We went with the popular decision. My D was accepted to two T40 schools and ended up attending a state almost-flagship with over 40K UGs. She has enjoyed attending sporting events, especially football and men’s basketball where the team consistently goes deep in the NCAA tournament. She was nominated by her university for the Goldwater in her sophomore year, and again in her junior (current) year. She TAs and has made many professor contacts. She has been asked to consider submitting her application for Rhodes next year. She is on e-board of a couple of clubs and participates in intramural sports. She will double major plus minor in four years and has had summer research positions each summer, as well as doing research during the school year for her third year in a row. We did not need to touch our 529 due to the scholarships she received (cash flowing the COA), so her 529 $ can all go to her little sister.
I feel slightly deflated reading this thread; I wonder if elite schools will end up being comprised of lower income & 1%er’s and very few from that 20-5% income zone.
@Ohdeanor raises an interesting angle on the question (and congratulations - your son must be impressive in many ways!) If price were no object, would you turn down the Ivy for the less prestigious school due to fit or a specific academic program? I am reminded of a thread by a parent whose high stats son with particular engineering interests chose his state flagship safety and didn’t want to bother with the higher prestige options.
I went to the honors college at a flagship public on a NMF full ride and didn’t lack for intellectually engaged peers, so I’m aware that it doesn’t have to be T-20 or bust. I did resent my parents for reining me in financially for all of 2 weeks before I adapted and had a great college experience. Of course, as a parent, I want to give my intellectually curious and hardworking child the moon, but happily she is more practical than I and knows that there are many places where a great education can happen. Being a donut hole family is actually a very good place to be. While we can’t afford to be full pay, we also don’t have to limit her to the least expensive option. Nor will she have to take on debt to get a college degree.
Yes. Pretty sure our third generation legacy kid would have been accepted ED to Cornell for engineering (family still big donors and serving on executive boards but of course, we don’t really know because D refused to even apply).
She is our only child and has a fully funded 529 so money would not have been an issue. She simply did not like Cornell’s program or vibe as well as the big state flagships she toured. Purdue, Michigan, and UMD all felt better to her in terms of fit than Cornell. (She should have had GT on her list but she didn’t want to go that far south).
She is happily in her second year at her first choice - honors college at Purdue. For her major Purdue is tied with Cornell in rankings.
She didn’t even tour any other Ivies as they weren’t strong enough in engineering in her opinion.
My D is in a somewhat similar position to @bigmacbeth 's D. What has pleased me most is that the kids in her scholarship cohort can (and mostly do) actually enjoy life. They don’t have financial pressures (eg most have cars), they get preferred access to opportunities, and it’s relatively easy to get good grades while challenging yourself as much as you want and still having time to go skiing or climbing at weekends. So they can switch from talking about getting a nomination for a Rhodes or similar scholarship to thinking about taking time off after college to backpack around the world or leading expeditions in Alaska in the summer.
That freedom to know you have every support (financial and otherwise) to excel and it’s not a dog eat dog situation to fight for opportunities reminds me of my college days when I could happily go off on expeditions to unexplored caves or untracked mountains in the summer and backpack around the world before starting a job. But it seems to be far from the norm nowadays.
If this was ever any sort of norm, it was only among the wealthier classes. I graduated from college in the 80s on scholarship and don’t recall anyone spending their summer doing that. Kids from the school where I work don’t either. Maybe I missed one or two, but it’s not the norm. Norm is working or interning over summer in my world.
The typical family income distribution at an elite private college can be approximated by FA stats. For example, a typical FA distribution:
- About 50% no FA => 50% from top 3-4%.
- About 15% Pell grant => 15% from bottom 50%.
- That means that the other 35% is from the 50th to 96-97th percentile (top 50% excluding the top 3-4%).
A distribution like the above has the upper half excluding the top 3-4% slightly overrepresented, contrary to the complaints about how the “upper middle class” is squeezed out of those colleges. The most underrepresented are the bottom half, while the top 3-4% are way overrepresented (and within that group, the top 0.1-0.5% are probably much more overrepresented than the rest).
Seems like more perspective is evidenced in the more recent posts.
Ha, no I didn’t come from the “wealthier classes”. But I worked in the summer when I was in college to earn the money to go on these trips, as did many of my friends (which made sense when college itself was essentially free). And the friend of my D I mentioned above got paid to go to Alaska and teach outdoor pursuits last summer.
Yes, reflecting the reduced financial pressure that young adults a generation ago had, in addition to more favorable job markets that made it more possible to earn a living even in a high school graduate job.
Very true. Hence the benefit of taking a full ride if it can remove any financial pressures on the student during college. Even better if you still have a 529 balance that can be used to get started in life (or pay for the masters that you need to get a better job) and you don’t need to begin work as soon as you graduate. I think that’s hugely underrated, not least as a stress reducer for the student (and one reason I am not keen on the idea of automatically passing the leftover 529 money on to a sibling or back to the parents).
I disagree with your premise but funding for college does need to start early and often (over 18-21 yeas) and is really the difference maker for most 20-25% income families. If it’s a priority for your family, you can and will make it happen.
Ah, well working during the summers to do these things still happens. 
I only read a portion here but @Rivet2000. Have your son play gambits in chess ?.
@ChangeTheGame. Exactly! I am not sure why the parents are so afraid of their children. We all want to give them what they want. I get that. But tempering expectations early is just parenting.
We made an extensive excel spreadsheet and listed like everything from deadlines to costs for housing, books when to apply for merit per school. Costs were very black and white. Each child knew how much 529 they had and what we expected to pay out of current income. We left enough fudge numbers also since there are some variables. We chased merit at some schools to join the fray.
My kids really couldn’t believe how much everything costs. They both work during school which is their choice.
When we couldn’t really afford to send my daughter to her number 1 school she was disappointed but she already had a number 2 with merit.
If you give your kids everything they want when their young then they expect the same for college. Both of my kids are so appreciative of what we are doing for them. They see their friends that just graduated having a hard time paying loans and living expenses. Both will have little to no loans when they graduate. It could of been a drastically different story.
I have been a member of CC since 2012 and I have always understood a safety as a school that a student is guaranteed to be admitted, is affordable (as determined by the family) and the student will be happy attending. If you say I have a safety meaning an academic safety and you can’t afford it it’s no different than a match or a reach, you still can’t go. Perhaps the real world needs to consider this.
@Knowsstuff He’s a Catalan player - not really a gambit.
And then they are shocked when college choice is the first time they are limited by costs…
Also, wouldn’t parents who gave their kids everything have spent more money that could have been saved for their college?
@ucbalumnus I think the flip side is also true though. Some pretty frugal families prioritize academics and save enough so their kids have choices. Even though we live in a town where a large percentage of kids get cars when they turn 16, and third graders get multiple pairs of Uggs, and every other dad has a Tesla, our family has been incredibly frugal. Our kids don’t ever get new phones and in fact we always buy them refurbished and they currently carry around pretty old versions. Meanwhile, their high school friends upgrade their phones every time a new one comes out. We don’t have fancy cars. We don’t have a lot of “stuff” period and shop mostly at places like Nordstrom Rack. We look for the best deal on practically everything and it’s pretty well known how insanely frugal we are. Our kids live it every hour of every day.
Yet, when it came to college, we were ready to let our kids choose even when it means paying $300k. S19 is still saying thank you all of the time for giving him the opportunity to go to school where he is. He’s worked hard to make money so he doesn’t ask us for any spending money and pays for his books too. Being frugal is completely embedded in him as well so, while his full-pay roommate just flat out ordered all of the books he needed last semester and charged it to mom and dad, S19 spent almost nothing on books. Found an upperclassman who had the math book he could use. Went to the library to read one of the books he needed for another class. Rented one book for $40.
We’ve been fortunate to have done well and to have the chance to save enough. We are grateful for the luck we’ve had. But we were also able to give our kids choices when it comes to college because we didn’t spend it all on stuff.
We do know quite a few families who never said no to their kids - Gucci belts? Sure! Louis Vuitton bags? Of course. Anything for you honey. One of S19’s friends drives a convertible BMW. Interestingly enough, many of those kids go where the money is for college. It’s not just the middle class who can be in the donut hole.
Problem to me is what do these kids have to look forward to if driving a BMW at 19?
@Rivet2000… Nice ?
“Interesting thread and I do note how the title changed once the discussion turned to choosing the more affordable school.”
Apparently the title of the thread was changed by the Admin when they decided to make it a featured thread. I, the OP didn’t notice it until someone pointed it out as I did not change it.