I curated my son’s college applications and exploration. I told him he could apply to several colleges (10-15). He applied to 10. We did not visit any of them until we knew what kind of scholarships and grants he would get and whether it was affordable. Many of the colleges were safe bets but not exciting to him (6). We applied Early Action, and by mid-February we knew what was feasible. At that point, we visited the two colleges that he had been accepted to, received great aid from and that he wanted to attend. I believe most kids have no clue about money and the consequences of significant debt. My son will owe $25,000 when the 4 years are over. I consider that a reasonable amount of debt. No way would we have let him take on more than $50,000 of debt. Lets be honest–you can get a B.A. or B.S. from just about anywhere. Don’t let your kid’s naivete ruin their future.
@privatebanker yup…total LOTR need here.
@JeanneAP My son did the same thing. He only visited colleges that accepted him and we could afford.
I’m not really sure how I’m feeling after this long process - a lot of mixed emotions I guess as we get closer to graduation and all the final celebrations related to high school. I was fortunate to have learned a lot from CC and other sources for a couple of years before starting with S19. Plus, I had been through it all with D17. Spending all that time reading and researching helped me to keep my expectations low with regard to selective colleges and have a pretty good game plan. Still, my son didn’t always follow the plan I had laid out and there were definitely some surprises.
Lessons and results consistent with CC conventional wisdom:
- We considered finances from the start. We have two excellent in-state options that are affordable (one a safety/match and one that I thought was a reach but S19 was confident). All others were added to the list for various reasons but were schools were he needed to win a full tuition or very large scholarship or get enough financial aid to make the school doable. S19 knew that if he was accepted but the money didn't work, the school would be off the table, and he was willing to do the work and take the risks.
- S applied to one out of state school (Pitt) with rolling admissions and had that acceptance by October with a large merit scholarship. Scholarship and grants made it financially comparable to in-state options.
- I ran NPCs at all schools but knew they would be inaccurate due to having a non-custodial parent and being self-employed. So, I tried to get an idea about which schools might be most generous but knew that we were taking a chance.
- Despite being a strong applicant with high stats, great leadership on two successful varsity teams, good leadership in student government and being a strong writer, S19 was not awarded any outside scholarships (only applied for a few) and was not a finalist for any large scholarships at schools where he applied (Richmond, Emory, Vanderbilt). I knew to not expect anything based on how competitive these awards are but I was still a little hopeful. My impression is that most of those scholarships go to kids with much more community service (or other hooks) than my son had.
- The waiting for RD results is rough.
- S received quite a few wait list offers.
Lessons and results that were somewhat unexpected based on general CC wisdom:
- S was not interested in college visits and was dragged on a few but did not like them. He insisted that he was not going to make his decision based on the "feel’ of the campus and was basically a pain about visits, even after decisions came out. While I had visited many colleges with my D17, that wasn’t really a part of his application process.
- Some kids are not going to love their safety despite a lot of advice to make sure your kid has one he or she loves or “would be happy to attend”. We compromised on a couple of great options where I think he would have ended up happy and successful. However, I was not going to be able to make him excited about those choices during the application process and I accepted that.
- S did not follow my great plan and timeline regarding when essays should be complete (and there were a LOT), he wouldn’t agree to any outside people reviewing his essays (other than me), and wouldn’t ask for another academic LOR when we found out that one of his was really pretty average. While he was a generally strong applicant, he wanted to do things his own way a good bit of the time and I didn’t always agree. We still ended up being a good team, and he still ended up with a number of great acceptances.
- S has no hooks and was accepted to several selective colleges including two with regular decision acceptance rates under 7% (one Ivy). We didn’t expect it and knew better than to count on it, but it’s possible.
Time for some wine.
@elena13 - my son was very much like your son. Definitely not a fan of doing college visits and very stubborn about accepting guidance He had a fantastic recommendation from his summer program - didn’t submit it. Submitted whatever writing sample he happened to just have left over from junior year year (ugh). Decided on his SATII tests without doing any research. Had to be convinced that an extracurricular done for fun for weeks at a time at summer camp was still an extracurricular that could be listed on his app. and on and on.
While he did ask a teacher to give him feedback on his essay, he resisted showing it or his application to anyone to review for coherence. (We had one or two unused hours with the SAT prep place that he could have used for feedback, and one of his best friends’ mom does college application counseling - he never talked to her about his apps at all) He wanted to make sure his voice was not diluted in his essay, so he only allowed three people to review it- one for content, the other 2 for grammar. I did not make the cut. Lol. But I did get to read the first draft when he needed me to email it to him one day, and since the teacher’s comments seemed to be along the same lines of what my comments would have been, I let it go.
I’d like to think the process will be easier with my daughter, especially since she’s been giving her brother a hard time for making this process difficult. But she told me the other day that she was going to do everything herself. My eye is already twitching and we’ve got 3 years to go.
DS19’s application process was stress-free and successful beyond what we evnvisioned. I’m left feeling incredibly thankful and excited about the opportunities that are before him.
Ds applied to 8 schools that he would have been happy to attend, including 1 financial reach and 1 academic reach. We also have a great community college 20 min from our house that he would have been fine with as a back up plan. He was accepted to all 8 schools and will attend the academic reach on a half-tuition scholarship.
Ds decided early on that he would not fall in love with any school but would wait and see what the financial packages looked like before making a decision. This was frustrating for us as we really wanted to know which school he liked best, and he refused to give an opinion, but in hindsight, it was a mature decision and allowed him to be happy no matter what.
Ds also decided freshman year of hs that he was only going to do activities he valued and enjoyed - no resume building. I was disappointed in this decision, as well, but in the end, it worked out for him.
We will encourage our other children to follow suit by planning high school around their needs and desires and creating a college list primarily made up of good, affordable safeties/matches they will be happy to attend, with a couple of reaches thrown in and community college as a back up plan (or 1st choice if they prefer it).
Another thing that worked for ds was getting applications in early. He had letter of recs done at the end of junior year, worked on essays over the summer, and submitted apps in August. (I think there were a few scholarship apps that he had to do in Sept.) Anyway, he was mostly done before senior year picked up, and he had some nice acceptances early on.
Overall, I’m relieved that we didn’t have to deal with the stress and disappointment I have heard about so often, and I’m hoping we can avoid that for all of our kids. Also looking forward to watching ds begin a new season of life and really hoping and praying he has a successful freshman year!
Well played @jazzymomof7
That suggests that the “safety” that rejected her was not really a safety, and the “match” may really have been a reach due to needing a competitive merit scholarship that she did not get.
Many “disappointment” threads in April are the results of over optimistically classifying colleges as “match” or “safety” that really are not.
@ucbalumnus Yup, She got a nice merit scholarship to her match school, but the EFC was still too high for us. She ended up going to her safety for her freshman year and transferring to her other safety. The first go around with my D17 we knew virtually nothing. The second go around with my S19 led him to apply to broad range of schools with a much more successful outcome. Still our college choices were not based on super deep research, but rather some anecdotal information and lots of spitballing…yet we lucked out with the SUNY system and a couple of schools in the Colleges that Change Lives list. He got rejected from all his reaches, some of his matches were not as generous, and often had merit scholarships with GPA requirements to keep them. The next go-around with D21 will be much more targeted with only schools she would want to go to and all of them being schools we could afford. Only a few of reaches.
I did not have a child graduating this year but do have a relative who was graduating this year and I helped the family to navigate the process based on my experience with D17. Main takeaways:
Every kid is different! This student and my D17 and D21 all have very different preferences, stats, and academic requirements, so not all prior knowledge was transferrable.
Need-based aid: Student19 has a low-income custodial parent and a NCP with a solid middle class income but little desire to pay for college. In contrast, we are a donut-hole, merit-chasing family. There was a steep learning curve and a lot of effort required to identify FAFSA-only schools where the gap between EFC and need-based aid was doable for this family. The gapping was incredibly discouraging.
Stats and need-based aid: Pell-eligible kids of divorced parents who are solid students but not superstars in GPA/test scores may not have many affordable options. I am newly appreciative of how fortunate I am to be able to afford in-state public colleges without significant hardship for my own kids.
Student19 did get accepted an in-state, quality public university that is affordable with a combination of in-state grants, student loans, and family contribution and is excited to attend!
- Start EARLY - during junior year. This is the year where you want to crunch all the numbers and start running net price calculators to get an idea of the schools that will fit your budget. Keep in mind that the numbers are likely from the previous year, and may be up to 10% more than what you might pay when your child heads off to school.
- Don't worry about where your budget friendly schools are on the US News ranking list. Those lists don't really mean anything. Prestige won't pay your child's student loans, pay off the plus loans you take out, nor keep a roof over your head in retirement. Huge debt can strangle both you and your child. Prestige for undergraduate degrees is NOT worth huge debt.
- Your child can bloom at any college - you do the research and present your child with a list of schools that you can comfortably afford and tell your child they can pick any of them that they like. Don't take them on tours of private colleges if you know up front that you need big scholarship money to go there. If they get excited about the schools that are possible - everybody wins.
- Be open and honest with your children about your budget from the very beginning. This helps avoid disappointment. We did this with our children. My son did get in to a prestigious private school (he did get a nice merit scholarship, but not enough as the school reduced the amounts of merit awards this year and last year, so the calculator we did was WAY off). He took it in stride with no disappointment, as he saw that school as a major long shot. It hit me harder than him to not be able to give it to him. He was always involved in the budget decisions, so he wasn't sold on the value of the expensive school in the first place. Smart kid!
I wish I could like @elodyCOH 's comment more than once.
@BridgeWtr77 Great post! (#31)
@mamaedefamilia It’s key to identify FAFSA only and CSS profile schools that don’t require NCP to be in the equation for determining need.
@Theoden Yes, and those schools typically are very high reach schools, with rare exception. If you know of any that are accessible to the average mortal, please share! I have seen the College Board list but many of those schools do not meet full need (unless you count substantial loans as “need-based aid”.
Berea was one of the few that I found that might be in reach for a solid student with decent but not exceptional test scores. It would still be a reach for many and is kind of a niche school as it’s limited to low-income applicants who also are willing to fulfill the school’s requirement for work hours.
@mamaedefamilia Schools that often claim to meet “full-need” are often Ivies and hidden Ivies, and they will require the FAFSA and then, CSS of both parents.
@mamaedefamilia Hendrix College in Arkansas meets 100% of demonstrated need (FAFSA only) for kids who meet minimum test score and GPA requirements (3.6/26 ACT superscored…so not super high stats). Not sure how long they’ll be able to keep that up, but as far as I can tell it’s the best deal out there for kids who are good students but not likely to be competitive at highly selective schools that meet need. Very nice little school, too.
I think one more thing I would like to say about the process. First off you are probably not going to navigate the process perfectly as a parent. You are going to make some sort of mistake. They are the mistakes that are discussed here on CC all the time.
It is almost guaranteed that your child will face some sort of disappointment at some point in the process. It could be they were rejected by a school. It could be learning that your family can’t afford a certain school. In the end just know that the disappointment will not last forever.
We went on an emotional rollercoaster in the span of 6 days. It finally was clear to D19 that one school would not be affordable or in her best interest to go to. Part of that communication was on us, but part was on D19 for not listening well or asking questions. Basically blame was on both sides. Then 6 days later on a visit D19 fell in love with a school that was affordable and in my opinion just as good or better for her academically.
It was so interesting to see how the disappointment faded away and happiness came back. Now D19 basically only wears clothes from her new school to HS these days.
Eventually they get over the disappointment some faster than others. During that time though is tough to watch your child struggle.
@gpo613 Thanks for the encouraging story!
@gpo613, we had a very similar occurrence in our situation. Daughter wanted to go to an ivy or equivalent. Visited Vanderbilt as an invited prospect and enjoyed it. Also liked UCLA, but Vanderbilt was her top choice. Wound up on the waitlist for UCLA; accepted at Vanderbilt with no aid; accepted at Berkeley. So Berkeley it had to be, but there was disappointment. She warmed up to Berkeley after a couple more visits, but then UCLA came through the first week of May. She decided to accept UCLA and rescind Berkeley. In the end, she got almost all she wanted, but like I told both my kids, there will be disappointment and joy in this process, but at least you’ll have choices.
Like @jazzymomof7, my DD19’s process was pretty stress free (aside my fear of making a mistake on the FAFSA and being thrown in FAFSA jail!)
My DD also decide not to fall in love with any school until she was accepted and it was in the budget.
She only applied to schools that the NPC indicated were in our budget (but I wasn’t going to believe anything until I saw it writing with her acceptance package! Our employment status is pretty straight forward (W2s), so the NPCs worked well for us.)
It honestly never occurred to us that DD should do activities in high school for the sake of college applications. She should be herself. She should do what she likes or is interested in. (If she is doing things just get into school X, will she really fit in at school X?)
DD wasn’t too hot on visiting schools spring break of her junior year (only 3), but she became more invested in researching and looking at schools at the beginning of her senior year when her high school started doing presentations, etc. (Sshe dropped one school we had visited because of their lower average GPA, for example.) But this meant less time for visits.
I think she and we were realistic. For example, even though she is a pretty high stats kids and a “match” to Swarthmore, for example, we were not deluded enough to think she be accepted to that level of a school. To use a CC term, she “average excellent”. Had she be interested in applying to a school like that, we would have been like “sure, but recognize the chance of acceptance are slim to none because there are so many qualified students out there”.
We focused a lot on “fit”.
One thing I did find quite frustrating with my DD, was that she would not ask any questions in the info sessions or on the tours. None of the kids did. Ok, maybe they don’t know what to ask, but then don’t tell us parents before the visit “don’t ask questions!”
And everything @eoldyCOH said in #89!
And please don’t pick a school based on being an athlete - I have seen way too many kids not like the program, get injured, etc and then they transferred because they didn’t even like the school - they were just focused on playing D3 football.
I feel like if parents are realistic and not stressed out, the kids won’t be either.