<p>Our family just went through the college admissions display game with D last year. What an experience. It affected H and me near as much as D. H’s colleagues (university profs) would ask him about D’s college stuff. They could see from our local newspaper that she won various awards like NMF, Pres. Schol. nominee, and state scholarship awards. Everyone assumed she was aiming for HYPS. When told that she hadn’t applied to those schools a raised eyebrow was the very minimum reaction. One prof, whose daughter was in classes with D, automatically sent her to the highest ranked ivy to which she was accepted, no visiting. Ditto our BIL the year before. Cousin on west coast applied to a slew of top schools + couple of safeties and enrolled at the top ranked east coast school which accepted her, never having done a single college visit anywhere.</p>
<p>D’s HS has plenty of low-income students, 35%. District as a whole has tipped over 50% and a lot of resources are employed to try to help these kids succeed. But the other end of the spectrum needs no help, a really amazing bunch of kids, many with apparently large resources. At the honors convocation I was agog at the list of destinations. Not so much that kids could get in, but that so many could pay. Of the top 40-50 kids- NMFs, 4.0s, and others, almost all were headed for tippy top schools. Top 20-30 national universities, and LACs like Swarthmore, Carleton, Middlebury, Wellesley, Vassar. A small handful to our great state u down the road (Madison) or the slightly higher cachet (for almost 3X the price!) state u next door. Then my D and one or two others with their unconventional choices.</p>
<p>We are not quite full pay, but EFC is rather higher than comfortable. Isn’t that always the way? When we talked about money early in the process, we didn’t forbid applying to any particular schools because of money. We would manage to pay somehow if there was a pricey school she fell head-over-heels for that seemed worth the cost. But we wouldn’t pay anything to satisfy the need to name drop with classmates. </p>
<p>After awhile she came to feel that if she chose a school which cost us a lot of money, that no matter how much she loved it, her enjoyment of college life would be ruined by the anxiety and worry of burdening us and draining our resources.</p>
<p>She refused to join the HYPS lottery, though they would have been doable financially with their generous FA. Her assessment was that she couldn’t get in and so it would be time and money wasted. A couple of schools that she might have gotten into which early on were favorites, like Northwestern and Cornell, she dropped summarily once it was clear they gave no merit money. She did apply to some high-ranked schools she was pretty sure to get into and that offer a few full tuition or full ride scholarships, though the odds of winning one are pretty low. She had visions of getting the Shipman or CVanderbilt and at the time I didn’t know enough to give her a realistic view of her chances.</p>
<p>She didn’t want to attend our state U, wanted to go away. That ‘2-hour drive radius’ is probably about how she felt, and as the oboe prof was retiring with no money for a permanent replacement, we couldn’t argue too much.</p>
<p>Eventually she did fall in love, with an NMF safety school which was on the short list of easy app/large guaranteed $ schools that I insisted be included. Eventually she grew proudly defiant about her choice, but at first she felt obliged to justify and explain at length to every dropped jaw and “You’re going WHERE??? Why don’t you go to Vanderbilt? That’s a great school?!?” about her scholarships, the honors college with gourmet food, the awesome oboe prof and sunny weather where she hoped to escape SAD. I guess H and I did the same, abashed and squeamish. Pretty juvenile. I’m sad to admit it.</p>
<p>I felt a lot of unease at the time. With the tide overwhelmingly pushing in another direction, you can’t help but turn over things in your mind, question whether you are doing the right thing. My H still feels that way, comes home once a week or so and says something like '“So-and-so is sending S to Columbia. Remind me why D didn’t apply to these places and why we let her go to ASU?” So far she is over the moon delighted, but it’s only been 6 weeks, so we’ll see. </p>
<p>But yeah, very enlightening process. I don’t begrudge anyone their school choice. Nudge our mindset a tiny bit and we would have been doing the same. If we had more money so that D wouldn’t have felt so constrained, things surely would have shaken out differently. We anyway have good company in the struggle to find a choice that is good enough WRT all the different variables one considers. </p>
<p>The year before, another of H’s colleagues had S gaga over Berkeley and for awhile seemed he would go there. But then the initial euphoria calmed and cooler heads discussed. There was money for Berkeley OR med school, not both. So he chose our state u. At band senior night last year where they announce players’ post-college plans, when director told about one member who would attend state u, the young man chimed in, “But we are still thinking about Cornell…” That is going on everywhere, every year.</p>
<p>It could be a lot worse. My D’s bff had busy divorced parents, HS teachers, no time, money or inclination to be involved in process. I could see it wasn’t going well and offered to help, had D pass her tips on big scholarships at various schools that she would qualify for automatically in the program she’s interested in. I think she never followed up on them. Then she started telling people she had a full ride at one of our smaller state schools. In the end it turned out that the ‘full-ride’ consisted as much of loans as free scholarship money which they hadn’t understood, hadn’t read carefully, and parents wouldn’t/couldn’t pay the difference so she is living at home ,going to community college, heartbroken, wanted so desperately to go away to school. </p>
<p>Yeah, so D would practically daily tell me how lucky she felt to have a parent to help her navigate all the details of the college app process and thank me profusely. Although I didn’t know nearly as much as I should have, I did my best and she was very grateful. It was so sweet.</p>
BunHeadMom, I would be imagining my revenge on your D’s so-called friend too. Parenthood has made me understand the angry mama bear defending her cub instinct.</p>