Nm
lol, gravitas. Really, normal people don’t need to be obsessed with proving a certain school is The Very Bestest. Normal people can say - hey isn’t it great there are a wide range of excellent schools that speak to different personal preferences and tastes? - and not have to incessantly beat the drum of one school. It’s not normal to continually assert that Stanford beats Harvard because it’s not normal to count angels dancing on the heads of pins. you’re kind of infamous for an obsession to prove Stanford uber alles and it’s not flattering to say the least.
Isn’t the idea that private schools or OOS publics are cheaper than in-state really only true for a very small number of kids that have super high stats and a high level of financial need? The parents at any financial aid talk may well know that their kid doesn’t have that combination. The idea that high levels of financial aid are available at many privates or that the EFC is lower than I’m state tuition is very often not true as many parents post on this forum every year in April.
Good-not-great stats will get u surprizing out of state merit aid at some decent colleges regardless of income. Check out Nebraska, ok State, Alabama, Mississippi, W. Virginia, Texas Tech,.South Florida. One of my kids got amazing merit aid from Florida State.
The scene I mentioned with the Vanderbilt reps involved fairly well off people who were going toqualify for some need aid according to the charts that were in the brochures and in the powerpoint presentation. But since they knew they wouldnt qualify for need aid from u of Mich, they refused to believe that any other school would provide it (U of Michigan being the standard by which all things collegiate are measured…there was even a movie a few.decades ago where the kid wanted to go to out of state school and she and.parents went to college fair; the father wore his Michigan gear and asked the reps what their colleges had that Michigan didn’t have).
The movie was “How I Got into College.”. Mom2and, u have a good point…that those in the best position are low income and high grades. But sometimes its low income Or high igrades , and the income doesn’t always have to be as low and the grades as high as many people seem to think…depending on the school.,
I know D is going to a very good private university that was her top choice school (not top 20 but top 50 and perfect for her and what she wants to do with her life) for FAR less than we would be paying for in-state public options. Two years ago if you had told me that University of Rochester (sticker price tuition=approximately $42,000) would cost less than Illinois State University (sticker price tuition=approximately $8,000) I would not have believed it.
A number of her friends are going to OOS publics for considerably less than their in-state options would have been. These are all middle-class (NOT low-income students) with good grades and good stats but nothing really out-of-ordinary.
Our small, rural, ‘nothing special’ HS has 2 selective school acceptances: MIT and Dartmouth. (The Dartmouth one could be a athlete hook.) The last time someone was accepted to MIT from our school was 2008! The MIT acceptance (my son) had no hook. Our school doesn’t offer many AP classes but my son distinguished himself by dual enrolling at a local university. He’s on his 4th college course. He also has all the right scores. I do think because his school has limited offerings his drive made him stand out from the pack. MIT looks at the student in context of their HS and what it offers.
Contact with the college can be important, for those schools that track that data. My son attended 2 of the Splash weekend programs at MIT (held once year), toured the school twice, shadowed a student… We could do this because MIT was only 2 hours away. For the schools we toured he would contact the department of his major via email to arrange a meeting. If he heard nothing back (I think a certain Columbia professor thought he was stalking him!) then he’d march in there on our visit and try to arrange something for that day. The Admissions people don’t encourage this but you can do it on your own. The good thing, too, about all of the contacts was it solidified my son’s college preferences: 1st MIT, 2nd Columbia. Even though we had the worst tour guide on our first visit at MIT my son still loved the school. Me, not so much, but it did suit my son’s personality. Bonus for me, there’s a really good ice cream shop down the street!
Hope this helps.
Excel in a helmet sport? 
Seriously, though I don’t recommend falling in love with one school.
question: how does an association to a family name play into the process of getting into a top school? (big, world-known name?)
^^ You should ask the admissions department what they can do for you. Make sure you tell them exactly how much the family has donated in your name.
I have a t-shirt that says Harvard is the U of Chicago of the East. It’s at least 30 years old and trumps all your stories!
@justOneDad - oh no, not us! i wish. just curious with a kid we know. probably a very naive question as i just did a little googling.
If you have a qualified student (or, maybe if they are even a little marginal) you can often dispense with all the uncertainty about applying in the regular way by making a targeted donation. Unfortunately for most people, the magnitude of the donation is greater than they imagine.
Like most colleges discussed in this thread, MIT’s CDS mentions that they do not consider level of interest, and their website more explicitly states:
Consistent with the above quote, I was also accepted to MIT from a “nothing special HS” that doesn’t get many applicants/acceptances, yet I had never visited the campus (lived under 3 hours away) and had no contact with the college besides my interview. However, there are certain other colleges for which demonstrated interest is important. As discussed in the article at http://articles.philly.com/2013-04-01/news/38165511_1_admissions-placement-courses-high-school-students , Lehigh goes so far as to significantly penalize students for not logging in to their online portal to check application status and marks level of interest as more important than GPA in their CDS.
No, you need a history of big big donations and your development rep would be the go between, well before senior year. Bazillionaires dont cold call admissions, ha. And if your kid can’t cut it, don’t assume.
Also, even if they say they don’t track or weigh visits, they can notice. It depends and won’t help a kid they don’t already find compelling.
“I have a t-shirt that says Harvard is the U of Chicago of the East. It’s at least 30 years old and trumps all your stories!”
@mathmom, I have the same t-shirt. 
No “is” on it.
Well I didn’t dig it out of the drawer to get the exact wording!
I wasnt meaning to correct you - I just wrote that as an aside.
Wasn’t taking offense at all. I’m amused you have the t-shirt too.
regarding the OP, obviously not many Oakton kids apply to Ivy schools.
the very top Oakton students (probably 10-20 or so) don’t go to Oakton, they go to TJ… when you skim off the best of the best, you are left with those in the next group down (the kids that score 1300-1400 instead of 1450+). If you got rid of TJ, multiple kids from each of these “highly regarded” northern virginia schools would be going to super top colleges each year.