<p>Hi Everyone~</p>
<p>What would you do if your Ivy/Tier 1 caliber stats child fell in love with a Tier 4 school (Tier 4 as in 1 step above a community college)?? FYI: the Tier 4 school would be a full-ride.</p>
<p>“Tier 4” is just the label that US News gives to schools it doesn’t rank highly on their scale. They used to have Sarah Lawrence as a Tier 4 because they don’t accept standardized tests and wouldn’t give USN their stats. I’d look very carefully at the school your kid has fallen in love with- some of them are gems. What does your kid like so much? Some of the schools Loren Pope (Colleges that Change Lives) really liked are Tier 4. For example College of the Atlantic in Maine. It’s small, speciallized and might give your kid the exact experience he/she is looking for.</p>
<p>We didn’t pick the colleges for our kids. We let THEM pick them. We didn’t look at US news rankings or Tiers. The kids visited, sat in on classes and chose their schools.</p>
<p>If your kid loves Tier 4 University…that is where you kid should go. You know…there are bright and motivated kids at every school. It sounds like your KID has found the place he/she wants to call home for the next four years. I think that’s wonderful.</p>
<p>I wish it was Tier 4 for one of the reasons you mentioned above. It is Tier 4 because it deserves to be, unfortunately. I don’t even know if it made the USNWR list - I just called it Tier 4 to show that it is at the bottom of the barrel so to speak. So maybe saying Tier 4 wasn’t the right classification! Haha!</p>
<p>Ohiomom…I have to ask…what is your objection to this “bottom of the rung school”? Why don’t you want your kiddo going there? Is it only because it’s “lowly”…or is it because it lacks the programs the kiddo is interested in? </p>
<p>The hardest thing to remember about college…the KID is going to college, not the parents. The student needs to be happy with that choice. </p>
<p>Are you embarrassed to tell folks that your kid is attending Tier 4 U rather than a higher ranked school? If so, I would urge you to embrace your child’s choice. Those Ivies and the like will still be around for grad school.</p>
<p>If your child’s reasons to choose the school are reasonable…they have a good program in his major, then fine. If it’s for some odd reason like his girlfriend is going to go there, then no.</p>
<p>Which school is it and why does your child want to go there? has he visited? Has he sat in on some classes?</p>
<p>I would suggest that he arrange to spend a day or so sitting in classes. He may love it, or he may get turned off if many of the students seem apathetic.</p>
<p>BTW…some schools get a tier 3 or 4 or whatever ranking simply because they don’t have depth in many depts…but they do have significant strengths in several depts.</p>
<p>I would worry that the level of coursework wasn’t challenging enough if your kid really is ivy material. Take him/her to visit Princeton - he/she will fall in love with it too :)</p>
<p>If your son aspires to grad school, I would give him a big kiss and send him on his way!! He will get a great GPA and be set for grad school…</p>
<p>Then… I would book a trip to a country I have always wanted to visit; and book it for next year!!</p>
<p>Like Thumper, we let our girls choose their schools; and #1 chose a lower ranked school with a scholarship over top 20’s…a kiss for luck and they’re on their way…</p>
<p>The valedictorian of my son’s high school class never seriously considered going anywhere but his local, non-flagship, not-horrible-but-not-so-respected public, which he could attend for free. Previous valedictorians (and many non-valedictorians) at this school were accepted at multiple top colleges, including HYPS. People thought he was nuts, and that he was limiting himself, but he wanted to live at home to preserve his Christian environment, and he believed he would get perfectly good engineering training there, which was all he wanted.</p>
<p>If it were MY kid . . . the issue would never come up, because my kids and I were fundamentally on the same elitist page, they having been soaked in it since birth. If anything, they are worse than I am, and I have to remind them to dial it back a bit.</p>
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<p>Yes…but falling in love with Princeton does not translate into acceptance for 90% of students who apply…and many of that 90% have outstanding qualifications for admission.</p>
<p>This OPs kiddo has found a school he/she loves. I’d like to know what the problem is with the school.</p>
<p>Is your child a junior or senior? If they are a junior, keep looking and keep the doors open at different places. Kids change their minds all the time. I know. My D has been all over the place. If the Tier 4 is the ultimate decision, I say go for it. The chid has to pick the school. My favorite saying and I have posted it before, “prepare the child for the path, not the path for the child.”</p>
<p>One of S’s best friends while growing up – an ‘ivy caliber’ kid – dropped out of high school, worked, and hung out. She then decided to go to a local community college and after two years transfered into an Ivy. She graduates this spring. I admire her mom for supporting and believing in her daughter. I doubt I would have been so cool about it, if it were my child, but I’m still learning.</p>
<p>Is your child a senior and already applied to other schools? If so, and this Tier 4 school is the one your child loves the most, then thats where they should go, assuming they have full information about the pros and cons. </p>
<p>If your child is not a senior, I would try to figure out what is about the “Tier 4” school that your student loves, and try to get him to look at other (better?) schools with similar qualities.</p>
<p>As a student, I hate when parents force colleges onto kids. They should pick the college they want to go to. If parent’s force a kid to go to a college because its an Ivy than that is bull crap. College should be fun place and a good environment to learn and not a place forced on by some Ivy-loving parent. </p>
<p>/rant</p>
<p>There are rational reasons for loving a school, and immature reasons which may or may not indicate trouble ahead.</p>
<p>So I’d need to know a lot more before answering the question. Food, weather, no frizz hair days, cute guys, fun colors for the schools T-shirts- all of these will pass. Legitimate reasons? Keep your mind open.</p>
<p>And there are tier 4 and Tier 4 as others have posted. If your kid is interested in something specialized or regional there may be great reasons to fall in love with a particular school which otherwise wouldn’t be on the radar screen. But find out how deep that interest is, how well the school will fit if she changes majors (like most kids), and how much she still loves it if tuition goes up 20% next year, making the differential between this school and others narrow significantly. Or if it takes the typical kid 10 semesters to graduate- further eroding the savings.</p>
<p>The reason(s) that I am so oppsed to this school are these for starters:
-Worried that the classes won’t be challenging
-Worried that the other students will be lazy or have no work ethic
-Worried that kids there may have a different upbringing than her and she will stand out in a negative way (snobby, rich or whatever they may think)
-Worried about other students lack of enthusiasm for academics (as evidenced by the admissions test scores and GPA’s)
-Worried that grad schools will think the school stinks - #1 CONCERN!!
-Worried about the caliber of people my daughter will be associating with
(Sorry if this sounds mean)
-Please don’t hate me on this one - BUT I saw parents on campus with Harley Davidson shirts on - yikes! (Not that I hate Harley’s but I hate to think that adults feel that this is appropriate college visit attire)!
-I could go on!</p>
<p>I really don’t care what people think when I tell them what school she attends - NO ONE would know this school anyway! But seriously - what others think isn’t a concern of mine. My only concern is the future of my kids.</p>
<p>My daughter thinks she “loves” this school because of the warm weather, beaches near by, fab dorms, all the “cool” stuff they send her, being able to have a car as a freshman and the “free ride” - OBVIOUSLY NOT the right reasons (other than the free ride)!! BUT she could probably get really good merit aid at other good schools - and we would pay the difference - so she would have no personal expense for any school.</p>
<p>How many other colleges has your daughter visited? If she could get merit aid at some good ones, take her to see them.
USC has warm weather, near beaches, fab dorms and a lot of cool stuff. If she’s a National Merit scholar, she’ll have a great merit scholarship- at least half tuition.
There are a lot of schools that will give a great student merit aid, and at least you don’t have to worry about her snubbing one for lack of “academic reputation”…
Don’t say no to her favorite just yet. But start planning your college tour.</p>
<p>You said on another thread (to someone deciding between two schools):
</p>
<p>Has she taken class visits to the school? Has she done a visit with a student and talked to the professors? Have her do that an re-evaluate?</p>
<p>How do you know if your kid has been accepted into these Ivy schools? If she applied ED she shouldn’t be applying anything else and if she applied EA that is another situation.</p>
<p>Grad schools may know more about the school than you think.</p>
<p>There are programs in certain schools which are highly regarded… grad schools know this.</p>
<p>fab dorms and beaches would be sending out red flags for me- more so than some of the other points you’ve made.</p>
<p>There’s a reason teenagers don’t get to make major life’s decisions all by themselves. And that’s because they’re teenagers.</p>
<p>If it were me, I’d smile and nod happily when this school is mentioned. And then let the process unfold. She hasn’t applied. She hasn’t been accepted. And she hasn’t told any of the other thousand universities that she’s NOT interested- she’s just found a school which meets her needs (for now.)</p>
<p>So chill. The more you argue the more appealing those dorms and that car (i.e. freedom from the parental units) will seem. And not to be obnoxious- but the school isn’t buying her a car. The only way she’ll have a car Freshman year is if you buy her one, or give her yours, and allow her to take it with her. So just say no. We were lucky- we couldn’t afford a car for any of our college kids after paying tuition. And they couldn’t afford to park it or insure it even if they’d won a car on a game show- since they had skin in the tuition game as well. So be a parent- and tell her no car, even if the school allows it.</p>
<p>Is your daughter a junior? If so…a LOT can change between now and May 1 of her senior year when she has to choose her college. I wouldn’t say a peep about this school in a negative way. EVERY kid needs a safety that is a place they like and can afford to attend. This fits the bill just fine. Look at the criteria that make this school appealing. There are TONS of schools with nice weather, accessiblity to beaches and nice dorms. Start with College of Charleston…really nice town, really nice dorms, near the beach. Look at U of Tampa, UC Santa Cruz, U of Miami. Give me ten minutes…I’ll think of more. I’m sure there are plenty of schools in NC, SC, VA, FL, CA that would meet these criteria. U Tampa gives nice merit aid to top students too.</p>
<p>Just FYI…none of the Ivies meet the “warm weather criteria”. Our DD had that as a criteria also, and you know…SHE was the one who had to live there…not us. And the Ivies don’t give a nickel of merit aid.</p>