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<p>I say you should let him enjoy it ;). I know it is their nice son you care about, but he will end up okay. The experience may teach him a valuable life lesson- your parents don’t always know what is right.</p>
<p>It is actually very sad that point in consideration is a match of GPA/SAT/ACT to schools to pick out. The most important is a match to kid’s personality and interest(s). Unhappy kid will not do well where his stats might match perfectly. So all calculations, percentiles and statistics might be just a waste of time to consider. We have created spreadsheet based on many criteria (personal interests, family situation included), visited all schools, then daughter decided. The goal is at least 50% success, so that they have choices. When they see everything, they might settle for #2 and not be dissapointed with that. Actually it might work very well, as it did for our D.</p>
<p>I thought in this thread, though, the OP was saying that the dad has some unrealistic expectations (probably mostly based on outdated info), and she was wondering how or if she could help. Having a better understanding of the world as it stands now might help, and whether we like it or not, a great many schools do take stats heavily into consideration, right? In other words, even if the son would <em>love</em> the school, based on his interests, if he’s totally out of range in prep, the school might not love him back. Sounds like, though, the son’s expectations and desires of where he’d like to go could be very different from the dad’s.</p>
<p>I think the main concern was, wouldn’t it be sad if the kid doesn’t get accepted anywhere because he only applies to reaches.</p>
<p>^Yes, the realistic goal is 50% success, so that kid has choices. However, list should not include schools that kid does not not like for personal reasons, stats match is secondary. Lots of them do not stay, they transfer, if they are not happy at the place that accepts them because of stats.</p>
<p>“I’d also add that this really isn’t any different than the families who don’t have much money, but are convinced that their middling kid will get scholarships for college, or families earning $150K incomes who are sure that their kid will get need based financial aid because they live in such a high-cost area. They are delusional, in denial, or just plain misinformed.”</p>
<p>I’m glad I didn’t take advice from you. My husband earns in the $140’s and along with 17K to 22K in merit aid our son got institutional aid in the form of grants from almost every school he was accepted at. His best offer so far (he is waiting on two schools) is $17K in merit and $12,500 in grants. Much appreciated since their tuition is $55K a year. </p>
<p>And we don’t live in a high cost area either. </p>
<p>My sister, who lives in Scarsdale, and whose husband’s income is considerably more than what my husband makes, got $38K/yr in institutional aid from Vanderbilt (who only count one parents income in a divorce situation so his mom’s very high income isn’t counted at all.)</p>
<p>MiamiDAP, I don’t think anyone here was questioning your strategy. What was being questioned was the wisdom of applying <em>only</em> to reach schools – schools where the student doesn’t have the kind of stats it normally takes to get into them.</p>
<p>"along with 17K to 22K in merit aid our son got institutional aid in the form of grants from almost every school he was accepted at. "</p>
<p>-You will get Merit scholarships even if your income is a million $$, institutional, state, private…if kid’s stats are high enough, income does not matter, even if they ask for FASFA for Merit $$ consideration as the case at my D’s college. We are not eligible for any need based and D. has been on full tuition (actually more) based on about 10 Merit scholarships that she has been getting from all possible sources (state, college, private thru college, departmental, Honors…I probably missed something). We have filed FASFA every year, showing that we are not eligible, since her school is advising to file FASFA to receive full range of Merit Scholarhips. Apparently, it has worked with higher income than discussed above.</p>