“My son did get a very good scholarship from NYU which is why he is considering attending it. 40K a year”
THEN LET HIM GO TO NYU. OR ONE OF THE OTHER COLLEGES YOU ALLOWED HIM TO APPLY TO!!
PhD programs will cost you NOTHING. If he is as amazing as you have said, and decides he wants so go to Med school , then he may very well get a scholarship to one as well. But he can pay for grad school on HIS DIME.
Stop being a schmuck- pay your part for his UG degree at a GREAT university[ and Ol Miss does not qualify…] , so he has many more options in the future.
Menloparkmom is right. Man up and pay.
If you were going to insist on going with a full ride offer, you should have made that clear to him before he made his college list. There are several other (and perhaps more acceptable to him) schools falling over themselves to offer full rides to NMSF students but they don’t seem to have been on his list. Seems like you are penalizing him for your lack of due diligence during the research process.
Has he visited Ole Miss, talked to the professors, the science groups? Does he know he won’t be the only student with and ACT 36 and there will be some perfect SAT scores? Has he talked to all these 6th graders he thinks he’s better than?
It’s your money. You promised him an education and you will be providing one. If he doesn’t like Ole Miss, he can always transfer after getting 1-2 years of a solid education. If you do decide to send him, I’d stick to your budget of $35k and let him borrow the rest.
He does have some good points about being a minority at a very white school, so if that is a real issue for him, maybe explore it more. For my daughter, that was never the issue if others treated her fairly. It’s really a personal choice. How much diversity is there in his current school?
Look people, the mom may be on the hook to pay, and if she does, she should be showered with appreciation. But I’m getting the idea that the son may act as though that is how it should be, as if he is entitled to all the money his mom can shell out because he is just the greatest thing that has ever existed on the planet. That attitude is what rankles me. If he has a more specific case as to why he should go to one of the expensive schools, I’m waiting to hear it. But all I hear now is “let me go where I can be with a bunch of snooty high-scoring kids on the ACT like me” not “let me go to this selective school because it has a great program in ______ or it can offer me these specific opportunities _____, etc.”
The kid took an ACT test in 7th grade. I don’t think U Miss was the goal. 
However, the OP claiming to be the parent has not said what s/he previously told him about the parental contribution limit before he made his application list.
If s/he previously said “$35,000 per year”, then s/he would be breaking a previously made promise.
If s/he previously said “$0 per year” (or some other low amount), then the student should assume that any school that costs more than that plus whatever s/he can self-fund with direct loans and work earnings is off the table.
If s/he previously said nothing about the subject, then it is a textbook example of why parents and students need to talk about it before the student makes his/her application list.
The son may feel that way because she led him to believe that for many months now.
The quality of the program and the educational experience does depend in part on the strength of the students. If this kid is as brilliant as the OP says, he has probably been starved all his life for intellectual peers and since he seems to have only intellectual interests, that’s a pretty sad and lonely life.
Of course it’s the OP’s right to decide whether or not to pay, but I think the son will be justifiably very unhappy at not being informed when the list was made.
So parents aren’t allowed to change their minds when they learn more about schools, financing, or if a better deal comes along? My kids went around wearing Yale and Harvard sweatshirts when they were in middle school, but that was not a promise.
It is not a contract with a child that they get to go to a certain school. It’s a goal, a hope, a dream, but not a contract. Sometimes the parents have to be the parents and make the hard decision. I don’t think the decision soley based on finances, and she’s not asking him to give up everything to go to air conditioning school, but she’s asking him to consider a very good bargain. I don’t think he’s even considered Ole Miss.
dstark, many students in charter schools, g&T programs, summer science camps take the SAT in 7th grade. It’s not unusual at all. Smart kids? Yes, but not all geniuses. My friend’s daughter was very smart, took the SATs at that age, and went to U of Idaho. Many kids go to their state flagships and excel.
Considering the lead time that the student requires for deciding where to apply and writing the applications, it is not a good idea for the parent to change his/her mind after the application list has largely been committed. If the parent changes his/her mind in April, it is too late to use the time machine to go back to October and build a new application list of schools that are likely to be parentally acceptable by the parent’s new rules, rather than what the parent said was ok back then.
That said, if the parent previously said “we can contribute at most $X”, then the student should assume that any school that costs more than $X + direct loans + small amount of work earnings is off the table.
I feel for this mother as my kid did pretty much the same thing. Knew he would get a full ride at Baylor and UT Dallas and refused to apply. After he was accepted at his #1 school in December, he outright refused. He knew we had saved x amount for every year of UG, and MIT just happens to make up the difference except for 3000. We found out he is a NMScholar and is getting 2,500, so he only has to contribute $500 for the 1st year. I guess he got lucky. Unless he changes his mind in 10 days when he visits Princeton, where he gets the best aid package. Being at CPW this weekend, he won’t want to even visit Princeton. For him, its always been MIT.
Thing is, I don’t think he would be challenged at the full ride schools as he also took the ACT test in 7th grade and has self studied. He also has a lot of EC and music and running.
OP, I didn’t understand. Is your son receiving $40 K in aid from NYU? Or would you be paying $40 K a year for NYU?
In either of these two cases, I don’t see why you don’t go the extra $5 K and tell him that for grad school he will have that much less money.
I see where people are coming from when they object to the attitude that is being portrayed when he refuses to go to Miss, but it sounds like both you and he had agreed on the strategy which he then implemented (e.g., no serious research into merit awards, choosing a safety which wasn’t really a safety bc he refuses to actually go there). Changing your tune now re the bottom line will cause resentment, esp since it sounds like he is extremely anxious to get away and try a new setting. He is still young, and obviously not invested yet in a community (which is not a god thing!) and very eager for new experiences. Imagine, if it backfires at his fullride school, do you want to live with his resentment?
I would go with NYU is it is the most generous with aid, and suck it up, bc, after all, a promise is a promise.
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The kid took an ACT test in 7th grade. I don’t think U Miss was the goal.
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A whole bunch took it in 7th grade. My son did, too. He also got a 28 in the 7th grade.
While I think the mom should let him go to NYU or wherever that is within her stated budget, one thing needs to be corrected. The son is looking at the avg ACT at Ole Miss and is making a silly conclusion. Who cares what the avg ACT is at Ole Miss. Those kids won’t be in his classes/major. Assuming that this kid will be doing some kind of STEM major, those kids will largely be the top quartile of the school.
Again, I do think the mom should let him go to a school that fits her stated budget because he’s not the social type…and Ole Miss is a rah rah school. He’d get nearly a free ride at Alabama (even at this late point because he’s NMF), but the issue would be similar…another rah rah school. Rah rah with huge merit was fine for my high stats kids, but it’s not necessarily right for others.
You S is correct, 100%, spot-on, correct.
Support the kid to go to NYU or JHU, U Miss is a joke for a ACT 36 kid, period.
Both my daughters attend OOS Flagships. One school is higher ranked and more respected, especially in the Engineering program she is in. The other goes to a mid tier flagship.( Great scholarship and her decision was based on a particular sport team she is a member of) Daughter A is impressed with all the intelligent kids that she is surrounded by. She feels challenged. Daughter B complains about the quality of the student body. Her first semester roommate got a 1.07 - no joke. She dreads group projects because she is the only one doing quality work and has to redo the material from the group members before submission. She is the top of the heap for that school, which is fine because she has her mind set on graduate school and she loves her sport. The school that Daughter B attends is … not sure how to say this…but a heck of a lot better than Ole Mis. Daughter B does not have the stats your son has. I think he will be miserable. Sorry, but I think you should cough it up if you have it.
I’m usually a fan of the lower price options in these discussions but I get where the kid is coming from.
I permitted my daughter to decide against going to a lower tier instate public school which would have been about $25k less (total over 4 years) than where she will attend. When we had the discussion last fall, I asked her to apply to the free tuition school as a safety net, just in case she didn’t get in to any meets full need schools. These can be tough decisions. None of us can read the future. Job losses, health problems, etc., can crop up and make the financial stretch impossible. Each family has to determine their own comfort level.
OP writes “He tells me that there average ACT score is a 24 and that he received a 28 in the 7th grade, meaning that the average University of Mississippi student is on the equivalence of his 6th grade skills. He tells me he does not want to be surrounded by Frats and Sororities and Conservatives. He tells me Ole Miss is no place for a Brown, Indian boy. He also tells me he does not want a repeat of his high school (he took all AP classes) where he does not feel any challenges or diversity and always feels like a minority.”
This is not necessarily attitude but fact. I think he makes some good points and it does not sound like a good fit. While I agree that a student doesn’t need to attend the highest ranked colleges to excel it is important to find the environment in which he is most likely tot thrive. I can understand the parent’s dilemma - my S received a full tuition scholarship from a safety school but he would prefer some of his other options. Growing up the way I did, it’s really hard to set aside the idea of ‘value’ but truthfully, we are able to afford all the options and it appears this parent can too.
If this were my kid, I would do anything in my power to make it possible for him to go to Johns Hopkins because it is an ideal school for him – better, even, than the ones that rejected him.
For a student who’s interested in scientific research and who wants to be among other serious students, JHU is a great place. And your son has what it takes to succeed there (and later in a graduate program). JHU also attracts quite a lot of Asian-Americans, including kids of Indian heritage, which could also be a big plus.
The difference between JHU and the University of Missisippi is like the the difference between the best restaurant in your hometown and McDonalds. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but it’s true. The academic opportunities – particularly research opportunities – at JHU are extraordinary, and your son would be with his academic peers, probably for the first time in his life – an experience that’s valuable in itself.
If your son had been offered a full ride at a top state school like UCLA, or even a not-quite-so-good but still respected state school like the University of Maryland, the decision might be more difficult. But Mississippi? For a student of this caliber? It’s just not a good fit.
Agree with @Marian that JHU is almost certainly the best fit for this kid.