<p>congrats on being raised</p>
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<p>(Excuse me, while I go gag. Your GF sounds like she’s either an idiot or very immature.) Okay, I’m back. I would absolutely not want the burden of having a BF/GF give up Princeton for TAMU with me as any part of the equation at all. Remember the history of the English king who gave up the throne to be with “the woman I love”, an American divorcee named Wallis Simpson? Well, there’s a lot of evidence that Wallis wasn’t all THAT keen on the relationship, but felt stuck in it for the rest of her life because of what he had given up for her. This doesn’t even address the possible resentment of the person who did the giving up. The overwelming majority of teenage relationships end. Why ensure it with this kind of burden at the outset?</p>
<p>I actually think that is sweet of your gf. However, isn’t this one of the plots of Everwood? Amy was going to give up applying to Princeton for Ephram!
V, I just don’t see you as an Aggie, but please let us know what happens.</p>
<p>My daughter found herself in a similar situation when she decided to apply ED to Columbia from CA. Boyfriend tried to put pressure on ther to stay in CA and apply to the schools he was applying to although her stats are much higher. She told me it was the only time she questioned his love. She sat him down and told him that love meant truly wanting the best for each other and that if the relationship were to survive they would have a lot of separations on the path to getting where they are going. Boyfriend got it and threw the party when she was accepted.</p>
<p>I don’t think the g/f is being sweet at all. In spite of the God-stuff, she has made it clear that she would choose TAMU for him and wants him to stay in Texas. She should take a cue from Kirmum’s post and wish for him to go to the best place for him, because that’s the best thing for her too. If the relationship is meant to be, it will survive a separation more readily than it will survive a big sacrifice for the bf/gf.</p>
<p>As a personal example…my son also had a long term GF and it put a damper on the arrival of the acceptance letters. She stayed in TX and he went to PA. They are in “friends only” mode as of November, so I am really glad that neither child made a school decision based on the other.</p>
<p>Some of you may have seen my thread in Sept/Oct when my D was second-guessing applying out of our area due to an older BF. She was <em>sure</em> it was true love and leaning towards attending college in So Calif. </p>
<p>A few months later: the relationship is over, plus the guy has now decided he hates LA & will be looking for work elsewhere. </p>
<p>She is so grateful we made her keep her options open!</p>
<p>Yep, and a 17 year old girl from southeast Texas shouldn’t say she wants her bf to stay in Texas?? Get real, folks. She is trusting him to make the decision, but of course she would prefer that he stay.</p>
<p>SBMom, thanks for the update, glad things worked out for your daughter, we <em>knew</em> it would.</p>
<p>Plug the numbers in xiggi. The acceptance rates are single digit because the qualified kids are applying to a dozen schools. Take your top 25 or 35 national universities and then throw in your top 25 LACs. Add up their entering classes and then see how many kids you really have scoring north of 1400 or 1450 on their SATs. Then subtract out a chunk of those who are going to stay home for personal or family reasons and head to the state school or some other school there is a family or identity connection to. demand is not quite what it seems. In any event the elite schools are pushing the envelope on tuition now. Parents really can’t tap the 401K unless they want to end up eating tined cat food in their old age.</p>
<p>I am not saying Princeton and the others couldn’t fill their freshmen classes with full pay students. I am saying the entering class wouldn’t look so elite.</p>
<p>no matter how much hatred i will inflict upon myself, I will let all of you know the final verdict. Y’all deserve as much for rendering your opinions.</p>
<p>as for my gf, she would not be a central reason that I would stay here. when she said “You know what I would chose for you”, she was just being cute. so, as it has been asked before, please dont pass judgement.</p>
<p>Momofwildchild, certainly there are many 17 years who are not yet able to see the forest for the trees, but there are many who are.</p>
<p>I think prestgious means different things, depending on major dtudy field.</p>
<p>"Patuxent, if you don’t like the ED rules, don’t play the game. "</p>
<p>TheDad - this is America and when the rules say ride in the back of the bus or don’t sit at the lunch counter I say screw the rules. Who made the ED rules anyway? Nobody asked me when they made the rule. Did anybody ask you? Did congress or a state legislature? The Pig Wallow Georgia town council? Paper never refused ink and I don’t think the rule is worth the paper it is printed on or any more binding than the fatwa of a council of mad imams.</p>
<p>I think that the point was a 17 year old girl from south Texas shouldn’t be calling the shots, regardless of what she prefers. By “trusting him to make the decision” her comments have also added pressure. It did at my house. Hormones can often trump common sense. </p>
<p>As for the ED rules, until they are changed, I guess us little people that follow the rules will continually get poked in the eye by those that choose not to because rules don’t apply to them. To each his own.</p>
<p>I have never been in that ED dilemma, but the rules should apply equally to him and to everyone else, or there would be chaos.</p>
<p>Thanks Kangl-- er, C-angel.
(See, I am trying!)</p>
<p>Patuxent,</p>
<p>These are not public city buses, these are private colleges. They don’t have to ask you when they make their rules. If their rules are so hateful to you, you don’t have to attend them nor do you have to send your children. </p>
<p>It is hardly “riding in the back of the bus” or being ‘barred from the lunch counter’ if someone <em>wishes to compare financial aid offers from numerous schools</em> and so elects to give up the edge conferred by an ED application. (This impediment is probably counterbalanced by the admission <em>advantage</em> of being from a less priveleged background, being an URM, being a 1st generation college applicant, etc.)</p>
<p>Read “Admissions Confidential,” written about Duke admissions. Bright well rounded kids (acronym “BWRKs”) are the yuppie-type upper-middle-class applicants from good educational backgrounds. They are in ample supply, they are not considered demographically interesting, and they are denied admission in droves. ED is <em>one</em> way these kids have to stick out from the crowd and declare “this is my favorite school.” Note that poor or middle class kids are not barred form this process. Poor kids might ELECT to forgo this process if they want to broker their best financial offer. </p>
<p>NEWS FLASH: it is easier to be rich-- in college admission, in the USA, and in LIFE. </p>
<p>You are railing at ED, in need-blind institutions who roll out the red carpet for able kids, give them piles of money, present a degree, & hoist them up an economic level or two for the rest of their lives…! </p>
<p>This seems like an odd place to begin if we’re mad at the our country’s stratified economic system.</p>
<p>SBmom - they are publicly chartered limited liability corporations engaging in interstate commerce just like the airlines or the telecoms or the oil companies. As citzens you and I get to make the rules they operate under from Title IX to anti-trust. When “they” operating collectively start making rules in order to segment the market place “they” are engaging in anti-competitive practices. And when that happens “they” are no more above the law than the oil companies or the telecoms or the airlines.</p>
<p>I am not mad at America’s stratified economic system nor does it bother me that life for the rich is better than for the poor. In fact so long as the rules of society are so arranged that there is reasonable social and economic mobility up and down the scale based on individual merit, effort, and willingness to take a risk I view economic inequality as the very touchstone of a free society. I just have a bad attitude towards corporations including educational corporations that don’t like to play by the rules or want to write their own.</p>
<p>SBMom, excellent post. You’ve said it all so well. I’m throwing e-accolades upon it.</p>
<p>Patuxent, maybe you don’t know that the need for middle-class kids at Princeton is met 100%, all grants and work study, no loans. ANd the value of the house–primary residence–is not considered. But of course to benefit, a middle class kid has to get in. If the ED process gets him a closer read because there are fewer apps, or if his demonstrated interest gives him an edge, or if he is lucky to fill a spot before the whole room fills up, then good for him. If there is ED, it is unfortunate that all ED schools don’t have the same no-loan aid. Now that would be an improvement in the system, I think. I am inclined to praise any efforts that ease the financial crush upon middle-class families that are just trying to get good educations for their kids. I am inclined to look favorably when merit can get my kid or anyone else’s to a good place. But I can’t stomach when someone wants all of the benefits of that place but is above following the rules that apply to everyone else’s kids. THAT strikes me as an elitist attitude and I am surprised you would condone it.</p>
<p>cricket - who wrote the rules? Who gave them the authority to write the rules or enforce the rules? And where does it say anybody has to follow their rules? whose to say that my rules or Valdez’s rules or the emperor of ice creams rules don’t top the ED rules?</p>
<p>Princeton says the price of a Princeton education is roughly $40,000 a year. However the real price of a Princeton education is what Princeton really charges after all that “need” based aid which is to say a number considerably closer to $23,000. To the fatuously gullible Princeton calls the difference need based aid. Another school might refer to it as merit based aid. Behind the scenes all of them refer to it as tuition discounting which they engage in to keep their classrooms and dormitories full of the best students they can attract at the highest price they can extort. </p>
<p>ED is a policy collectively adopted by these universities to minimize the need to compete with each other for the best students. SBmom can paint it with all the high minded words she wants and you can second her opinion but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and lays eggs then it is a duck. In this case it is collusion to subvert a free market.</p>