“When I went to Wellesley 35 years ago, a lot of people outside of New England had either never heard of it or confused it with Wesleyan”
Guilty. I live in New England and only figured out the difference/location of these schools about 15 yrs ago.
@blossom Yes it is helping me, very much. Thank you. I guess what I’m struggling with, and its probably unanswerable, is how much you lose by going to a low ranked school. My issue is that those low ranked schools are the ones that give out the serious merit aid to kids like mine. With D1, that was no problem because the low ranked school she fell in love with was very strong in her particular program. Our in-state options didn’t have it.
With D2, it makes complete sense to look at low ranked schools with merit and that is exactly what she wants to do. However, I find myself second guessing myself every time people on here talk about “crap” schools or 4th tier schools or advise some other high stat kid that those types of schools are unsuitable. So I’m gathering info for her and the kids coming next. Before anyone jumps in to tell me not to believe everything I read here – I don’t. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have an effect. And if this post sounds a bit less confident than some of my earlier posts, well…its been a hard day.
“For me (and my spouse) there were dozens of colleges that weren’t “worth it” For our kid interested in engineering, we felt MIT (and a bunch of other places) were “worth it”, but once you got below a certain bar, a neighboring state’s flagship was a tremendous value financially, and somewhat (and in a few cases, significantly) better than many of the private options.”
We had the same situation. Probably because we’re full pay. Son’s list ended up looking a little odd because it was a few safeties (bargains and “worth it” from a value standpoint), one or two matches (midlevel and potentially worth it if he received certain merit scholarship) and several reaches which we felt were worth paying full price for.
But back to the idea that this is kid and major specific, if he weren’t such a pointy, focused kid and we weren’t fairly sure he’d stick with one major or at least a closely related one perhaps the calculation would have been different. Some of the schools on his list were fantastic for his major (and related groups of majors) but not so great for other majors, so would have been a more risky choice for a student likely to need options.
I don’t think you lose much by going to a lower ranked school with a strong specific program. But you do have to understand there is a little more risk involved with this since if your kid decides to switch majors later, their options at the lower ranked school may be unappealing.
Gallent- I’m starting to understand.
It helps if you get specific though. Kid is interested in studying history. You are looking at your state flagship (likely to have a robust history department) but kid could get merit from random college A. You and your kid check out the course offerings in history and are delighted to see kid could never run out of courses. And that most history majors have a sub-concentration (economic history? European history post WW1? History and fluency in a foreign language?). And a high percentage of history majors write an honors thesis.
This checks a lot of boxes.
Then you look at random college B. There aren’t a lot of history classes- in fact, there are only four courses beyond the freshman year required survey courses to fulfill the humanities distribution requirement. And history really isn’t a major- it’s a concentration which is typically combined with a program in the Ed school- got it- kids who want to become HS teachers take some history classes here- maybe not the best place to study history.
Then random college C. It doesn’t even have a history department- it has a program in Liberal Arts and Humanities. Oy you say- not a good place for history, But you look at the course offerings and wow- so many courses that are history related- a cool class on Lenin, Marx and Mao which is taught by a political science professor. A neat class on the Role of Money and Currency in Society offered by an econ professor. An incredible class on the Literature of Anarchy offered by an English professor, a course on medical ethics from the Renaissance to today team taught by a professor of theology/religion and someone from the bio/health sciences program. And your kid is jumping up and down. So yeah- nothing called a history department but plenty of ways to explore an interest in history.
And be careful on CC. Sometimes folks give the “ugh” comment to colleges which are absolutely wonderful places just because they’ve never heard of them, or their boss went their and their boss is a moron.
@gallentjill I am sure everyone has their own idea of what a “crap” school is - but I will say that we did the same as you did with your first. My son declined an OOS flagship ranked 50 spots higher than the OOS flagship he will be attending because of merit aid and a strong program. With the AP credits he takes in, he can shave off a semester of school, double major (or add another minor) or use the extra time to add to his resume with additional internships/volunteer opportunities. Two internships are embedded into the program, one over the summer following sophomore year, and one his last semester. Don’t second guess yourself. You seem sensible and thoughtful in your approach.
Value is in the eye of the beholder. I have biases against the high cost of certain very low tier private colleges, where you don’t get an academic workout. That leaves thousands of legit choices.
DH’s cousins kids went to an unaccredited religious college. It defintely hampered job opps. But you aren’t talking that. You’re talking a legit range of schools that graduate earnest learners ready for the next stage. CC is full of families with kids at less known schools, doing well, later going on to good work opps.
I share Lookingforward’s bias against some of the same colleges (I am willing to bet). And I’m not as generous- not thousands of good choices, but hundreds, at all price points.
GJ, you have z Fiske Guide, right?
It never ends! :D/
@gallentjill - I would offer two bits of advice:
- Spend the time and effort determining "fit" as the better that match, the happier your child will be. Fit will include major, in fact it should be a big part of it, and lots of other things (cost, location, size, type of students attending, social, etc.) Assuming you have the fit criteria matched with a few acceptances, you're good. You'll easily be able to compare financial offers and see what makes sense. This will likely eliminate a "boost differential" because they will likely be peer schools (because the fit criteria steered you there).
- Once #1 is acheived, who cares what anyone on CC says or thinks? They don't know your child or your circumstances.
If your kids go to well matched schools, the boost should take care of itself because they’ll thrive and that’s the most important ingredient.
Please keep in mind that the student who goes to a low-ranked college with a large merit award (full tuition or full ride) is not going to get the same experience as the average student at that college – the merit kid essentially comes in a step ahead of everyone else, often with a variety of benefits that the others don’t have. So really – instead of focusing on prestige or rankings – it is more important to focus on what the school might offer students in that category. It could be everything from priority registration or a parking sticker to funding for independent research and participation in special on-campus programs .
My views are similar to blossom poster’s. Aside from a few schools that meant more to us for some reason, I would not have paid substantially more money. But I guess the word “substantial” varies depending on your situation. Not speaking for other family members, but for me, I was convinced that my kid would receive just as good UG education at University of South Carolina Honors College as he would at UC Berkeley, at a substantially lower cost. Even taking into consideration that UC Berkeley was a prestigious state school, I was willing to persuade my kid to go to Univ of South Carolina Honors (he’s a non-STEM kid). I was in this process – and I thought there was some chance that he could be persuaded to go to Honors College route – when Stanford out of blue accepted him REA. Even then, I had a little bit of misgivings of my kid going to Stanford as a full pay but both our kid and my wife had no misgivings at all. My wife’s attitude was “We can afford it, so why not send our kid to the best university he was extremely fortunate to get into?”
@gallentjill I know lots of SUNY grads… from almost every SUNY. They are all doing well in their given field ( business, OT/PT, teaching, etc). I know kids from CW Post and Roger Williams. Again… they are all doing well. Some are working, some are in grad school… and one is in medical school (at an Ivy).
These are real outcomes from schools that are not prestigious, with a few being stronger (Binghamton, Stony Brook are much harder to get into).
I agree that if your child has merit at a school like this ^… he/she will likely have a different experience than the rest.
Thanks everyone. Especially @twogirls and @calmom for such excellent insight and calming words. Deep down, I know these things are true. But sometimes, this process can be a bit much. As I have said elsewhere, one of the benefits of CC is that I get to vent the anxiety here and NOT dump it on my kids. If my kids knew, thew would be very grateful to all of you too. 
The key thing is to do research. Including looking at outcomes and offerings (to your specific kid).
Many of the schools that give merit money are not so unrigorous that they can’t get a kid where they want to go (a school that has never sent a kid in to a physics PhD program, say, in the past two decades and only averages 5 physics grads a year who generally become HS science teachers, however, may not be the right school for a kid aiming for a PhD in physics).
This is especially true if they have a grad department that is well-regarded.
@purpltitan You’re so right about this. And the thing is I KNOW it. I just needed to be reminded. With D1, we did all that research. Looked up alumni job prospects, spoke to professionals in her field, etc. Thanks all, for the nudge.
@gallentjill – does your daughter attend a competitive high school where other kids are focused on elite admissions or prestige? I ask because it seems that you have anxiety over striving for a goal that you perceive as unattainable… but I don’t know where that is coming from. As a parent I saw it as my job to figure out the financial end of things and to let my kids know early on what the financial limits were – and beyond that to give my kids the space to find their own way. I insisted that my kids apply to the in-state public system which included admission safeties – and a financial safety for me – but beyond that it was their journey, not mine.
Everyone has their own life path to follow and the college they choose is just 4 short years (at best) along the way. My kids are in their 30’s now, and college is a distant memory. My kids followed very different routes and pretty much ended up at the same place educationally. Both had the same undergraduate majors, both have the same kind of master’s degree. Where they each went to college has had very little impact on their lives and employment.
I’m going to give OP a little different perspective. Both my cousin and his wife went to S, they are diehard cardinals, are still very much involved with their alma mater, and actually live and work in the Palo Alto area. To them, it absolutely mattered where they went to college and the experience is much more than 4 years of their life.
Some on this site will tell you it doesn’t matter where you go to college, but some colleges are just “special” and are transformative, life changing, and empowering to the student, things that will stay with some students for the rest of their lives…
@calmom Not at all. Neither my daughter or I are striving for an elite or highly selective school. Just the opposite, We are targeting significant merit and that means forgoing those schools. I think its the right plan and so does my daughter. But every now and then I wonder if its a mistake – not in terms of fit. I am convinced you can find a good fit at many different levels, but in terms of outcome. This thread has given me a lot of reassurance.
(Responding to @socaldad2002) Yes, my son had a special, transforming, life-changing, and empowering experience made possible only by his choice to transfer to Humboldt State.
You would be surprised and amazed at what can be found at many lower tier & regional colleges.
Please keep in mind that one path to a successful outcome doesn’t exclude others.