Unsure of what I want

Athletic Recruits
21

It sounds like you’d prefer the Ivy and be very excited about it if not for cost and sport issues.

Some of the responses here seem to assume you are leaning toward the Ivy due to what others think. That does not seem to me to be the case, as you took an OV and “loved” the school and program.

So, on cost… Did you do a financial aid pre-read as part of the pre-read process?

If the results of that or the NPC suggest zero aid, your parents are likely in a pretty good financial position.

If you were recruited by HYP and that aid would’ve been better, the coach at this Ivy can help you with the FA matching process.

However, I think you need to have this conversation with your parents. If they aren’t compromising other financial goals such as retirement savings, then the financial part is for them to decide, not you. I can tell you as a parent who has spent a fair amount of time navigating college payment portals that it was something I wanted to do and that my kids loving the school is the reason. It would’ve broken my heart if they avoided the schools they wanted due to costs that we could afford.

As for the other sport, is there a chance you can play that sport at the Ivy? Keep in mind you’ll have another season of it in HS and some of your feelings might change.

Not an easy decision for anyone so give yourself some time and space to decide this.

22

OP- you sound like a terrific person and any parent would be proud to have raised such a talented and thoughtful kid.

A quick note on the finances-- we saved and planned for our kid’s educations from the day we got married. We were somewhat transparent with our kids when they were growing up about how we prioritized savings, taking care of elderly relatives who had no other means of support, charitable giving, etc. without actually assigning amounts to any of these buckets.

So kid number 1 came home from the first meeting with the guidance counselor with a list of “you could go here for free” colleges and we had to tell the kid that we had always planned on paying full freight, and that we should be identifying schools that met other needs, not just financial. Kid had lots of friends who “lived large” who were crossing their fingers on the need aid/merit aid/any kind of aid situation, and I’m sure it felt weird to be the kid with no financial constraints (while the parents drove the crummy cars and took the budget vacations which seemed to signal “we are broke” although it was just the way we lived).

I don’t know your parents financial details, obviously- but if they tell you they can afford something, I think you should take them at their word. And then bust your tail wherever you land up at college taking advantage of every single opportunity that comes your way. Help a professor fact-check a research grant? Yes, thank you! Apply for a competitive fellowship that will send you overseas for a summer to study with an international group of scholars? Wow, thanks for nominating me! Etc.

You can show your parents that their faith in you is justified by making the most of your education, by growing as an intellectual, and by continuing to play your sport with gusto. We had saved for a long time to finance college for our kids and nothing we have ever spent money on has brought us more joy.

You can get a solid education at your current choice-- no question. But if your hesitation is that the second choice is too expensive- and your parents have told you “we’ve got this, don’t worry about it” I’d take finances off the table.

The common denominator for your education is YOU. If the plan is to play beer pong in your free time, then it won’t matter what the college’s ranking is. If the plan is to skip your Friday morning labs because you are too hungover from your Thursday night pre-gaming, then it won’t matter.

But if you are prepared to take advantage of every opportunity-- in the lecture hall, in a professor’s office at office hours, in a breakout session with a TA, in the concert hall listening to a friend premier his concerto written with AI and performed with medieval instruments, in the lab doing cool stuff with god knows what— then think about where those opportunities will be the most robust.

Good luck!

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23

Yeah, to me resources are a real thing that might lead to preferences–including in fact in the form of better need or merit offers. But I do think this is a detailed question, like I would not assume just because a college was higher ranked it would have more of the resources that actually might matter to me. But I see nothing wrong with preferring a college that has more such resources, in whatever form matters to you.

But then when the costs are different, you have to balance the resource benefits against the costs of accessing those benefits. I definitely do not think this sort of comparison always favors the higher-resource college, but nor does it always favor the lower-cost college. It is always ultimately an individual and personal decision.

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