, in-state tuition, or loans if they were willing to take them). Personally, we were not willing to take on $65K per year which would have required the large loan payments you mention.
I like UPItt over Penn for architecture because I think there are more interesting buildings and landscape design in a city, but the architects on this thread can tell you which has the better reputation. UPitt seems comparable to UMaryland which is another school you mentioned.
For perspective, keep reminding your son that these are good choices to have. We found that a “quick, count your blessings” moment was a good antidote when we had to rule out schools based on price. HTH.
Such an interesting thread! Here’s something that might sweeten the pot for him in terms of the free tuition option: you will have money to send him to do study abroad. That would seem very important (and fun) for architecture students. Even if it extends his education by a year, it would seem worth it to live abroad, particularly in Europe.
I apologize if someone mentioned this already, but if he is only a few points off the SAT score for honors can he apply anyway? Or even if he doesn’t get in first semester, he may be able to apply after a semester or two.
My 2 cents - take it as anecdotal - My brother trained as an architect at a highly respected school (years ago) but after bouncing around the country for different jobs for 10 or so years (which vary widely based on the economy) he got his MBA and works in a related field. When my son considered architecture he warned him how difficult and unreliable the field is.
I agree that he doesn’t have perspective at 17, but you do. $120k of debt is what you would need to pay for school, but he could be saddled with huge interest costs on top of that amount. Fight for minimizing student debt, but be strategic. Take him (and your husband) to a financial planner, develop a matrix comparing costs during school and after graduation, revisit the schools, try to get him into the honors program, find compromises. You have until May 1st to decide, right? Use that time to calmly and consistently evaluate all the options - maybe set aside an hour on Sunday afternoons to discuss but have rules about letting everyone be heard.
I hope he ends up with some great options!!
In all honesty your son’s stats are just average. You and he need to come to terms with that. This group tends to be made up of some really high achieving kids. Not all, but quite a few. I was in your shoes last year with my DD, but her stats were higher. She took the full tuition route. She wants to go to grad school and wants to be debt free. Good luck to your son.
First Rule : Set a budget for your child before the applications go out. If he/still wants to give it a go, that’s fine, but if it comes in over budget it goes immediately to the circular file 
Many of our children are going to schools that are considered their academic safeties and would have much preferred a top tier LAC or university but finances made the decision for them. Learning to deal with disappointment, learning to accept what you can afford, and most importantly, dialing down the “entitlement” that so many kids have today are great lessons, ones they should learn before they head off to college.
That being said, there are certainly other colleges your son could be looking at that might be considered “affordable”. Most of us without any disposable income would consider affordable being our 529 total divided by 8 semesters, summer work and savings, and the student loans totaling $28K. Work study monies can be used for entertainment. Once you figure out what that amount is you’ll have an estimated budget. I think most kids just want options and choices, maybe with some research he might come up with a few.
All great points. I’ve literally been repeating the mantra: Let’s see what happens. I think the key is that he’s feeling like nothing will persuade me off the free tuition route. That’s really not true. I’m definitely willing to consider reasonable loans (reasonable being the key word) if he thinks he’d be at a better school, and if that school ranks higher, etc. The other route is simple: Take the free tuition, and crank it up for grad school elsewhere. Save throughout undergrad and funnel those funds into the Master’s.
As for being average – I think he is better than average if you look purely at GPA and SAT. But he’s really more than those two scores. All of our kids are. He’s a standout in so many ways. I understand him feeling like he deserves admission and merit at a better school, and it’s a hard lesson to see that there are always one or two or a thousand people better than you at something. It’s all part of navigating life. This is just the beginning of the tough decisions he will face. On a separate note, does anyone remember the scene in The Shawshank Redemption where Morgan Freeman’s character tries to get parole? He pleads his case to the parole board. Tells them he’s changed. Gives them what they want to hear. He does this over and over. Parole denied. Does the same thing next year. Denied. Finally, as an old man with withered, seasoned eyes, he takes off the filter. Tells them he’s an old man, used to prison life. So give him parole or don’t. APPROVED. Yes, that. That’s what I’m sort of hoping will happen with one of my son’s reach schools. Maybe someone will overlook the check boxes and required scores, and look at his portfolio and his incredible essay and say … you know what? We’re giving him a chance. He doesn’t perfectly fit the profile, but this kid has moxie and talent. (Or, maybe I’m deluded.)