High-school senior Ronald Nelson had an incredibly hard decision to make this year about college — mainly because he got into all eight Ivy League universities.
In the end, he decided on the University of Alabama and rejected offers from all eight Ivy League schools.
Nelson also rejected offers from Stanford, Johns Hopkins, New York University, Vanderbilt, and Washington University in St. Louis.
He decided to pass on these big names in favor of UA for two big reasons: He got a full ride from Alabama and got into its selective honors program.
“It took a lot of soul searching for me to push that first ‘accept’ button for Alabama,” Nelson said. “Of course there’s a bit of uncertainty.”
It’s easy to see why Nelson got into UA’s honors program and every single Ivy League school. As a student at Houston High School in Memphis, Tennessee, he has a 4.58 weighted GPA, has taken 15 AP courses, and achieved a 2260 out of 2400 on his SAT and a 34 out of 36 on his ACT. He’s the senior-class president of his high school, a National Merit Scholar and National Achievement Scholar, and a state-recognized alto saxophone player.
The article basically says that it is a case of full ride at Alabama versus financially stretching it at the other schools (especially after an older sibling graduates from college). Being a pre-med makes it even more compelling to take the full ride and save whatever money there is for medical school.
Could it be that an even more brilliant decision would have been for his parents to save more for college, given they have two very good professional incomes? What if he chooses not to attend medical school after all? Will he regret missing out on an Ivy experience? I am surprised none of the other non-Ivies offered this young man better merit aid. It’s not our business what he chooses and I’m sure he will succeed perfectly well, but making a decision that boils down to “they seem smart and it costs less” does not seem all that “brilliant” to me. Also, given these schools have net price calculators and it is well-known the Ivies don’t offer merit aid and given the NM scholarships offered by state schools are publicized, I fail to see why he bothered applying to the Ivies at all.
I’m with the crowd that this is not someone to celebrate. He took a spot away from someone who really, really wanted to go to an Ivy League school (or Stanford, WUTSL, NYU, JH, Vanderbilt). Rough math says he spent $1,300 on applications. If you have that much money to spend on applications, you have to be able to figure out whether you can afford the schools listed.
I work at a law firm and have two partners that went to Harvard. Nope not for law school. They went undergrad and THAT is what got them hired here. I have zero idea where they went to law school. The idea that if you go to grad school undergrad won’t matter is often incorrect.
@menefraga, no spot was taken away. Colleges admit more than they have spots because they know their yield, and if they admitted too little, this kid just made some people on a waitlist very happy.
I also agree that this decision isn’t really worthy of celebration, though. Nothing against 'Bama, but if money is a concern, why not try for big merit money from schools that are in between 'Bama and the Ivies? Emory, Richmond, Wake, Miami, Tulane, Denison, W&L, Rhodes, and others all have big merit scholarships. At least then, he’d have some affordable choices. I don’t celebrate poor planning.
While I think the young man made a good decision based on his choices and situation, I agree with PT… There’s something off about his list. He went from Alabama to top 10 need-based FA only schools. He and his parents, with pretty high, donut-hole incomes, skipped merit aid schools and just went for the big names.
I think a lot of parents get bad information regarding financial aid and college costs Last night, I was talking to a mom of a rising senior. When I asked about colleges, the mom named Carleton, Yale and a couple of other usual suspects. But then, the mom said if the schools wanted her daughter, the schools need to come up with the money to offer her daughter. Huh?
I get the special snowflake syndrome and all but none of the schools she mentioned offered merit aid. The parents are probably in the top 5%, of not top 1%, so they are in for a rude surprise if they think they’ll get financial aid.
I wonder if the parents had the same impression as my acquaintance. That colleges would give their son money to attend, even though Ivies don’t give out any merit aid.
It seems clear that many parents and students are not familiar with the realities of college financial aid before the application process begins. Why such scorn for this young man and his parents?
Yes, it is likely that he and his parents were not well informed about financial aid, net price calculators, and the like before application time, so that most of his applications, though successful in gaining admission, were ultimately “wasted” because those colleges were financially too much of a stretch. Hence, his choices in April were either the full ride at Alabama or schools that were at least on the margins of being too expensive.
Had he shown up on these forums last fall, people would have told him to use the net price calculators on the need-based-aid-only schools and then build a merit-seeking list when those need-based-aid-only schools did not appear financially viable. But it is hard to fault him and his parents, since awareness of financial aid, net price calculators, and the like does not seem to be all that well known, including among high school counselors and such.
He would choose U of A over UT Austin instate? Let alone all the other noise, there is such a big gap in the whole story but there must have been plenty of schools with merit for a URM with an SAT of 2260? No? ,