<p>Understood, curm, and my comments were meant with warmth and appreciation for those who’ve seen these sorts of decisions come and go already. Sincere thanks to all who are contributing to this part of the discussion, it really is VERY helpful!</p>
<p>(Not necessarily, Marite…we heard a Harvard ensemble the other night and were underwhelmed…surprisingly…)</p>
<p>mootmom:Man, it sounds like our house! Good luck.</p>
<p>
Right, but the point here is that it is NOT “the same thing”. There are differences in school size and reputation (in our case, the big scholarship comes from a much <em>smaller</em> and more regional school than pretty much any of the others under consideration) so it’s not the same sort of comparison.</p>
<p>If we have the money set aside for him, and his brother uses his equivalent account for college, why shouldn’t the balance left in his account be his after he takes a massive scholarship for four years? I understand the “money talks” pressure, but isn’t it a valid consideration? Won’t it be so throughout his life?</p>
<p>Curmudgeon wrote: “Rhodes is not a 100% of need school. They gap . … I would assume that in most cases Rhodes, Centre, Hendrix, Millsaps, etc would be less generous “on average”.”</p>
<p>I know I’m risking the full wrath of Cur with this question: how does your daughter feel knowing that she got a free ride at Rhodes, even though her family could have paid something toward her education, while some of her classmates and friends with lower SATs and GPA are racking up significant debt because of the way Rhodes gaps? Couldn’t that create some dissension/unhappiness on campus? Or do all Rhodes students happily accept the fact that some high achievers get a free ride while lower achievers and lower income students don’t?</p>
<p>It seems to me that if you tell the kid that you have $X that you will give to the kid to attend the full scholarship school, that is a very, very strong parental push toward the more expensive option.</p>
<p>First of all, you are announcing that you do have the money and can afford to part with it. Most kids when making the choice are troubled with guilt and concern over what it will cost their parents – so if you say to them “I have the money and I don’t need it for myself”… you’ve eliminated that guilt/worry factor. </p>
<p>Secondly, if you try to bribe someone, the natural psychological response is for the person to resist, even when what they are offered is clearly worth more than what they are being asked to give up. (There’s a study on that somewhere I’ll try to dig up). So the surest way you can make a kid want Harvard even more is to offer the kid money to go to the state U. instead. </p>
<p>It doesn’t work that way when the college offers merit money, because that doesn’t sound like a bribe – it sounds like a reward for greatness, since it is coming from a stranger. It makes them feel special and appreciated.</p>
<p>But the “put the money away” offer isn’t set up as a reward for greatness or being special – it’s just an old parental tactic with the stakes raised. So if you want your kid to go to the cheaper school… I’d suggest offering the bribe to go to the more expensive one.</p>
<p>
This is exactly how we view the decision – it was never the case that we were going to give the kids money in lieu of tuition.</p>
<p>Mootmom, in your case, your son seems to have a good attitude about his options. I think I’d just go with the flow, and let him make the decision, with the idea that if he’s not happy he can transfer.</p>
<p>EMM1 - Do you mean change their mind with or without parental input? I am not sure many kids have any idea of how much money that is, any more than they have any idea of their mortality.</p>
<p>Edit: thread is moving so fast, there’s a lot of cross-posting going on! I can’t keep up!</p>
<p>Allmusic:</p>
<p>Weenie was considering techie schools, and I think that some may have quite decent orchestras. It depends on how high the quality of playing Weenie’s kid would be looking for. Professional sounding? probably not. As I’m sure you know, there are many orchestras and ensembles as well as choirs at Harvard and they vary quite a lot in quality (or from performance to performance). we’ve attended some outstanding concerts and some only so-so.</p>
<p>mootmom: I hear you and we have agonized over this. We feel that the money is for an education. If they do not need it, it does not mean it is just handed to them. There is more to it in our specific case. Fairness takes into account many factors.</p>
<p>cirmudge etal : Can we get to 1000 posts? How fast? When we get there will we have resolved any issues? I guess we put this in a time capsule and check in a few years down the road!</p>
<p>" when D comes home from Memphis to the ranch the first thing she comments on is how much more peaceful , more calm she feels here on the ranch being able to see stars with our almost lack of light pollution to our west and north (some to the east). No people to be seen for miles . (There are a few, we just can’t see them from the cabin in 3 directions. We see one house in one direction.) "</p>
<p>well curm…I have most of my life in mega city (even Lubbock would be a mega city by your standards). So I always had a romantic fantacy about life on a farm or ranch. Your description just watered my mouth.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Agreed. Though if they offer enough money to enough students, they can build enough of an “elite” student body so that you wouldn’t be an EXTREME outlier. I mentioned earlier that the honors students at Baylor are more diverse in every way than the average Baylor student, and I think a good deal of that has to do with the merit money attracting people who don’t fit the stereotypical rich, white, Christians. And because the people who get that money are top of their class, and they give out a lot of money, you don’t feel so much like an outlier. Obviously, Baylor’s not as diverse as other schools, even in the honors program. But intellectually, I feel like I’m surrounded by more motivated students here than I was at my public high school. While I was one of the top ten students in my class, and one of only two NMF in like 6 years, here I’m not so far ahead. Though I will say I’m definitely towards the top, I’m not an extreme outlier. But then, at any university I’d be less at the top than I was in my high school, because many of those students don’t even go to college.</p>
<p>Other comments:
- I really like Curmudgeon’s list.
- Re: a blurry picture of fit. I agree. I wasn’t exactly sure what would fit me best, and so the lure of money helped me make what would have been an extremely difficult decision. I did know some of the things I wanted, which helped me rule out the other affordable universities I was accepted to. However, the lure of money did really help, especially since by the time acceptances rolled around, I had 12 colleges to choose from, most of which I probably would have been happy with (hence why I applied to them and not to the hundreds of other schools out there.)
- I was going to make a comment about correlation between income and test scores, but I think I’ll leave that for another thread…</p>
<p>True dat, Marite. We heard a few fabulous groups at Art Day, or whatever it is called, last year. </p>
<p>This one was audition only, which is I guess why I was all the more surprised. Maybe my expectations were too high.</p>
<p>Garland, your last couple of posts… 
;)</p>
<p>
Fair question and there is no wrath of cur for asking it. The wrath would come from being judgmental about her answer, or what I think her answer would be. D never liked the idea of need only schools and highly values the concept of merit aid. She also felt she sacrificed many things to excel as she did on all levels in high school : music, sports, academics . She values hard work. She was asked once by the regional newspaper when they profiled her in the 8th grade : what makes you the maddest? She said “People who don’t try their hardest”. She also knows that we are spending extra money for summer educational opps for her that could have gone to tuition at a more expensive option. Rhodes gaps and Yale doesn’t give merit aid. She thinks both are wrong and feels Emory, Chicago, WashU and a few other 100% of need merit schools have it right.</p>
<p>dstark: Where did you come from?</p>
<p>sly_vt – as to your question about the merit money… if you think about it, the gap between rich and poor/middle class at a college is much more likely to cause resentment. That is, Mudgette is a kid from a modest background who is getting a free ride… but her father isn’t sending her a ton of money, she’s stressing about the cost of plane fare home over spring break, she doesn’t wear designer clothing, she probably seems pretty “ordinary” to the other kids -so she doesn’t seem too privileged. And as Curmudgeon noted, she’s a hard worker - so that’s what the other kids see. Apparently there is a need component to the top scholarship at Rhodes – it may be going to middle class kids who could afford to contribute something, but its not going to to the rich kids. </p>
<p>My daughter knows a kid at her school whose parents send her $4000 a month allowance. The kid somehow manage to get assigned to the biggest dorm room on the floor, spends her time partying and drinking and always talks about where she shops and what she’s bought and where she’s going to vacation. Obviously the kid’s parents pay full fare. In fact, it’s likely the parents are paying more than full fare (from what d. says, this certainly <em>smells</em> like a maybe some extra money was thrown into the pot to get the kid admitted). I don’t think its much consolation to the kids trying to make do on $200 a month from their parents, or my daughter who is stuck with -0- a month from me and living off the proceeds of her work-study job, to know that the rich kid’s parents are paying more for her to attend the school.</p>
<p>In any case, I don’t think the kids at my daughter’s college really discuss the details of one another’s financial aid. My impression is that they have a sense of who is on aid, and who isn’t, but don’t really know the details beyond that. So one kid’s parents might be paying $3000 and another’s might be paying $25000, but both kids have stafford loans and work study jobs, and neither is getting much money from home – so as to their life on campus, the situation is pretty much equal.</p>
<p>Now if someone had to leave college because they could no longer afford it… that would probably cause some distress among all that person’s friends… but that happens at supposed 100%-need schools instead. I think the kids are more likely to blame whatever financial aid policy is hurting them than some other kid who happens to have a better award.</p>
<p>oldolddad, I’m around. :)</p>
<p>I kind of like the way the thread is going today. </p>
<p>Maybe, I’ll keep my mouth shut. :)</p>
<p>BookAddict, thanks for contributing. Very well written posts.</p>
<p>Wow! I get away from CC for a few days and look what happens! Nearly 600 posts already on a topic started just last Saturday. Amazing! Give it to Cur to stir up the intellectual and emotional juices. This “Prestige over Scholarships” topic has always interested me ever since I read “Robots” Yale vs Vanderbilt story a few years ago. Of course, there is no right or wrong answer. Everyone has to make their own bed and then sleep in it.
One year ago, our S was in nealy the identical situation as Cur’s D. He turned down Duke, Rice, WashU and Wake for the free ride at Furman. Does he regret it? Not one bit. Absolutely thriving at Furman. The ultimate decision factor for him/us simply came down to debt. Pure and simple. Of course if money is not a factor, then the choices are easier. However, that isn’t realistic is it? Money and finances play a part in nearly every decision we make doesn’t it? Do you remodel the kitchen and keep driving the beater? Pay for private school or retire a few years earlier? Designer shoes or sneakers? Vacation in Europe or Myrtle Beach? It seems to me that debt is like a rock around your neck. After awhile it really gets heavy and generally is no fun. Being in debt is restricting. Having no debt is liberating. No debt means having more choices. Of course, not every one agrees with us.</p>