Can I get into Vanderbilt?

Faline2
Thu, 22 Aug 2013 11:08:14 +0000

Rice1961 is speaking about reality. We sent eldest son full price to Duke in 2005 and are still in “recovery mode”. Recession of 2008-9 was something we didn’t prep for and property values/equity are weak in our town. Do consider paying full respect to your state flagship and honors college options if you have any plans for graduate school. ie…we now have two employed sons with bachelors degrees but not much re resources to help with huge grad school loan burdens on the horizon for the son with an expensive career choice and other son will be doing state schools at night for his grad degree while working.
Run this whole year with your Long Game in mind, parents and students. An A student with good testing scores on pre professional exams like MCAT GMAT GRE LSAT will get into grad school. is your grad school path expensive? Factor this in.
We also underwrote one summer school session in cash, one class dropped and retaken (five grand at Duke), rent/food in DC 3 summers for two sons (ummm…12-15 grand at least although they had minimum wage incomes for food and transport fees), wardrobes for business, scraping together cars and insurance for each, used Obama care once to keep a young adult son on our family health care. airplane tix for semesters abroad, fees for Alternative Spring Break service trips, (semesters abroad generally do NOT cost more than a semester at Vandy or Duke fyi…just getting over there will cost you)
We are pleased with having employed college grads but in the long run, we were a bit delusional about paying full freight for Duke and second son accepted a merit offer but was emotionally prepared to attend his state flagships with a smile. Every family has different resources and different outlooks.
You could not have talked us out of sending eldest son to a full price college in 05. but in hindsight for parents it was a mistake. Our son however greatly benefitted so we are not unhappy, we are proud of him and his love for his alma mater.