One thing we’ve done differently the second time around with D26 was to find a couple likely/safeties that she likes, and would be happy attending. Once you find that, it makes the whole process so much less stressful. When I look back on my son’s application process, we didn’t have a true safety on the list, only a handful of OOS public schools. I knew that as a white male going into engineering, it would be tough- but I now know how naive we were, assuming that he would get into schools with lower than 50% admit rates (albeit, his school counselor said some were ‘practically safeties’ but after being on CC and Reddit- nothing is guaranteed in the college admissions world). Thank goodness he got into his ED school, otherwise we would have been doing some serious last-minute scrambling to submit additional applications in December.
For me, I feel like it’s too early to know. I have a college junior and a high school senior. And I feel like what I may have learned in hindsight with the first doesn’t even apply to the second because they are so different from each other as students and just in general.
I think this depends on how many colleges your child is applying to. Now, visiting colleges is time consuming and expensive. Both of those factors are important to consider. It can also involve missing school, which is another issue. I think one option to keep costs down is to visit, “types,” of colleges that are within your own state, even if they may not be on your kid’s list. A Big State U has a different feel from a small liberal arts college which has a different feel from a smaller regional state school. One assumption that I think is misplaced is that introverts will be happier at smaller schools. There is nowhere to be anonymous in a college of 1,500 students that has small classrooms sizes.
I believe most NPCs can give pretty reasonable estimates of COA. Someone correct me if I’m wrong.
Waiting to visit schools in spring semester of senior year can be really challenging. It would never have worked for us. Ds applied to 11 schools. Was accepted at 9. Too much time is needed for AP test prep, end of year events, etc. Ds could not attend admitted students weekend at Stanford because it conflicted with the state Quiz Bowl championship. He was a, “starter,” player and didn’t want to let the team down. Fortunately, he had spent three weeks on campus at a summer high school enrichment program before his junior year. Senior spring he had piano competitions, prom, awards ceremonies, Eagle Scout board of review, Model UN, Quiz Bowl tournaments leading to state, and other events that he wanted to do.
Visiting colleges also ruled some out. We did three of the Claremont colleges in one trip, but ds only applied to one of them. We visited almost every college he applied to. But we also visited several he did not apply to.
The good news is most kids usually bloom where they are planted. If they don’t, transferring is always an option.
I’m also in favor of applying to at least two safeties. That way if no match or reach schools accept, the student still gets the fun of making a choice.
So if a student is only applying to three or four schools, waiting until acceptances are in may work. I just know ds was crazy busy between February and April of his senior year.
My kid hasn’t hit college yet, so I have nothing to contribute with respect to hindsight and college.
I will say, however, that I am extremely grateful to everyone who shared their experiences in this thread. I think that people’s contributions to this thread will be helpful to anyone who reads them.
We do the best we can with what we have.
I’m very glad that me baring my soul resonates with you.
Waiting to visit doesn’t work if you’re considering ED. We did the early what type of school visits either locally or connected with a vacation. The visits later in high school were specifically about deciding whether there was a clear favorite to ED - or in my son’s case regarding fit with coaches and teammates.
For us getting accepted wasn’t really the issue, that is outside of hard to get in schools. So for us waiting on scholarships would make sense. I don’t see the point of visiting a school that is not an option financially.
Now I will say getting an idea of what size of school would make sense and luckily for where we live there are plenty of schools around of all types of sizes etc.
And if you do get into one of the selective schools and the money works then you really don’t need to visit. Let’s face it if you get into Harvard and can make the money work then just go.
"To be honest, my child might make more money straight out of college than either of his parents do currently (which is great), but I might feel resentful if we’re simultaneously paying his loans that he’ll easily be able to pay off as an engineer. It will make a real difference for us and retirement, and probably won’t be a big deal for him. "
Thank you for your very honest post.
I know plenty of people in your situation (similar- not all PhD’s. Some are highly educated professionals who chose careers in social service/human services or other aspects of the arts, education, etc.) I think a common theme is feeling guilt over having their kid have loans- and I think you should spend some time dispelling that guilt and allowing your son to pay off the loans himself.
First- because stepping up and adjusting an early career lifestyle to the actual cash flow/income (minus the loan payments) is every bit a part of his education as the “book larning” that got him where he’ll be professionally. H and I paid off our loans and then took the monthly payments and immediately directed them into our kids college accounts. I realize you weren’t in a position to do this, but spending the early years of our marriage watching colleagues “doing Aruba” over a long weekend or taking lavish ski weekends when we simply couldn’t consider those things because we had loan payments to make- I dunno- in retrospect, it was an easy tradeoff. Imposed thrift due to the loans became the choice of thrift to fund other long term goals. Not a bad outcome.
Second- supporting parents in retirement is VERY tough on a marriage, even when there is (arguably) enough money to do so. I know half a dozen families who found this to be the relationship stressor above all others. Nobody wants their mother-in-law living under a bridge; does that mean she ends up living with you? If the other option is paying the $8K per month for assisted living when she can no longer live alone? I’m sure you are delightful IRL but I’ll bet you dinner your future in-law child won’t want you at dinner EVERY SINGLE NIGHT for a decade or more because you ran out of money.
Underfunding your own retirement to take on your kid’s educational loans? No. Just don’t do it.
Third- there is no reason to feel guilty over your kid’s loans. There are people with 30 times the assets you have and incomes that are ten times bigger than yours whose kids take out loans. They believe that learning to use credit is part of financial literacy, and that there’s no time like the present. Or they want the kids to understand the difference between wants and needs. Kid may have grown up affluent, but that doesn’t mean the parents want the kid living like a king after graduation.
Hugs to you. You guys sound like great, responsible, loving parents. Paying off your kids loans seems like very unnecessary stressor.
+1 @blossom. No one is giving out loans for retirement.
I agree! Maybe NPCs aren’t as reliable as I think?
I paid quite a bit for my son to go to an expensive private school, in the top 40 at the time he went. I offered to help pay for him to get a grad degree there, because he could do it in one year. He said “I’m kind of done with name brand” or something like that.
My son who went to state flagship feels like he had a really good experience and got a pretty good job right from school. His “problem” is his wife went to an Ivy (very low cost/need based aid), and would “do anything” to get her (not yet born) kid to go to the same school, even though it sounds like being there was quite tough for her. I don’t know that my son will be willing to pay, but that’s for them to figure out.
We focused all our college research for kid#1 on a very specific niche major based upon his stated career goals. Three semesters in he decided to change his major and give up the dream goal. Fortunately, his large OOS flagship had another major and a minor that appealed to him without much credit loss and he also had quite a bit of AP and CC credit (earned during high school) so he was still able to graduate in 4 years. Everything worked out well and he is thriving in a professional job and in a serious relationship so I can’t regret it exactly, but the school he attended was chosen for the program he ended up leaving. He could have attended a good UC with in state tuition.
Kid #2 also desired a very specific major and is attending his first choice program and happy. But we are on the West Coast and he is on the East Coast. Freshman and Sophomore year he only came home for semester break and summer because of the distance. I wish I had not discouraged him from applying to a very expensive private school in California. In hindsight I think we may have received enough
merit and need based aid to make it work. At the time I was afraid he’d get in and we wouldn’t be able to afford it. I should have just let him apply with the understanding the numbers had to work or he couldn’t accept admission.
No real regrets for my three, at least nothing under my control.
I do wish the weather was reversed on the CA post-admission visits for my last kid. I think she would have gone to the better fit if she had visited on a sunny day; and maybe the lesser fit would have been less appealing had it been a rainy visit. She concurs, but not gonna waste any more time on ‘what ifs’.
I would have been more upfront about our family priorities for college. All those big fancy vacations we did not take,all the new shiny cars we did not buy and the modest home were decisions to be able to tell them when they started their college searches “ any college you want to attend, we can pay for. “ My older daughter was very surprised and put the pieces together her junior year “ oh that’s why we didn’t……” I wish I’d been a bit more vocal as they got older.
I knew my daughter was really in love with UMich when she committed after an admitted student’s day on which it was 12 degrees below zero!
We went to Purdue in the spring. It was 40 and a downpour all day. It is also a very boring drive to West Lafayette from where we were living at the time. It was one of those spring days where it was 60 and sunny the day before, we were not dressed for 40 and rain.
Came off the list immediately. Not sure if it would have been better if the weather was nice as it wasn’t a great fit for that child.
What would I do differently?
Many of you already know from my “average excellent” thread that I wouldn’t have taken my eldest kid to visit so many reach schools, but in hindsight, it did end up being useful. I didn’t make the same mistake with my youngest kid and we only visited one reach school, near my family, after he was accepted.
So even your previous hindsight can inform your next hindsight.
In terms of the rest of their actual college experience, I don’t think I’d do anything differently. We spent a lot of money for D’s education at a private LAC and I wholeheartedly think it helped make her into who she is now.
Actually, here is a great lesson in hindsight. Our son chose the least expensive option, the instate public. We were frankly not sure about it, at all. It didn’t have the vibe he always said he wanted, but after an overnight second visit, he said that was it. We didn’t care about showing off to anyone, but did want him to be somewhere that had more of what he claimed was important to him. We had to trust his judgement and he was spot on, despite a few dodgy semesters due to having too much fun.
So the moral is that maybe your kids know themselves better than you think they do. S’s instate public was by far the best choice for him and the proof is in the pudding.
Absolutely the case with our kid, so glad he ignored our “advice.”
The one thing I wish I did differently for my oldest and then did do for my second was to strongly encourage applying to a rolling admission school that they would be happy to attend. The first three admission decisions my oldest received were all deferrals which created a lot of stress, anxiety and a few last-minute rushed applications before an acceptance finally arrived. For my second, she applied to a rolling admission school on August 1 when applications opened and received her acceptance the first week of September. It was not one of her top choices, and she attended elsewhere, but having the pressure off and knowing she was going to college was invaluable.
As several other posters have shared, selecting a school based on one’s major isn’t always the best idea if some of the most prestigious schools in the nation are options. Even though graduated a top 10 National University with the top rated major, probably would have been better to have targeted Harvard or Stanford.
Also selected law school based on the top school for the intended practice area. Would have been better to attend a top 14 law school or to have accepted the full tuition plus scholarship offered by another law school (which only offers one non-stipulation scholarship per year, so would have had to wait a year–essentially take a gap year between college graduation and law school matriculation). Changed intended practice area immediately prior to graduation.