<p>If only my D had applied to a few more schools things might be better, but hindsight is 20-20 vision. She could go to a Florida State School for a year, for free, and transfer after a year. Go to Boston U, University of Miami or Furman for an amount of money we can easily afford, with the scholarships she received. Go to American ,getting a little pricey here. Or George Washington U, major debt at $49k a year. I think she feels George Washington U is the school that she would like to attend, but to undertake that much debt. You are coming out of undergrad owing the same amount of money as the mortgage on a house without owning a home. Her major is undecided, possibly pre-law, possibly political, journalism ? US News ranks these schools about the same.</p>
<p>If you can’t afford the school, then find a different school. What? There is only one school in the US to go to?
Doesn’t your daughter like any of the schools you can afford?</p>
<p>What is her reasoning for picking GWU over some of these others? You mention “prestige” in your title, but BU, Miami, and Furman are all well-regarded schools, I would think as much so as GWU. Does she have particular reasons for going there over these other schools?</p>
<p>She prefers GWU because of Washington D.C., chance for internships. She’s been scared off of Boston U because of the posts on grade deflation on campusdirt.com. U of Miami has a party school rep, that I think it is throwing off by attracting good students with the merit money. It has many excellent programs, I’m not so sure if liberal arts is one of them. We live in S. Florida so she is spoiled by our beautiful weather. She wanted a city campus so Furman does not exactly fit that description, though it is more of the LAC college program. Boston, GW and Furman all have the core program. GWU is one of the “hot” schools in many of the guides, so that’s where the prestige comes in. Her highschool also builds them up about GWU. It’s not that we couldn’t take a loan, but will her salary really reflect the difference.</p>
<p>Her salary (or her professional/grad school admissions) will amost certainly not reflect the difference in schools; what it will reflect is how well she did at whatever school she attends.</p>
<p>Hey we are in a same situation. Full ride plus stipend at WASHU or Stanford which we still have not received our financial aid package but i doubt it will be a full ride! Any thoughts? Oh our Daughter is pre-med.</p>
<p>It sounds like your post should be titled “Geography vs. $$$$” since I think that if you were to ask the average American to rank the schools involved, you would get as many different answers as the number of people that you ask. GWU and American have Washington which might be very good from a law/politics/journalism perspective. BU of course has Boston which, if there is one city in the US which can claim to be a college “city” it’s Boston. It’s a great environment for college students looking for a city campus. I assume that you have visited them all to know that both GWU and BU have next to no true campus - that they are very much integrated with the surrounding town.</p>
<p>I agree with FF. The “prestige” difference is non-existent. I am a huge supporter of paying more for some reasons, but not because some students at a website claim grade deflation. If the price difference is big, I don’t think I’d pay for GWU over BU, they’re just too similar.</p>
<p>WASHU at a full-ride vs. Stanford… go with WashU. Free is great and WASHU is an excellent school.</p>
<p>Thanks AnxiousMom, I am sure now that she will be at WASHU, Stanfords package just came and we did receive a fair package but not even close to a full ride!!</p>
<p>Perhaps your D could ask adcom for a BU merit student email pal–to verify the impact of grade deflation on Merit scholars.</p>
<p>BU does have grade deflation but it is there to protect merit scholars. I doubt your D would have any issues with it.</p>
<p>Isn’t this always the way it goes! The kids want to go to the college that personally costs the parents the most! Been there. We put our foot down with #1 and perhaps as a result he dropped out. It’s not that he has not had a satisfying career, he has not been a failure as a result. However, we as parents are VERY SORRY about him dropping out and don’t like what he did by not finishing . #2 and #3 have been more cognizant of the cost of education and have been a help by deciding on colleges we could afford to send them to without debt. I fear #4 will be more difficult for us financially. However, after expereincing what happened to us with #1, I am more inclined to feel the student must make the ultimate decision. However, a close relationship with the student (as we had with #2 and #3) throught the college process, and full explanations about indebtedness, can be helpful for them to see the light of their decision.</p>
<p>I wondered why we let her apply to some of these $$$ schools. Now I remember, her guidance counselors said there could be merit money. This there is not. Also about a month ago I said that as a far as the “what college should I go to question” lets see what the financial package is, but somehow that got lost along the way. I think she’ll come around to following the money. These are the schools that want her in the way of financial incentives. Reality is in four years when all these smart,high achieving kids hit the grad school admissions/job market it would be better to have some $$ to fall back on. If she wants to leave FL, let her go to MA.</p>
<p>This is a familiar story to where we were two years ago. My son applied to a number of financial reach schools based on the hope for financial aid. Certainly some schools came through on the hope, but what turned out to be his clear absolute number one did not. </p>
<p>We had repeatedly reminded him during the application process that we had no intention or ability to pay the full freight at his top schools and that his ability to go there was predicated upon receiving financial aid. I think he was fine with that, because during the application process he was mostly indifferent toward one school versus another. However, by the time acceptances were received and he had an opportunity to attend various accepted student nights, a very clear number one emerged. When adequate aid didn’t happen, he was extremely upset. </p>
<p>What we did was sharpened the pencils a bit more and came up with a proposal where we would pay the full amount up to a certain point but that beyond that point we would only match a certain percentage of what he was willing to pay himself by means of loans. I also did some calculations to relate the amount of loans that he would be taking out to something tangible he could relate to - the price of a new car. This helped him understand that he would have some skin in the decision. He ended up taking his dream school and he and his parents are happy with the decision.</p>
<p>A Post Script: The proposal that I made to him was formalized on a spreadsheet so that he could see the impact on the various acceptances to his bottom line. I showed this spreadsheet to a collegue at work who then used it for two of his kids. They both opted to follow the money. My friend stopped by my office the other day and said that he owed me a bottle of wine for the concept and the spreadsheet.</p>
<p>GW is over-hyped, IMO, by kids wanting to hang in DC, plus it has no campus, just interspersed with professional office buildings. GT has a much better rep in DC, so I’d look at the others. Also note GW’s <70% full-time faculty ratio…a lot of “profs” are government bureaucrats who are moonlighting. Highly educated, yes, and some with phenomenal experience, such as overseas posts…others just holding a PhD from Podunk U.</p>
<p>I agree with everyone in that GW and BU really aren’t that different. Whenever anyone mentions GW, I always think that it’s second fiddle to Gtown which dominates the market in DC; of course BU comes after Harvard & MIT in Boston but for some reason, its students don’t give off that feeling as much as GW students do. As for internships, its not like she couldn’t get internships in journalism or law firms or state gov’t in Boston–its not DC but its a significant city.</p>
<p>Why not just put the burden on her. Decide what you’d be willing to pay for school and tell her that if she goes to a school that’s more expensive, due to a lack of merit money, the burden is on her in terms of loans but you’d be willing to help her research loans, esp if she needs loans beyond Stafford and must deal w/ private banks, deal with the financial aid offices etc. That way you’re not cutting her off saying ‘if you don’t go to X school, you’re on your own, we won’t help with anything.’ It’ll be her decision but she’ll have to think about the money herself.</p>
<p>Also, how set is she on pre-law? I can’t tell you how many people come into college pre-med and pre-law and then end up not going. Of course HS students can be expected to change their minds, but its a lot different to take on 50k or whatever in undergrad debt if you’re going to do whatever it takes to go to a top law school, work for a top newspaper etc than to have that kind of debt as a senior and be aimlessly saying as graduation approaches ‘maybe I should go to law school someday or maybe I can get that internship and be a gopher at the local TV station.’ If you take on that kind of debt, I think you should have a solid plan for what will do in 4 yrs.</p>
<p>Check out the BU forum. Grade deflation is not as bad as it seems.</p>