How much info do you share with extended family?

CountingDown
Tue, 21 Jul 2015 01:06:16 +0000

Hoggirl, I hear you about the economics. Our EFC (even with FA for two kids) was more than what any of my siblings earn in a year. We played it very, very low key. My other nieces and nephews (among those who went to college) had to make decisions strictly on finances. Most kids in our neighborhood go to state schools (including OOS), but not many to privates, so we kept low key on that front, too.

We didn’t share much info until one of my nieces started asking me questions about college apps. One of my sibs and a SIL asked about how FA worked and I ran some sample numbers for them. Sobering did not begin to describe it. We shared some general info about scores and approaches to test taking, but to this day noone in my family knows what S1 made on the SAT. I think S2 shared his scores a year after the fact when one of my nieces had an excellent score and was competitive for top schools. We ran in December of her senior year FA and she realized that her best option was merit $$ at the flagship.

As far as school lists – most of the schools my kids applied to were not on anyone’s radar amongst my family. S1 told folks he was applying to a small science/math program in CA and that usually distracted the conversation sufficiently so that he didn’t get the more intrusive questions.

Because my kids had a good range of reach/match/likely, we were able to tell folks who asked about acceptances that they got into some schools, waitlisted at others, and rejected at some.