D26 is going to college! Got her first acceptance today: Macalester with a half-tuition merit scholarship! We were shaken on Monday by a straight rejection from Dartmouth, so we’re relieved, and Mac is such a good option!
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I’m glad she sees it as a positive! And for sure, staying in the running at a school as selective as UChicago is a total win!
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Oof, I’m sorry about Dartmouth, but YAY on Macalester – and with big merit, too! That is a fantastic option. 
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- Command Strip hooks to hang things on the wall.
- lap desk
- couple of power strips, even better if it has a couple of USB ports in it
- shower shoes
- an umbrella
- a book safe - I’ve seen these at Walmart (they have them at Amazon, too)
- “Oh The Places You’ll Go!” book by Dr Seuss
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Thanks! It’s Dartmouth’s loss! She’s a really cool kid.
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My D actually enjoyed shopping for dorm stuff, picking out a bedspread etc. herself so I would not sweat it.
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We’re not doing any college-specific gifts for Christmas really, but we did get two of the three kids (who are already at college) a tire inflator pump, lol, because they both had tire air-pressure-related incidents this year. So if yours will be taking a car, maybe that’s an idea. 
Based on my username, it might not surprise you to know I create a whole spreadsheet of Christmas gifts for my three kids, and I’m particular about which gifts are opened at the same time.
So just to be funny, while her siblings are opening their tire pumps, my D26 will be opening the prom dress she asked for. 
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Mac is awesome! Congratulations to her!!
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Oh my gosh! I caught up! I feel like it’s been 2 weeks since I got to the bottom of this thread!
So many good things happening! Big congratulations for all the acceptances in the past 10 days! And hopefully no one is too disappointed with the deferrals and rejections. December is such a hard month for all of this.
S26 is done with school, but his exams aren’t until mid-January. And if you have fewer than 9 absences, you don’t have to take them. A crazy policy. I’m sure he won’t take any. Plus they are only 10% of your grade, so they don’t really move the needle unless you’re close to another grade already and do really well or really poorly on the exam. I don’t really see the point.
D24 has been home a week now and that is nice. She did okay this semester, but needs to learn better study habits. She’s been doing all the appointments - eyes, dentist, etc. S22 comes home tomorrow and will leave again on the 27th. Too short for me, but he’s having fun with the band, so that’s worth it.
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One thing has been interesting for us so far is that both of the private schools D26 has gotten into so far would be less expensive for us than in state publics. That is likely due to us being ineligible for need based aid anywhere on top of total cost for California publics being not the cheapest when you factor in housing as well. I know the same can be true for folks on the lower end of the income spectrum at some schools. We know a family for whom Stanford was significantly less expensive than Cal for their daughter.
Conventional wisdom is that in state publics are less expensive, and while true most of the time, that is not necessarily true.
Of course, a couple of D26s top choices have no or minimal merit aid so those will be different. The crazy thing is that if all goes well in March, the delta between her most expensive school that she is excited about and her least expensive that she is excited about will be $50k+ a year for us because the one offers zero merit aid.
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Some things my kids have used:
-over the door hooks - used on doors or even the end of a bed
-fairy lights
-LED desk lamp
-wire shelves to add to closets
-extra monitor
-tools (I just bought basics from Harbor Freight and stuck them in a plastic container)
-small kitchen appliances like a rice maker and griddle (depending on what’s allowed)
-mine both used plastic dishes from Target. They are $.50 at Target in a few colors.
-Threshold towels from Target - they have sewn in hooks for hanging on the over the door hooks. https://www.target.com/p/total-fresh-antimicrobial-bath-towel-blue-threshold-8482/-/A-81781587?preselect=81781587
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What’s interesting for us is that at 2 of the 3 OOS publics C26 has been admitted at, the merit awards essentially bring the cost down to match that of the instate publics. We too are not eligible for need-based aid.
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I find the college cost discussion to be endlessly fascinating – and I acknowledge that we are ridiculously privileged to even be discussing it, instead of it being the primary deciding factor for us.
D22 chose a private $80K a year school over her in-state option, which would have been around $22K a year because of our excellent in-state merit. We are full pay. And arguably, the in-state option had a better program for her major, but the fit was totally wrong. Like REALLY wrong. She knew we had most of the funds saved in her 529, so she felt free to choose the expensive school.
I don’t regret it for a second – she has had the best college experience – but it is an awful lot of money to be playing with. I know other families would have chosen differently.
Thankfully S25 is at an inexpensive in-state school that only costs us $15K a year after merit. And it’s a great fit for him.
Which brings us to our last kid. Her very well-regarded in-state option will be about $22K a year. And her top OOS choice (which she hasn’t gotten into yet, fingers crossed I’m not jinxing it) could be around $55K to $60K a year if she gets in with the merit we’re expecting.
That OOS choice is probably a better fit for several reasons. (She also has two other OOS choices in pocket that would be slightly cheaper with the merit she’s been offered so far.)
We’re not saying a word until all acceptances are in hand – and then we’ll sit with her and make a giant pros and cons spreadsheet and let her choose.
But despite this kid having a good head on her shoulders, I suspect her final choice will come down to “vibe.”
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So much of your post resonated with where we are at with D26 (except the 3 kids part, we were not built for that ). In state publics were not a fit for D26 at all. The largest school she applied to/is applying to (still not done), has less than 3,000 students, with most in the 1,100-2,000 range.
We are similarly unbelievably fortunate to be able to afford any of the schools with no loans. And, we will sit down and talk it all through when we have results in May. Even if she chooses the most expensive option (assuming she gets into one, right now she is only into the likely least expensive ones), I will have no regrets because she has picked schools that are great fits for her and this is what we have been saving for for 18 years.
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Private school inflation is a real thing.
By the time both kids finish, our total out of pocket undergraduate costs will be around $750k.
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For us, we’ve had an ongoing discussion about the incredible value of our in-state options (Rutgers and TCNJ, in particular). So everything has revolved around “What do you get for paying more?” I think it’s pretty easy to justify a higher spend, but it depends on how much and for what. So that’s guided D26s search. She went on at least one college visit that ended with “Why would I pay for more this?” so that’s at least a little ingrained. In the end, price will be a guide, but not the end-all-be-all for us, so we’ll see where it goes.
FWIW, when she won the Rensselaer medal at her school, it came with a guaranteed $40k scholarship. We had a little chat about how $160k is around 2 years of her first years earnings out of college and there’s a LOT she could do with that kind of money including paying for grad school.
And we have two more that’ll be going through this process in a few years, so then we’ll really see how we feel about college costs!
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Good luck! If we had 2 more high achieving kids, we’d have to file for Chapter 11.
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We are in the same position with long savings and a bull market meaning the 529 has enough for wherever they want to go, and realize we are extremely fortunate to be in this position. I suspect that at the end of the day the best fit is going to be one of the OOS publics that doesn’t offer merit.
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Kudos to y’all for ingraining this!
I neglected to mention that because of national merit, D26 had a handful of choices where she could have attended for free. She applied to one (as a safety) and got in. Admittedly, it’s a decent fit in terms of academic program, but really not a good fit in every other way.
I guess we have the luxury to let her ignore this option and some others, but…dude.
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Super interesting - my DS26 also just got deferred at Chicago and is also in at RPI. I didn’t think those 2 schools would be on many other kids lists as they’re so different. We were debating ED2 at Chicago but the net price calculator on Chicago’s website is making me feel like we need to weigh all our options once packages come in this spring. It’s a pity because I know Chicago has a big ED bump. (He did not ED1 anywhere.)
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