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<p>Even lower price LACs like Truman State and University of Minnesota - Morris? (both under $25,000 per year cost of attendance for out-of-state students)</p>
<p>I posted on other threads that, based on my personal experience, unless the family is super wealthy the best strategy is <em>not</em> to apply ED.
Instead, apply RD to a lot of universities so as to be able to compare the financial packages.
I know, I know, it is a little bit easier to get accepted ED… That’s why the applicant needs to apply to many RD universities to boost the odds of acceptance.</p>
<p>Ok, let me rephrase my rhetorical question: how far down the ranking list are YOU as a parent willing to let your student go “full pay”? And, to clarify, the other two schools were ranked higher, not lower, than the ED school. I’m trying to establish some perspective here.</p>
<p>Next time I’ll parse my words more carefully to avoid the wrath of CCers.</p>
<p>As a parenting question, it is an interesting one. I have two d’s, one very intellectually gifted, the other less so. The first one would have done well wherever she went - sure, she benefited from her high-ranking LAC (though she turned down my alma mater, #1 LAC, which was recruiting her heavily). </p>
<p>The second one, I think, benefited far more from a high “list-price” education that was very much tailored to her needs. (Her stats by themselves would have placed her in the bottom 15% of her class at a so-called top-100 school - though which, in her area, was a top 20 if not top 10 school - but she finished in three years, magna cum laude, with senior honors for best student in the department, and a graduate fellowship). I think it would have been a grave error to have had her go to a higher-ranking school if it did not meet her specific needs.</p>
<p>But we weren’t anywhere near “full pay” for either, so perhaps the question for us was moot. But I do think most full-pay students at top 10 (25?) places would do fine just about anywhere, and, in many cases, actually do better at the honors colleges of their local state university.</p>
<p>I would think it depends on the student’s caliber and their state. I personally would not go below top 20 for full pay since our state schools are in top 50 and they are much cheaper to attend.</p>
<p>But, wait, now I am confused. You said:</p>
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<p>That statement suggested to me that you believed you had options that I think you do not have. Are you, in fact, not considering reneging on the ED agreement? (I apologize if I am perseverating, but I find this a much more important question than that hypothetical, which I find so specific to an individual family and an individual child that I can’t believe my answer would, or should, influence anyone else terribly much.)</p>
<p>I think colleges should get rid of the ED option. It just allows those willing to game the system to cut the line in front of other qualified candidates that won’t commit to something they might not want to honor. </p>
<p>I suggest you [take</a> your own advice](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/15023940-post31.html]take”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/15023940-post31.html) and honor your ED commitment for the opportunity to cut the admission line. It really doesn’t matter what other schools will offer in merit or what at what ranking full pay is worth it a this point - your college search is over, time to stop shopping.</p>
<p>RE: post #27. Ouch! Looks as if higgins2013 is hoist by his or her own petard.</p>
<p>Of course, in the course of my life, I have certainly uttered and typed plenty of words that could still be turned back against me. (I’m sure somebody could even find plenty of examples here on CC.)</p>
<p>“I posted on other threads that, based on my personal experience, unless the family is super wealthy the best strategy is <em>not</em> to apply ED.”</p>
<p>One bad experience doesn’t counter that ED works well for many needing financial aid; applicants with a dream school get the process over early and can relax.</p>
<p>“I think colleges should get rid of the ED option.”</p>
<p>It’s way too popular for that to happen; both schools and applicants like it; it works well without the gaming.</p>
<p>@higgins, be sure your child will be eligible at desired schools after reneging; some schools do talk (from experience).</p>
<p>Sounds a little bit like a case of buyer’s remorse. If the school is a great fit, congratulations!! I am thinking you want reassurance that it is not crazy to pay in full. I don’t think it’s crazy if one can afford it and not saddle the student with a lot of debt (if it makes you feel better, we are paying in full for our son.) I am sure it will all work out. Don’t feel bad either that they didn’t sweeten the deal with merit money. It is not a ding against your son/daughter, and s/he shouldn’t feel bad. The school obviously saw that it was a good fit or they would not have accepted him/her. And since they thought s/he would come no matter what, they are probably saving up merit $$ for those are applying regular decision and they would like to entice to come. (There is no incentive for a university to entice early decision applicants, since they already have agreed to come, but by now you know this.)</p>
<p>The highest ranked school on D’s list is #30, UNC-CH. It is a super reach, since the OOS admission rate is ~18% or about the same as Cornell’s. If she were to be accepted, we would consider full pay. </p>
<p>When you talk about “full pay” however, you are not taking into account that in-state students generally pay a lot less at their own state U’s. We don’t even consider possible scholarships when discussing the in-state options. If D chooses one of those, any aid would be gravy. So the pure answer to your question is that we would “let her go full pay” at the State U’s on her list, regardless of their place on the rankings list.</p>
<p>We were willing to do full pay and would have had to at Carleton, Macalester, Pomona, Vassar, Reed. i could be wrong, but I think Mac only gives a NMS. Oberlin gave good merit aid but our son chose Grinnell and got an even better deal. He did no ED app. We had the money set aside for this. I would not use retirement funds for college. My kid could have gotten a great education at one of our state colleges.</p>
<p>Really, every family has to come to a conclusion about how much they are willing to pay. I suppose waiting until AFTER an ED application is not the best way to handle it since it causes a scramble in December or January to trigger Plan B. We would be considered “full pay” by many colleges. But our budget for each kid is pretty much full page at our (expensive) in-state flagship which is sliding scale (freshman pay less than seniors) and by the time you reach seniorhood it isn’t “cheap.” it was a budget we projected back when they were known only as Kiddo A, Kiddo B and Kiddo C on our financial plan.</p>
<p>At #29:
The problem, Vonlost, is that financial packages among what one can consider peer schools can vary to the tune of $10,000 per year. Other posters on CC confirm this, and such differences were indeed true in my case: a difference of $10K pere year was verified between schools having a difference of just 2 positions in the USNews rankings (not that the rankings matter per se, but just to put things in better perspective). So if a family does believe that the bennefit of “applicants with a dream school get the process over early and can relax” is worth $40,000 then yes, apply ED. IMHO, this is something well suited to rich families, not so much to middle class families.</p>
<p>There are also schools that give merit aid based on stats, and they list those on their websites. My S applied ED to such a school, so we knew ahead of time how much scholarship he could expect, thus what we would have to pay. Some schools are more straightforward on scholarship awards, while others make it a mystery.</p>
<p>^^ But a middle class family can get an ED financial aid offer from the dream school that is affordable, perhaps even generous in their view, and ED may have made the difference of admittance. If the offer isn’t attractive, it’s declined. Schools love students who love them; applying ED is the best way to show it.</p>
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<p>I think you gambled and you lost. It’s time to pay up regardless of the ranking of the school. </p>
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<p>I can’t believe you depended on the word of a HS guidance counselor to decide to commit your child to an ED school. </p>
<p>We are also “full pay” parents. We opted not to apply to any schools ED thus putting our child at a disadvantage in admissions. We did it for exactly the reason you state above. We did not know what sort of merit money might be available at each school and we have two other children at home who still require high school tuition payments and will be heading off to college soon. When you use the available tools to get an advantage in admissions you need to accept the disadvantages inherent in the system. You can’t have it both ways.</p>
<p>The OP wants to rephrase the question and change the subject because of their obvious disregard for the ED statement they signed when allowing their kid to apply ED. For heavens sake, why would a college spend precious merit aid on a kid who is guaranteed to attend? It sounds like they did not even apply for need based aid. So the college has every expectation that barring an unforeseen financial complication (sudden illness of parent, job loss since application was submitted, etc), the OP’s kid WILL attend because they signed an agreement to do so.</p>
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<p>Proudpatriot, you got this exactly right. This type of situation is very frustrating to parents who did not try to “cheat the system” and apply ED, with the intention of backing out if MERIT aid did not come through. I feel a little sorry for the kid, who probably just trusted that the parents would take care of it when they signed the ED agreement, and has little experience in contracts and the consequences of reneging on them. The parents should know better.</p>
<p>giterdone said: “need blind” and other semantics are a farce!</p>
<p>Only a farce if you define “need” as what you think you deserve; there are multiple ways of calculating need . . . it’s all about finding a place where you pay a Net price that is in your budget . . . </p>
<p>giterdone said: "Pay attention to the different methods of calculating “need” " - YES - good advice</p>
<p>giterdone said: “One of your examples (Brown) among others (ahem, NU) that claim to be blind . . .” I never said Brown was need blind</p>
<p>geterdone said: “We were full pay at both, and make substantially less than 180k year” - devil is in the details . … the Brown example I cited was just an example of how some schools are very generous need-based aid … which they are, even if you had to pay a lot (no offense intended) </p>
<p>That said . . . NEVER pay full price for anything . … and there are any many many ways to accomplish that goal for college, including many good schools that:
- have need blind admissions
- have very generous need-based financial aid programs
- offer significant merit-based aid</p>
<p>Examples: of the last one:
American U - 36% of students get average of $16k
Brandeis - 25% of students get average of $17k
Case Western - 71% get an average of $20k
RPI - 94% get an average of $14k</p>
<p>Kei-o-lei, the thing is that this OP promised to pay full price by signing the ED agreement, and then not applying for merit aid. So… there are good ways to accomplish this for other posters. But applying ED is NOT one of them.</p>