Did anyone's child choose a free ride over a "more prestigious" school?

[dstark]

How has it worked out? Would you make the same decision again?

[marite]

Recall Evil Robot? He chose Vanderbilt over Yale for financial reasons and recently posted that he is very happy at Vandy.

[dstark]

Forgot. Glad to hear he is happy.

[concerneddad]

My son chose Tulane over Wash. U (near full tutition). Pomona and Wesleyan -- said he could not be happier with his choice, and he is making great use of the "extra" time he has not having to work by becoming a member of the emergency medical service, and other activtivies that will further his med. school application.

[dstark]

Tulane looks like one of the more generous schools. If you have a 1500 plus SAT score, what kind of gpa do you think it takes to get a scholarship? Looking at the schools your son got into, he must have been an incredibly strong student.
PS I still like Eugene as a retirement place.

[CUlater21]

Yeah, where could a 1520 salutatorian go with generous aid... any ideas. Or examples of the type of school I might have a shot at.

[optimizerdad]

D2 chose Wash.U (full-tuition Moog scholarship, plus stipend) over Brown, CalTech, JHU and others. She's happy with her choice.

[dstark]

optimizerdad, nice. Your daughter should be called optimizerdaughter.

[patsmom]

S chose free ride to Univ. of Florida honors program over Vanderbilt and UNC-Chapel Hill honors, both with scholarships in the 15-20K range, and Boston College honors (no scholarship). Between UF's National Merit scholarship and Florida's Bright Futures scholarship, as well as a couple of small outside scholarships, he ended up making money by attending there. While this is definitely a plus for our pocketbooks, we were prepared to spend what it would have cost to send him out of state (well, maybe not to BC without any merit $$).

Although I was really hoping that he would choose one of the out-of-state schools, ultimately it was his decision. Family members and HS teachers tried to convince him to break away from the familiarity of the state U, and he really didn't decide until the absolute last minute. I think his lack of self-confidence led him to figure that UF would be easier. That's not necessarily the case, as he is finding out. Although he's very smart (1600 SAT), he's VERY lazy and a procrastinator extrordinaire. Those qualities aren't going to get him very far so perhaps it's better that we aren't paying lots of money for him to learn that lesson in college.

At any rate, he is very happy at UF, so I guess the choice was right for him. Only time will tell.

[slipstream99]

I'm not a parent, but one of the girls from my school who graduated last year was accepted to a good deal of prestigious schools (Duke, UNC, Vandy, even waitlisted at Harvard, etc.) and even won a 2/3 scholarship at Emory through the Emory Scholars Program. In the end, though, she chose to go to UF, where she got a TON of money from National Merit, Bright Futures, and Robert C. Byrd. (I've heard rumors, though, that she had to go to UF because her dad, a doctor, didn't want to pay for out of state, even with the scholarships she had to schools like Emory)

[concerneddad]

dstark, yes he had great stats -- a 3.9 unweighted GPA from a very highly regarded public high school and Sats as high as you stated. He was also a good fit an many schools because he is a jazz musician, and was also a varsity football player -- although he was not a recruit at Tulane and is not playing any more. I would add that the thought and effort that goes into the Dean's Scholarship competition is just as important, if not more so, than the qualifying SAT and GPA. My son did a unique multi-media project that combined his football and musical talents and the scoring of the Tulane Fight Song for the full jazz band at H.S. It really showed his personality, his strengths outside of the academics, and how he would contribute to the community as more than a “scholar.” In short, the project demonstrated that intangible that is called a “great fit” between student and school.

[tokenadult]

How big of an out-of-pocket cost difference (to the student and the student's family) are we talking about in these cases?

[concerneddad]

well, in my son's case the difference between Tulane and Wash. U was very small -- indeed the way it was structured, Wash. U would have cost slightly less. For the other schools we are talking about $20,000 per year difference.

ps. dstark, when you are ready to move to Eugene let me know, I'll sell you my house!

[Roger_Dooley]

This is a great topic... just about every student who gets into an Ivy (for example) could probably qualify for reduced or free tuition at one or more of his/her state universities (not to mention an honors program where they exist) and could almost certainly score a free ride at some reasonable quality private colleges.

The choice of college is a life-altering decision, but so is starting one's post-college life with six-figure debt.

[mom55]

My nephew and niece each chose the full ride or nearly full ride instead of more prestige. In my nephew's case he went to TCNJ on a full ride although he was accepted at Colgate, Tufts, Haverford. My niece turned down Tufts and a lot of merit aid from BU, Syracuse, GWU and Dickinson to accept a $25K merit award at American U. Both are very happy and thriving. My nephew, a senior, is top of his class in Chemistry and is applying to PhD programs (Yale, Harvard, among others). My niece is an IR major and is finding DC to be great. I think there are many paths to success! We live in a more competitive town and our 3 kids wouldn't have the stats (class rank) to get the full rides. So we will be poor for the next decade or so....