<p>Our son turned down Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Duke and Johns Hopkins to accept a spot in Boston College’s Presidential Scholars Program. (PSP) This program offers full tuition, international travel, summer programs, internships, faculty mentor and weekly scholar meetings. After narrowing his choices down to Harvard, Yale and BC, he decided that the structure of the Pscholar program, the international travel and the ability to graduate debt free were too much to pass up. He is loving BC and looking forward to his trip to Venice in March.</p>
<p>That’s a great story, Molegamom. Sounds like your son made a smart choice. I do feel that schools like BC that “bundle” free tuition with other benefits have a much stronger drawing power than those that offer just the tuition alone, although I’m sure that money is still the #1 reason why students pass up a first-choice college. </p>
<p>But I did check out the 'Bama forum, as IceQube (post #15) suggested, and, sure enough, laundry machines that send texts at the end of the cycle were a big selling point for at least one prospective student. Maybe BC should get a few of those and steal even more top candidates from Harvard, Yale, et al. :)</p>
<p>We had a val at our HS who also turned down Harvard for the BC Presidential Scholar program. She said it was hard to turn down Harvard, but even harder to turn down the offer from BC.</p>
<p>What would make me turn down my top choice? Oof. Money, obviously! But apart from full tuition or what not, I think the school having a real interest in me as a student would be a major deciding factor. I like to feel like I’m not just another NMF getting lumped into a statistic.</p>
<p>Oh. And research opportunities. It’d be very tough to turn down a study abroad stipend, a research position, or something of the sort…</p>
<p>Actually, one of the schools I’m considering very heavily right now is as high on my list as it is because they’re offering me essentially a full ride with a stipend and money to study abroad. I don’t think I’d be willing to go to a school I outright didn’t like no matter what they offered me, though.</p>
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<p>Several stories involving Yale that have been shared on College Confidential. </p>
<p>My friend Eadad’s son turned down Yale for the Morehead scholarship at Yale. Evilrobot turned down Yale for a full scholarship at Vanderbilt. Staying in the same “hood” everybody’s friend (by proxy) Curmudgette turned down Yale for Rhodes College --only to return later for medical school. All the details are a few CC clicks away. </p>
<p>But to show how totally subjective a decision can be, last year a student turned down Yale for a West Coast LAC despite substantially higher financial aid at Yale.</p>
<p>For non-money involved stories, a couple of friends of mine turned down Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to attend programs they considered better in Texas. </p>
<p>Go figure!</p>
<p>C’mon Sally and Icecube. One post out of dozens mentions texting washers and dryers and you stereotype Bama as the backwoods hillbilly. Sounds cute, but not exactly fair to the increasingly growing numbers of Nat Merit and other outstanding students who are headed to the Honors College to take advantage of the merit money and fine education.</p>
<p>UNC Chapel Hill offers admission to their “First Year Fellows” program to select, top students. It offers lectures, events, seminars, and a choice of other “perks” such as money towards study abroad, assured undergraduate research, or assured enrollment to the undergraduate school of business.</p>
<p>I know a girl who turned down Harvard for a full ride to Vanderbilt. She now really regrets the decision. </p>
<p>Sent from my iPhone using CC</p>
<p>Guaranteed admission to Law School.</p>
<p>Nothing.</p>
<p>The problem is that I don’t have a 1st choice yet. Still deciding between Harvard and Caltech EA (I have already finished, but not submitted, both of those applications completely.) Will probably choose to apply to Harvard EA and Caltech RD, since Harvard’s SCEA might increase my chances more than Caltech’s EA will increase my chances there (I’m not sure if it makes any difference, while there is probably some difference with Harvard.) I don’t know which I will choose if I do get in, though. Money won’t really be a factor in the decision.</p>
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<p>Okay, I’ll try again. The only thing that I can think of would be an accelerated BS/MD-PhD program with guaranteed acceptance to a reputable medical school; even this would be iffy, because he wasn’t too excited about getting the medical degree. Otoh, DW and I might have been tempted to persuade him…Hey, at least I tried my best to imagine.</p>
<p>Thanks, PaperChaserPop. I’ve certainly seen students turn down Ivies and other “elite” colleges for Bachelor’s/MD offers at somewhat less prestigious colleges, but I’ve yet to see direct admission into a Bachelor’s/MD-PhD program. Maybe the wave of the future will be colleges that offer guaranteed admission into the grad program of the student’s choice … but he or she doesn’t have to choose until senior year.</p>
<p>My daughter was guaranteed admission to the grad school that was related to the major she indicated on the application–not medicine.</p>
<p>The valedictorian of DD’s class chose William and Mary over Brown, but it was a financial decision.</p>
<p>I horseback ride, and a basic requirement of any university I apply to is that they have an ACTIVE equestrian team.</p>
<p>So, of the colleges that accept me, if my second or third choice has a larger, more active team whose atmosphere I like better than the team at my first choice, I’d probably go with that one. Assuming they offer me a good bit of cash as well. :)</p>
<p>In response to the thread title, nothing short of a benefit package including lifelong pension and comprehensive health care for my family. Subsidized housing would be nice too.</p>
<p>Since the Ivy League provides full demonstrated need in grants, I honestly can’t think of a reason to turn my first choice for any other school.</p>
<p>Lots of hot bitties</p>
<p>Guaranteed transfer to a dream school. Example: student wants to go to Berkeley badly. USC offers him free tuition. But City College has a Bridge Program that guarantees him an acceptance to Computer Science at Berkeley. He might drop USC offer to attend the bridge program at San Francisco City College so he can attend Berkeley, his dream school, 2 years later.</p>
<p>FWIW, either Lafayette or Lehigh has texting washing machines too ;)</p>
<p>If the location is more preferable and it has a better program in what the student wants to pursue.</p>
<p>D chose UVA over NU (yeah, both great but NU probably gets the nod for sciences/pre-med which is what she is). Why? UVa was slightly cheaper (around $7K/year) and that played a small role but the bigger reason had to do with her sport/fit. She made the team at both schools but felt more of a connection with the teammembers at UVa. She felt the environment was more chill/relaxed. UVa also offered the athletes of this sport $2K. The weather also was a draw. Echols priority registration is great and the fact that UVa took ALL of her APs meant she started with over 50 hours.</p>