How to decide between multiple good options?

College Search & Lists
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My D22’s hard work is paying off with several great college options, but none of them is a perfect school that ticks all her boxes. She is struggling and we are struggling as a family to weigh the pros and cons and so I thought I’d throw it out here to get other perspectives.

We are full-pay and have saved enough to pay for a school that costs up to 150% of our state flagship. For purposes of this post, let’s call the state flagship cost “Baseline.” Of course, any amount we pay that is LESS than 150% of Baseline means more money left for grad school, retirement, and breathing room.

Here are the choices up for consideration:

School #1:

Cost: 38% of Baseline
Rank: Top 100-200 nationally; top 75 for desired major
Size/location: Desired size of school; in rural area not great for internship/employment opportunities but they claim a good track record; slightly more distant from home than desired
Other: Admitted to Honors College; least favorite of schools D22 visited so far, but not hated

School #2:

Cost: 100% Baseline
Rank: Top 75 nationally; top 20 for desired major
Size/location: Great location for internships/jobs; slightly larger school and city than desired
Other: Still waiting to hear on Honors College and direct admission to desired program (if not admitted directly, D’s interest goes way down); not yet visited, but was a little intimidated during a quick stop years ago

School #3:

Cost: 150% of Baseline (but offers a 4-year Bachelor/Masters program, so would result in grad school savings)
Rank: Top 50-100 nationally; top 50 for desired major
Size/location: Desired size of school and city; pretty good job/internship opportunities
Other: Directly admitted to desired program, may qualify for additional merit money, favorite of schools visited so far

School #4:

Cost: 117% of Baseline
Rank: Top 100-200 nationally; desired major is ranked, but below top 100
Size/location: Desired size, but a little too rural and disconnected from job/internship options (not as rural as School #1, though)
Other: Admitted to Honors College; not yet visited, but liked the look of the campus when attending an event there years ago

School #5:

Cost: 156% of Baseline (we could still pay without loans, but it could eat into savings we’d hoped to use for grad school and/or retirement)
Rank: Top 50 national liberal arts college; plan would be to attend grad school afterward
Size/location: Smaller school and town than desired
Other: D22 wanted to attend a university much larger than her largish high school, but was charmed by the people she met on her visit; school offers the opportunity to continue her sport at the collegiate level and that has a big appeal to D22 and is a plus none of the larger schools can match; second favorite of the schools visited; potentially not great for jobs/internship opportunities, but should position D22 well for grad school

She hasn’t visited anywhere and had that “this is The One” feeling. So how would you suggest she weigh the different pros/cons?

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It is impossible to really say without knowing the schools or major – but my first instinct tells me that if her top choice is affordable (plus has grad school savings) then that may be the best option. FWIW I consider having a direct admit into her preferred program to be a huge plus.

If possible can you re-visit her top couple of choices for accepted students day?

As I told my kids, at some point they just have to make a choice – they can’t live life multiple ways. No school is perfect. And no school – even one that appears ideal-- can guarantee a great experience-- there is always an element of luck (that they connect with friend, have good professors etc.).

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Things that you and she need to consider:

Regarding rank (for either the school or the major), is it important for her likely career directions or not? Or are job and career opportunities mainly affected by location?

Also, what kind of graduate school is under consideration?

What was the understanding that you had with her on cost? I.e. if she chooses a school less than your maximum budget, would the remainder be available to her (and for what purposes)?

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You’ll receive no better advice than this. At the end of the day, they are all good, and no school is unicorn perfect. Her gut will tell her, and it’ll be right.

My son didn’t decide until 2 days before the deadline. When I asked him if he thought it was the “perfect fit,” sometime during first year, he said: “I like it here a lot. I’m sure I would have been fine at any of the schools I applied to though.” Don’t stress it. She’s in and her success will hinge completely on her ability to take advantage of the opportunities she’s presented.

Congratulations to all!!!

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I think my gut is telling me the same as yours. Right now, she is focused on the negatives — she will be sad to give something up no matter what she chooses.

I’d like her to be more excited about the opportunities she will gain instead. The new student days are a good idea — maybe that will help her look forward.

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That is life – for every choice you make you leave other options behind.

It is wonderful that she has great options that are affordable. Congrats to all for a job well done!

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Good to hear about your son, but she will drive me nuts if she waits until 2 days before the deadline, lol!

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I know a parent who set up an NCAA-style bracket and scheduled the elimination decisions! Not necessarily a bad idea to take this head-to-head approach. With your list, I’d start by pitting #3 against #5, and #2 against #4 (once the direct-admit decision is in).

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School #3 seems like the clear choice to me so I guess I don’t know why it isn’t the clear choice to you or your daughter.

Agree with everyone that there isn’t a bad choice among the group as you’ve described them…just matters what you and your daughter value most.

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I think location will ultimately be more important than rank, but it is a little fuzzy because she is not 100 percent set on one career path yet. Like many teenagers, she might change her mind entirely once she is in college. If she does, and rank begins to look more important, she can aim to get into a highly ranked grad school.

On the other hand, we want her to succeed in undergrad and not do poorly because she is somewhere that is a bargain but turns out to be a poor fit.

Right now, she is contemplating grad school in business or data science.

As far as our understanding on funds, she knows we were hoping to help with grad school and other expenses, and the less we blow on her undergrad, the more we have available for that. But it isn’t promised to her no matter what. If there is money left in the pot and we decide it is better used for our medical expenses or something, that’s where it will go. It will depend on our overall financial situation at the time. We do like the idea of having some left over for our “rainy day” fund, but on the other hand, we did earmark it for her college.

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I guess I would have to figure out how to seed each school first…:thinking:

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It does feel like the most “Goldilocks” choice to me and maybe my bias shows in my description.

But despite its “pros,” it isn’t a clear choice to her because it means passing up some savings and/or some prestige and/or the chance to be a collegiate athlete.

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It’s great that you give all this info, but without knowing the schools, we can’t give good feedback. Collective wisdom from people knowledgeable about a lot of schools is valuable in context, but really, this is a question about finances. I’d let her choose the one she likes if they are all good and you can afford them.

At the very least, just be ruthless and cut the two of least interest. That’s always a good starting point.

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Yes, it is tricky to figure out what you (and she) value most. Maybe write down the generalized pros and figure out if the one that has ‘the most’ is actually the top one…or if not, which pros have more weight?

Valued Commodities:
Money Savings
Prestige
Internship opportunities
School Size
Location
Athletic opportunities
Direct Admission

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This is helpful, thank you. I think I am starting to realize that we/she haven’t prioritized what we value, so we keep going in circles. We value all the “good” things the same.

She likes to save money AND she likes the idea of a prestigious program, etc.

Rather than have a bracket where schools head off against each other, maybe we need to start with a bracket of VALUES. She needs to rank what matters to her most.

You’ve given some great food for thought.

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It drove me nuts too, but I held my tongue. I didn’t want my anxiety and impatience to influence his decision. :wink:

You have to have at least some litmus tests. For us, we had a budget no fly zone, no matter the name. For him, they had to have direct admit to ME and a reasonable proximity to outdoor activities. Rank played no role, one, because I find them to be specious, but two, because engineering is pretty egalitarian right out of undergrad.

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If grad school in business means an MBA then I’d worry less about "saving money for grad school’ than if it means a Master’s in Marketing or Master’s in Real Estate Development. The prestigious MBA’s do not want someone right out of undergrad- so your D will get a job and work for a few years. And she’ll take out loans for the MBA program like most of her classmates, and as part of her first finance course, will model optimal loan repayment strategies.

By “no loans” do you mean that your D is not considering taking the Federal max? I think those limits are reasonable…

I think this is a great problem to have the way you’ve listed her choices. An observation- kids tend to fear that a school is too large in a way that doesn’t actually play out once they are there. If you look at the total population of some large schools-- they include the Ag school which could be 50 miles away, and the med school which is 15 miles away (and med students aren’t hanging out in the student union of the undergrad college! You’ll never see them) plus a few other random programs which may all be online anyway. My kids didn’t want huge schools either- but quickly learned that you really can’t detect the difference between a 10,000 student school and a 15,000 student school. 800 students vs. 5,000- yes. 10,000 vs. 40,000 (assuming all colleges and programs share a campus) yes. But in the middle? College infrastructures are built in such a way that you aren’t going to see 10,000 kids lined up for waffles at the same cafeteria on a Sunday morning!!!

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Lots of great advice above.

On a parallel front, it might be helpful to remind her:

  1. there is no wrong answer. She might resist this idea! but it’s an important one. Even if she picks one and goes with high hopes that are completely crushed b/c it turns out that it wasn’t what she thought / what she wanted / what she thought she wanted that doesn’t mean she made a wrong or bad choice. She is making an important decision with limited information. If more information changes the calculation she can choose again. It’s called transferring and there is no shame in it.

  2. this is a great practice run for bigger decisions that are coming down the road: compared to choosing your life partner or buying a house this is a relatively low-risk decision. It feels humungous to her- which is fair, b/c it is a big one, but it also has a lot fo extra weight in that everybody is watching and judging her choice- but irl, there is a ‘get out of jail free card’.

  3. the ‘this is the one’ feeling concept should have a stake put through its heart (ditto for wedding dresses btw!). Seriously. College is a stage of life. It is a 4-year job. Looking for magic feelings - and worse, feeling that it’s a ‘bad sign’ if you don’t have them or that ‘everybody else’ does and you are missing out is not helpful. I do agree with the poster who suggested re-visit days- they were very helpful to some of of the collegekids, not least b/c they were with other admitted students who they could be sharing classes and dorms with in just a few months.

Anything that you can do to hep her to bring down the overall anxiety about the decision will make a big difference,

ps, just a side note on weighing the pros/cons: some of the ones you have are really second-tier variables. For example, only one of the Collegekids has had internships in the same town as their college (a polisci kid in DC). All the rest have been all over the US (plus 2 international). Don’t conflate the location of the college with the availability of internships.

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I am the person who reads all of the negative reviews to see if the chief complaint is something I can live with. My strategy would be to start with picking one school that if it had been a “no” would not have been a big deal. If a rejection wouldn’t have caused a meltdown, it likely isn’t worth considering now. If you can use that thought process to eliminate 1-2, that’s 1-2 off the list.

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Agree that ratcheting down the sense of “OMG such a life altering decision how will I choose” is going to be really helpful. And for you- the parent- to have a strong sense of your kid.

One of my kids is a “thrive in a crack in the sidewalk” personality. Always has been. Still is. We didn’t fret over what the decision was going to look like, because this wasn’t the kind of kid who took rejection personally and wasn’t the kind of kid who suffered from “what if’s”.

My next one down- polar opposite. Always convinced that the grass is greener, pretty much needs the stars to align nicely in order to let go an enjoy an experience. We were more involved in asking “what about” or “did you think of”… because with this kid, we wanted the relevant factors out on the table for consideration.

Etc. Know your kid. At the end of the day, my observation is that most kid’s issues with their colleges are HIGHLY idiosyncratic. Bad match for freshman roommate- oh well, that couldn’t be predicted. The desired EC was MUCH more competitive than the kid thought- so the kid is playing a club sport with players not as dedicated to the sport, or doesn’t even get cast for the chorus in a student production. Again- this is very hard to predict. Who knew that a bunch of athletic and musical freshmen would show up at try-outs for Mame (at a college without a musical theater program).

For us- we were willing to pay more for rigor. Academic rigor. We weren’t impressed with easy access to surfing (if the kids had shown any talent there we might have thought differently) and we weren’t impressed with fancy dorms and candlelight dining, sushi bars, and lazy rivers. But a superior academic program in one of a few likely areas of interest- that was worth tightening the belt.

YMMV. Every family has to figure out what is important.

On the subject of internships and summer jobs- as long as you’ve wrapped your mind around the kid not coming home for summer vacation- the kid will be fine! They get jobs and internships all over the place. Just not convenient for you!!!

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