<p>SoozieVT, our income falls between the two examples on Brown’s website. This discussion reminds me of another thread over on the Brown CC discussion. A student who really wanted to go to Brown got a free ride to Emory. Most of the responders were like me there’s no way to pass up a free ride. Think of all the money that you saved which you could use for graduate school. I can’t see going into major debt before you’re in your 20’s.</p>
<p>ronib…I agree about the debt you mention for a student when a free ride at a very selective school like Emory comes calling! </p>
<p>Our situation was different. WE are paying the college loans, not our kids (even the student ones). So, THEY will not be the ones in debt. </p>
<p>My D who went to Brown was offered a free ride at our state U (which was not on her college list) and so she did turn down a free ride but the school, while great, was not a good fit for her. </p>
<p>I know turning down money sounds insane. Call us insane. Even my mom did! 
She could not understand how D would go to a school like Brown when she had a free ride at UVM. Then for grad school, she could not believe we allowed D to attend MIT which was the only grad school that offered no scholarships and she had ones to top schools in her field like Columbia and Cornell. This school really fit our D. I’m working to pay it off. My mom died a year ago a month into my D’s first year of grad school and I only wish she knew that this summer, D was awarded a significant Fellowship that takes a nice bite out of what we’ll owe and in the end, D got her cake and we got to eat it too. </p>
<p>Anyway, re: Brown…while the aid you will get there is not comparable to a free ride or the possible merit scholarships your D could win if she applies down a notch or two, I was trying to say that if you have to compare need based aid at Brown with another need based school (you mentioned Yale), I am not sure it is worth waiting to compare because the formula is pretty known ahead of time and I feel that what Brown will offer for a family between 105,000/year and 160,000 per year in those examples will be as good as you will get at any school that is only need based (not merit) aid. Now, if you must win merit aid scholarships, that is a different story. But Brown does offer 100% need based aid and so you are bound to get SOME aid from them. We did but would have gotten more today under their new policies then we did before that went into place. But our aid really jumped when two were in school which you won’t have.</p>
<p>“Of course when Mudgette and my DD were applying, few schools had the middle class guidelines and the limit of home equity to a % of income, so the numbers could be very different now.”
That basically sums up our situation, as DS was applying at the same time as both students mentioned above, and like cur, we are both self employed, and really got screwed because of home equity by many of the U’s S was accepted at. If FA was not an issue, he would be at one of the top U’s he was accepted at, rather than at the U where he was offered a full tuition scholarship [thank you USC!]
S is planning on getting a PHD, so future college expenses will hopefully be minimal.</p>
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<p>Same story here.</p>
<p>As a family, we considered not only the cost of UG but also of grad school. We realized that our kids were not interested in careers involving law, business or medicine so that if they did go to grad school, they would be likely to receive graduate stipends. At the graduate programs about which I know a little, stipends are not tied to need but to admission. This freed us to consider only the cost of UG, and we felt we could pay full fare (with loans) and so did not steer our kids toward merit aid. Truth to tell, we did not even know of the existence of such aid when S1 was applying to college. If finaid for UG had been a consideration or if my Ss had been interested in professional schools, their college list might have been quite different.</p>
<p>Curm: The son of friends of ours graduated Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude, from Harvard with a senior thesis that was “nearly publishable” according to his advisor, and was rejected by HMS! He attend another med school, did his residency at JHU and has been practicing medicine for the last ten years. There is such a thing as capriciousness.</p>
<p>Med School?.. Med School?</p>
<p>wait a minute… didn’t she just win some Texas state high school basketball championship? How does it suddenly become med school? Next thing you know she will be Doctor Mudgette.</p>
<p>Lots of things have happened since High School basketball, NJres. Not anything near as fun to watch as a spectator…but lots of things, nonetheless. </p>
<p>And marite. Thanks for that story of encouragement. I’ll pass it on. She met with a family friend last week-end who had dreams of HMS/JHU/Penn/UCSF-ish med schools but …alas, attended a much different school. Of course, she met with him at Mayo where he is happy as a clam doing his residency in a very selective field ;). That helped her see that it can be done from many med schools.</p>
<p>Curm, whatever happens with med school admissions my money is on Jackie.</p>
<p>My D was set on a top law school, but LSAT’s and $42K tuition price tag may say differently, but I’ll be going through it with you next Spring.</p>
<p>She is moving to Atlanta tomorrow. Yikes!!!</p>
<p>curmudgeon, in answer to your original question: </p>
<p>kid 1–Yes, the list was affected by son’s desire for a merit scholarship; he wants to graduate with money in the bank. It is hard to imagine any other school working out better, so at this point, I’d say the overall effect has turned out to be positive. Very good school, great experience, very low cost (to us and him). Heck, his gf even transferred there with an extraordinary financial aid package. Life would have been different if we were paying full fare at an even tippier-top school, but I don’t think it would be better.</p>
<p>kid2–is a high school senior. She wants to be a large-animal vet. She, and we, think public Us with vet schools, or close alliances with such, are just as good an option as many pricey schools. She can get merit money at some of the publics, but not at top privates. We would rather help with vet school bills than shell out for undergraduate for pre-vet. So, yes, the search is affected in this case, also. Can’t say yet how it will work out (partly because I can’t say yet where she is headed).</p>
<p>Best of luck to your daughter. She will be great no matter where she goes. And as the parent of another “make your own path” kid, I firmly believe there is no long-term problem with that approach to life.</p>
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I just realized that I really don’t know! Within the bounds of what we told them we could afford - about $10K less than the cost of the top-ranked private schools yearly - our kids found so many options they liked that they’ve never said to us, “Wouldn’t it have been great if we could have afforded XYZ instead?” And the schools they attended worked out to be excellent fits in every way. </p>
<p>Maybe the classics major would have put an Ivy on her list if we’d told her that money was no object? Except that she hates the weather in the northeast and wanted no more of it than the 18 years she’d already endured. And she wanted to be a solid half day away from home, which even the most distant Ivy isn’t. She’d like it if more people in the NE lit up when she mentioned her undergrad school, but Duke wasn’t interested, so … she had a very happy 4 years at Vanderbilt instead, and no debt now.</p>
<p>The two who went to an OOS public can’t imagine having gone anywhere else. This is one of the great pluses of our system of public and private colleges and universities - strong options are out there, even for those students who need (however you define that) help in paying for them.</p>
<p>frazzled,
I agree…there are so many great options in various price ranges, levels of aid or merit offered, and so on, which is really what it is all about. If people don’t narrowly focus on just certain schools, there are colleges that are not only wonderful, but ones that they can be very happy at, flourish, and come in within one’s budget or financing plans.</p>
<p>Thanks, SoozieVt, for the encouragement. If my daughter is accepted at Brown, I’m sure we’ll find a way to send her there. The only difficulty I see would be if she got a nice scholarship from Wash U. We really liked Wash U but it’s far away as we’re in Pennsylvania. I just hope she gets accepted at Brown.</p>
<p>Curmudgeon, I’m married to an MD, and over the years have picked up a few tips on the “med school thing”. You give so much heartfelt advice here - I hope I can offer some. Which Med School a person attends does offer a pedigree of sorts, but it is not always worth the $$$. Not everyone in academia went to an HY (no med school at P) med school, but the HY med school will cost $$$$ as opposed to let’s say an in state med school, which only costs $$ or $$$ if you know what I mean. Going to an HY med school will probably put you in a better position for residency, but not always. I have met living proof. I also know you can go to a state med school (and perhaps not such a famous one) and get a good residency at Harvard in a competitive program (I guess they all are competitive there).</p>
<p>The president of Princeton University is a Temple Med grad (Philly - lousy neighborhood), so you can go far without HY. </p>
<p>I think the fancy name med school does come with some bragging rights, just like undergrad, but everyone doesn’t just roll out the red carpet just because someone went to H or Y. I know some of the younger set now struggling to pay bills in residency because those huge med school loans have to be paid back, and it is still years until the real salary will kick in. A good residency (i.e. large program in major center) would be a just as much help to get hooked up for academia - imho.</p>
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<p>What does the neighborhood have to do with anything? We have a very good med school, thank you.</p>
<p>Curmudg, for some of us it is an 800 lb gorilla, for others just a pesky monkey, and for some no problem at all.In other cases it is a 2 ton gorilla. It really comes down to what a family can afford to pay and also what a family defines as “afford”. </p>
<p>We wrestled the gorilla for our first one’s ug costs, and we’re still paying the price. I’d love to exclude cost as a factor for school choice, but for our family, it would not be a wise thing to do, given other issues that we have.</p>
<p>anothermom2, thanks so much. It is appreciated.</p>
<p>If financial aid was not a consideration, it would not have affected the list of schools applied to, but I can’t help but wonder if acceptances may have been different if she had not checked the fin aid box.</p>
<p>My S has a favorite school that gives a lot of merit, so he will apply ED there without applying for any other fin aid.</p>
<p>FA was THE factor that determined where my D is enrolled. The results of the process was surprising. We got $500 from Brown (enough for books), some merit from Hopkins, Rice, Brandeis, and Case (we thought there would be more from what we have read), and full tuition at Tulane and WUSTL. I think there is a huge LUCK factor and who is reading your application.</p>
<p>Krug, interesting but where is daughter enrolled Tulane or WashU? I agree with you a lot of it is luck and who’s reading the application. Sort of like playing the lottery.</p>
<p>Not to sidetrack, but I must correct the misimpression of the poster in #54 above. I said Temple med is in a lousy neighborhood, not that it is in any other way not “good”. I actually am a donor, but that doesn’t change the fact that the street behind the med school has many burned out and derelict buildings, and that I would not want to walk alone there. I have worked in poor urban neighborhoods, but the current state of the area near Temple would be a cause for concern for personal safety to me. (Ripe for urban renewal.) I think Temple turns out good doctors. Not to just beat on Philly, there are med schools in New York that are in some very seriously scary neighborhoods as well.</p>