<p>It’s not May 1 yet. I would let this discussion go for at least a month, and return to it in January sometime. Or February. I would encourage my student to consider why he/she applied to all of the schools on the list…and then let the student make an informed decision. Presumably, the student had reasons for applying to every school on the list, </p>
<p>And if possible, I would revisit the top 2 or 3 choices.</p>
<p>What’s fit anyway? Is it academic or is it best sports program, or my boyfriend goes there, or I like the buildings…Don’t lose sight the reason one goes to college is to get an education, not for the most beautiful dorm, best football team. If I am paying the same money, I would want my kid to go to the best (highest ranking) college possible, within reason. If my kid wants to choose #12 vs #18, I would say knock yourself out, but if you are choosing between #15 vs #50, then no. I also do not agree with the last school you go to is the one that matters. UG school is the one which matters in my opinion. Strongest tie is usually UG, that’s why most colleges count legacy as someone whose parents went to the UG school. </p>
<p>“If I am paying the same money, I would want my kid to go to the best (highest ranking) college possible, within reason. If my kid wants to choose #12 vs #18, I would say knock yourself out, but if you are choosing between #15 vs #50, then no.”</p>
<p>I agree. There’s a level at which prestige differences don’t matter - and there is a level at which they DO matter. No, Stanford vs Duke vs Cornell vs Amherst vs Georgetown vs Notre Dame is all about fit because they are fundamentally six of one, half a dozen of the other. Throw a decision to go to (say) Lawrence University into the mix, and you’d better have a really compelling reason, IMO.</p>
<p>“I also do not agree with the last school you go to is the one that matters. UG school is the one which matters in my opinion. Strongest tie is usually UG, that’s why most colleges count legacy as someone whose parents went to the UG school.”</p>
<p>I agree with this too. </p>
<p>Here CU Boulder is the most prestigious school. They never heard of the colleges that D’s attended. Everything is relative.
Visit, let D’s choose was our approach. Worked just fine. </p>
<p>Would you let your kid choose the first car if you were paying for it? We like to tell people we let our kid decide where they want to go to school, but when you are paying 250k it is hard to say, “Honey, just pick the one you want.” (You could go to Stanford, but you feel Trinity College is a better fit, and we are good with it).Most of us heavily influence our kids where they go to school, some of us have no issue admitting it and some of us pretend our kids are free range. </p>
<p>There were no schools on my kids list which I wouldn’t have been comfortable with them attending. But Oldfort- my kids were not free range. The colleges were not a random group chosen because the food was good and the kids were cute/preppy/handsome (choose your adjective). There were certainly colleges left off the list because either (or both) parents felt that the cost/value ratio was off, or that the college wasn’t strong enough in the right fields academically to warrant a place on the list.</p>
<p>Good client representation frequently consists of helping the client come to understand why your recommendation is their idea. I can neither confirm nor deny that both kids’ college lists have some element of that at work. </p>
<p>Happy to say I didn’t face this issue for UG. Deciding between Caltech and CMU seemed fairly close to me. Both were direct plane routes. The final visits, were he was wooed at one place, probably made his decision.</p>
<p>I felt more conflicted about his grad school acceptances. I wished he would stay on East coast and go to a private U. still, he was the one who visited each U, interviewed by many profs, met with grad students. Status had nothing to do with his decision. He was finally deciding between 2 U’s; one East coast private and one CA state U. Between the 2 interviews, he had been to 9 other interviews. I told him to travel back to both and really think/feel his decision; it could be 6 years or more of his life. He took the train to 1 of these U’s, and I paid for the x-country flight. I believed that seeing 2 U’s, as an accepted student, would give him a better perspective.</p>
<p>How did I measure up to SomeOldGuy’s and Oldfort’s approaches?</p>
<p>We encouraged our kids to apply to the best schools possible while at the same time dealing with potential safety schools. Every school on our kids’ application lists would have been fine with us. We did the vetting of schools before the applications were sent. </p>
<p>Anyone else a bit surprised that Annasdad hasn’t popped in out of nowhere to comment on this thread? </p>
<p>Michigan was her reach and we really didn’t think shed get in. It has sort of taken us by surprise. We felt Pitt was a great choice but all the die hard michigan alums around here are pushing michigan hard to her. </p>
<p>Some people just fit best in the most prestigious places.</p>
<p>In my opinion, Pitt is an excellent university as well. It’s not all that different from Michigan…in my opinion.</p>
<p>I didn’t even encourage my kids to apply to the ‘most prestigious’ (whatever that means) school they could have gotten into. We didn’t check rankings at all before applying. Both of my kids are happiest being in the middle of the pack, being a little challenged but not in the lowest part of the accepted class. I knew they weren’t prestigious schools, but my kids didn’t and don’t care. I don’t care either or I could have directed them to fancier schools. They would have had to take out loans, worked during school, and probably not come home as often.</p>
<p>My kids are already seeing a lot of their friends ‘coming home’ after a semester at a school farther from home that they thought would be better or is ranked higher. I think a lot of kids are happier with less prestige and more access to friends and family.</p>
<p>I haven’t read all of the comments but this is why we didn’t widely discuss my kids’ applications with family or neighbors. My oldest had the numbers to be admitted to the top schools and everyone assumed he would apply to the Ivies but he wanted a smaller school and one where he could participate in sports and music without being a recruited athlete or a music major. When he was a HS senior and conversations turned to where he was applying, we learned quickly not to get into specifics. </p>
<p>Prestige really depends on the beholder.
People on the short list for the Noble in physics, is likely to have different idea of the " best" school, than the “man in the street” in Ann Arbor.
Overwhelmingly professors at our local flagship university steered their kids to liberal arts colleges, even when their degrees ( inc undergrad) were from Ivy universities.</p>
<p>It was entirely Lake Jr.'s decision. I was just there to offer advice if asked. I am very happy to state that he doesn’t care a whit about prestige. He did apply to an Ivy and to a couple of other very selective STEM schools and did get an offer of admission. He ended up at a university that while well known for STEM, does not enjoy the recognition of some of the other schools he was admitted to. He absolutely loves his university. By the way, he has had internship interviews with some big national firms, so his school’s relative lack of notoriety has not been a drawback.</p>
<p>LW, I’m uplifted. Refreshing to hear of families who are not prestige slaves. There’s no rational justification for an attitude of desperation, let alone hysteria, over prestige. Fine if prestige + fit coincide, but if not, it’s hardly the end of the world. Zillions of opportunities out there for STEM grads from dozens of institutions. And again I’ll state, as elsewhere on CC, the vast majority (easily 90%) of the PARENTS most “demanding” about prestige-admissions are graduates of “non-prestige” US universities, and are doing super splendidly in their own careers in this country. </p>
<p>Or to put it another way, just because a “prestige” diploma may/will “open doors” for such graduates does NOT mean that such a diploma is essential to similar or equally outstanding career opportunities. It is not a zero sum game, but that’s the false mentality that so often drives what I can only accurately describe as hysteria.</p>
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<p>Full marks. The approach I may or may not have described was about the construction of the entire list at varying degrees of admissions difficulty. I would be happy to see DC#2 end up at any of the schools on his list, although his favorite among them isn’t the same as mine. </p>
<p>Thanks, SOG. </p>
<p>I still feel that CMU’s SCS would have been a good fit for son, but he wasn’t sure he would stick with CS, and liked the House system elsewhere. Looking back, he hates moving. He connects to a place and to roommates. I am glad I said nothing about his UG choice.</p>