Thanks for that insight. We had a conversation with him before he applied and we told him then, and it holds true now, that he could choose where he goes to college and we would pay. I even reiterated that this week and told him it’s his life and his choice. Here’s where I’m struggling… my kid has top grades with 10 AP’s and 5’s on all he’s taken so far (he’s #2/500 in his class and the number one took an additional AP class which bumped up his weighted GPA slightly), near perfect SAT’s, great EC’s etc. but we live in the suburbs right outside NYC where his stats are unfortunately, a dime a dozen. His first choice was MIT and his 2nd was Chicago, and he didn’t get in to either. If he had gotten in, there would be no discussion as he would have gone to one of those. We visited Rice last year and he liked it, but it wasn’t top of his list. In fact, we are waiting on a few more schools and last night he even said to me he hopes he gets into one more so he has another option. That tells me that he’s not completely gung ho for Rice. If he doesn’t get into any more schools, and he’s in different between the two, then in my mind, money should factor into the decision unless he can justify, even to himself, why he loves Rice far beyond South Carolina or Georgia Tech, or what advantages it will provide to him in the future. For example, if his dream was to work at NASA, then Rice for sure. But I posted here because I’m hoping there will be insight that will justify why Rice is worth the additional $200,000 beyond the name of the school if he’s indifferent to both and he’s planning on getting a grad degree in the future.
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