<p>Fire123, although today is hard, your daughter will be so much happier in the spring where she is contemplating where she CAN go, and have good choices that your family can afford–as compared to a lot of good students who don’t comprehend their financial parameters at application time, and come spring, don’t really have any choices, because their families cannot afford the pricetags.</p>
<p>For a real education, just look back at a lot of the threads posted last spring–the agony of the students who can’t go where they got accepted, and of the parents who feel like they are breaking their student’s hearts.</p>
<p>“For co-signers, the consequences of not paying are severe. Defaulted loans show up on their credit reports as if the debt were their own. Even when loans are current, the added debt can make it tougher for co-signers to qualify for mortgage refinancing or other loans. Faced with the question of whether to pay or not, many older people say they see simply no alternative but to dig deep into savings or tap retirement accounts to fulfill their obligations.”</p>
<p>Fire123, not glamorous but consider the University of Toledo. Pharmacy and engineering. She would have a great chance of their highest scholarship, which is tuition, room and board and a summer stipend. It’s really not a bad choice.</p>
<p>My d graduated this year as a Mechanical Engineer. She is making VERY good money for a new graduate. She has no loans, except for a temporary loan to us for some expenses she had setting up her apartment. Right now she is driving an old car of ours and is not even paying car insurance or her cell phone. The only expense she has is her 1 bedroom apartment and the rent while not sky high is not cheap. She is so surprised that she is not saving a ton of money and her money is not going as far as she expected. </p>
<p>She has NO LOANS, no car payment and still it’s hard.</p>
<p>OP - Hopefully you are making some progress. I’m a big fan of Northeastern, if that will fit your budget (expect good merit $ - maybe half tuition) and student.</p>
<p>fire123,
I was surprized not to see Case on your list. Very well known for pre-med, engineering and gret Merit packages to top students. UMich is actually known for opposite.</p>
<p>Fire – we were in a very similar situation last year. We did not have a serious enough conversation about $$ with our 1st DD. And frankly we over estimated the amount of Merit we would receive from some of her Match (profile) schools. </p>
<p>I would suggest University of Pittsburgh…both Pharma (I believe guaranteed acceptance is an option). Great merit for OOS High stats kids … apply now. the earlier the better. Good luck and dont fear the meltdown…there will be more than one.</p>
<p>I woudl suggest to visit and evaluate locations before hand. We had various experiences that influenced decision making, unless, location is not part of consideration at all. D’s was affected specifically about Chicago vs Cleveland vs Pittsburgh vs Ann Arbor vs …other places. Meirt aid is one consideration, but if they do not see themselves at certain locations, then even full ride or full tuition might not be onsidered.</p>
<p>I am still reading the thread and I want to follow many more good advices that y’all have except DD is resisting it .;(</p>
<p>Like I mentioned before, I got her to apply to 2 more schools that may give her some merit aid, U Maryland and U New Mexico. She finished everything Monday but she told me U Maryland dateline (Nov 1) will have passed since College Board takes a week to send in SAT score. I asked her if she would apply to another college instead and she flatly refused to.
Yesterday, she happily told me Maryland extended their date line to Nov 9 and she was very happy about not having to get one more application in. Sigh!</p>
<p>fire123–sounds to me like your DD will be attending CC next year :D. Put it down on paper how much you can afford to pay out of pocket, if any, and tell her she can attend any school that comes in at or below that figure. Come April, she’s going to be in for an eye opener. Sometimes they have to learn the hard way.</p>
<p>Best wishes, who knows, you might be pleasantly surprised at the end! Actually, it might work out the way you never anticipated. My D. went to her #2, not #1. Now, looking back and having various experiences, she is very happy with her decision. Sometime, got to go with the flow and her decision to go to the UG that apparently has “welcomed” her the best was the correct one. They also said “by” in the best possible way, with many awards and all goals of UG accomoplished way beyond expectations. So, you never know, just stay cool and see what happen next.</p>
<p>OP, I would not dance around this issue with your D. She needs to understand that things change, finances change, tuition(s) go up (and up and up), and that changes need to be made on the fly. This is one of those times. She needs to be realistic, and apply to those places with the best chance for merit aid. </p>
<p>You can also tell her that I have a good friend who went to Michigan, and met her husband there. They both are drowning under the debt that they took on. Very very smart young people who have good jobs but feel completey trapped by their school debt. Both of them emphatically say that if they knew then what they know now, they would have happily attended much more affordable schools.</p>
<p>" She needs to be realistic, and apply to those places with the best chance for merit aid. "
-This is topic of discussion for 10th grader. The times has passed. Yes, my own applied only to schools that we knew with 100% certainty would give her Merit awards. And, yes, all of them did. That required 2+ years of research. I woudl say, just stay cool and wait what happens. Not much could be done at this point, too late for this type of discussions, about whole year too late. No need to aggravate situation at this point. Application process has to be very positive and enjoyable, 100% support from each other, nothing negative, it will not work anyway, just wasting of time at this point. These should be great memories for rest of your and your kid life, not memories of fights. We will never forget ours, I am still smiling…about both of them and then it was Grad. School application that was based at least somewhat on very positive UG application process.</p>
<p>She may pout, have a tantrum or two, but she needs to add several schools that will give her merit aid. If she refuses, let her know that you will support her in gap year alternatives while she finds a school that fits the budget. In fact, if I were you, I would quietly start a search for gap year ideas an start to investigate merit aid alternatives. Stand firm on how much you are willing to pay and explain that her half will not be cosigned by you as you are already covering your portion. The 1/2 and 1/2 idea may be unrealistic, so it is better to give her a set dollar amount. Use the NPC on all potential schools to show her what will be expected. I would also explore any special scholarships available to top students at A&M and UTD.</p>
<p>I’m not necessarily advocating this idea, but because the University of Alabama admits based on GPA and test scores and the application requires only demographic type information (no essays, no short responses, no activity lists, no recommendations) – there have been parents who have been know to submit the very short University of Alabama application on behalf of their offspring. Perhaps if your daughter understood how genuinely easy the Alabama application is to complete, she might be willing to fill it out, just for the sake of having a financial safety – and it can be a nice ego boost to get a quick decision awarding over $101,000 of scholarship money.</p>
<p>Picturing fire123 adjusting the tattered tarp over her corrugated metal shack under the overpass as a result of fireD “holding them to their promises”.<br>
Hang in there fire123 lots of us are going through the applications battle together! D just removed Alabama from her list yesterday, despite the fact that she would almost certainly get full tuition. Oh well. I’m ok with it. We’re dealing. Were did I leave that wine glass?</p>
<p>sometimes when I was at an impasse with my kids on something important, I would write them a letter/email.</p>
<p>It gave me a chance to lay things out and explain things directly, without going off on the tangents of an argument as might happen when I would try to have a discussion on a difficult topic with my boys.</p>
<p>Would this technique work for you? Could you write her a letter spelling out exactly what you can–and cannot --afford? Explain to her the whys and the wherefores–that the world, and the economy, and investments, have all been in crisis mode, and that sometimes people have to adapt to change. Adapting to change is a part of growing up.</p>
<p>And ask her to create a spreadsheet for/with you with the financial details of each school she is interested in/applies to? When you do this, ask her to reply to you in writing as well. It helps create a record of what is actually being said, and in some ways the act of thinking and writing takes the hysteria out of the situation. Also, come spring time, you will have written proof that you gave her financial parameters at application time–so she cannot try guilting you into paying more than you can rightly afford.</p>
<p>She has a lot of good options and application strategies she can employ–she needs to learn to keep all options open.</p>
<p>And seriously-- I wouldn’t be above surreptitiously applying to a couple of “just by the numbers” schools in her name, just to keep the options open for her come spring time. She might be a lot more mature and open then, or might be gobsmacked by her lack of affordable options–and be glad of having any choices at all! Because she does not strike me as the kind of girl who will be overjoyed at staying home next fall, going to community college, if all of her friends are going away. And the bragging rights of an awesome scholarship might be soothing balm at that time.</p>
<p>I confess! I filled out the Alabama application on my son’s behalf and I don’t regret it for a minute! He came home from school that day and I told him that he’d applied to UA and he was all, I’m not going there, no way, I’m way better than that school, I don’t care if I have $100000 in student loans, blah, etc, etc. As time passed and he realized (because, like your D, he is smart) that no debt was a good thing. He consented to looking at a video tour of the school, then, he asked if we could visit. We went, they showed him the love, and then he was bragging to all his friends about his free tuition school. They also sent a really nice bunch of stuff for the honors night which made it easier for the other parents (those, why would anyone go there?) to understand his choice. There’s nothing bad about free!</p>
as a result of fireD “holding them to their promises”.<br>