Your kid takes the top scholarship instead of the top school. What's next?

cheers · March 21, 2007, 1:57am

You little rebel, dstark. Did you give him a rasberry to go with that snub?

I was one who was told she could go anywhere–but had the offer withdrawn after I started (hello? Whacky parents !) . I made up the difference myself–ultimately paying for half of my private undergrad university–through loans, workstudy and taking a year off and RA and every other conceivable scheme short of grants or scholarships-- cause you know–they don’t give scholarships to rebellious hellions whose parents can afford the school. LOL. I paid for half and then I graduated into a profesion which is is notoriously low paying, especially if you want to work for the glitterati.

Once again–I chose to take the crap money deal for the chance to be surrounded by brilliant peers and teachers. It was sooooo worth the low pay. I never had so much fun as I did when I was a broke apprentice working with the most amazing peer group in New York City. Wowza. I remember paying off the loans every month–but I don’t remember it killing me.

I am sure it DID kill me some months–but I managed to put that memory in the compartment where all my money ‘freak-outs’ go. That’s a pretty big compartment, I have to say, after twenty one years of running my own business in three cities on two continents. In my life, it’s not a good year if there haven’t been one or two epic money ‘freak-outs’. That’s becuase I am continually taking risks.

Like Sir Branson, I make that ‘Screw it! Let’s do it!’ choice over and over again in my life. I’ve sent my sons to fantastic schools–from primary onwards–and I have scraped the money together. I’ve sent them on Gap Years I would have dreamed of.

I believe in jamming in those learning experiences between the ages of 17 and 28. I got to see and learn so much during those years, but still, it wasn’t enough. I dawdled during key years because I didn’t know any better–because my parents were scared scriptless.

That said, I don’t cry in my beer about HYP or any of that other Top 50 hair-splitting business. We’re not finance or law people. I don’t care about Goldman Sachs–even though my cousin made a cool $40M after startng a career there. I’m in the arts. My jazz factor is not sitting on a pile of money.

If my sons are in a great city, in a mid-to-large sized Top 50 private, they are going to get a great education. I can count on that because I know many academics who like to live in great cities. I know provincial cities have a harder time attracting sexy faculty. And I know that my sons love to learn. They will find the best opportunities within their schools. The path might be slightly tippy–especially freshman year ahem but they will right themselves and rise to find the best.

I shouldn’t even be in this conversation in all likelihood. I would promote the better city over the better ranked school or scholarship. I’m a city snob. Sue me!

Art_Vandelay_1 · March 21, 2007, 2:02am

Gee, I already get quite enough of the financial one-upmanship from the parents at my D’s various athletic and school activities, and don’t really care to hear more of it on an anonymous website. I think you would have done yourself a favor by limiting your first sentence to stating “money was not an issue” in the decision.

calmom · March 21, 2007, 2:47am

Does it really matter if 100% of the students are engaged and knowledgeable? I can understand why you wouldn’t want to be the only literature lover in a class of 50 students… but isn’t it appropriate for a college to require students to take core or breadth courses? And if there are engineering majors who are required to take 10 units of English and can fil that with the English lit class, even though they’d rather not… isn’t part of what a good university is about is to have them there, presumeably neither engaged nor knowledgeable, but at least willing to listen and learn?

I would hate to see a college in which there was no room for exploration, including the inevitable fraction of students who find themselves in a class they wish they didn’t have to take, but bear with it and end up learning from those on the other end of the spectrum. I’m not talking about a graduate level seminar for doctoral candidates – but at the undergraduate level, it seems to me that part of the educational value is the mix.

I think every class ideally should have a certain percentage of very strongly engaged students, especially if the class is small enough to allow for open discussion. In a large lecture class it might not matter – I think the students at Berkeley line up to hear lectures by a certain luminary in the astronomy department, including many who don’t have a clue about physics or astronomy and never would take the course but for the prof’s fame – but when there are several hundred students sitting in the lecture hall and a few hundred more watching the lecture via video … it doesn’t matter. The class in that case is valuable because of the quality of the teacher.

I certainly would advocate for the type of college where students are serious and respectful – I wouldn’t want my kid at a school where students routinely failed to show up to class or disrupted class by inappropriate behavior (chatting in class so others couldn’t hear the prof, interrupting with impertinent or inappropriate comments, showing up intoxicated, etc.) …

but I’d rather be in a class where class discussion is dominated by a few students who were highly intelligent and had valuable insights to contribute, than one where everyone wanted to have their say but the discussion became repetitive or the time spent with discussion ended up detracting from the amount of material that could be covered overall. My son chose his LAC’s because of the small seminar atmosphere of almost every class – and certainly the place was full of engaged and intelligent students – by my son also felt the novelty wore off fast. It ended up with a lot of time spent listening to the same people say the same type of thing over and over again… (kind of like CC threads sometimes ) – so I think that sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.

And I wouldn’t want my kid at a school where she was not allowed to attend certain classes because it was thought that she was not good enough. I’m not talking about advanced courses where she simply lacks the prerequisites – rather, I’m talking about schools that restrict most offerings of a given department only to majors. It seems to me that you can have a star quality class even if every student in the room is not a star.

calmom · March 21, 2007, 3:17am

Art, I don’t think originaloog is engaging in one-upmanship – I think that the inclusion of some details helps give some context to the discussion. Discussion about cost and affordability are often very vague in terms of underlying assumptions. There is a difference between the level of affluence of a family with a net worth of $400K and one with $2 million and one with $100 million – just as it might make a difference in terms of understanding my point of view as to deciding whether to spend $10K extra for a college to know whether my annual income is 20K or 50K or 90K.

I didn’t mean to suggest that rich people should not shop wisely – they usually don’t get to be rich by making foolish spending decisions. However, I would hope that if I had $2 million in the bank, that when it came to a choice a very good private and a very good public, that I would leave the decision up to the kid and not begrudge the kid the choice of the private school even if I thought the public was just as good.

LBP · March 21, 2007, 5:58am

IMO, bottom line is: if you could afford the top school of choice, whether that’s private or public, and the student will thrive there - go for it. If finances are a major consideration and there are other pressing issues in the family, you need to examine the financial aid package offered to the student- which may or may not come from the top school of choice. It might be the second or the third choice. But if a student is bright, he/she will be successsful. We all can’t afford the Ivy’s and privates… Remember, too, that a lot depends upon the dynamics in the classrooms. There are very smart and contributing students at every college - and you find jerks at every college, also.

bethievt · March 21, 2007, 6:37am

calmom

Why is a mistake to start at a small LAC and take something bigger when that becomes better? I started at a small LAC, loved it, dropped out for financial reasons and went to huge state U, loved it, went on to 3 other schools before finishing with PhD. Loved them all. But I don’t think I was ready for huge state U at the age of 17. When I was 20, it was perfect. Nothing wrong with mixing it up a bit.

momfromme · March 21, 2007, 7:06am

bethievt - As someone who bounced around myself a bit in getting my education, I concur with your point. Getting varied experience in one’s college years may very well prepare students to work with different kinds of people in different settings.

And while I think fit is an important concern, this is an factor that has its own continuum. At one end of the continuum, I would not put “perfect fit” because I think that is a false ideal. At the other end, I would put “poor fit,” as there are certainly places that would be not work well for particular students. But in the middle there are many schools that are fairly good fits and the differences between them in terms of fit are not that significant, certainly not significant enough to trump major differences in costs for families who cannot pay full freight.

I see “perfect fit” as a myth, for there is not one, perfect college out there, above all else. It’s a romantic notion, but I don’t buy it.

calmom · March 21, 2007, 7:37am

Bethievt, I said it “was a mistake in hindsight for my son to opt for a small LAC”. It was a mistake because it didn’t work out well for him – it was expensive, and it was a set back for him in terms of his progress toward a degree, his ability to study what was important to him, and in term of the overall quality/prestige of the degree he ultimately will end up with. I know that he is not at the college where he wants to be – the bottom line is that as a transfer with a spottier record he is not able to get into the same schools that admitted him with generous financial aid offers coming out of high school; he is limited in choice of major because of lack of prerequisite coursework; his is financially in a much worse position because the time spent out of school working pushed up his EFC to a level where a private college became unaffordable; etc.

I know my son, and I think he opted for his comfort level rather than his growth/stretching level. It wasn’t all bad but it was an educational set back that essentially means he will end up with a degree that is of lesser value to him. One of the mistakes is that I assumed, incorrectly, that it would be easy for him to transfer back into the UC system. It wasn’t.

I’m glad a lot of bouncing around worked for you… but my son wasn’t back in school at age 20 – he didn’t get back to school until age 23. The good side of things is that his work experience ended up as a case of everything going right – he even had to turn down an offer for a high paying job in order to make the time in his life to come back to school. He isn’t worried about employment prospects, nor does he see his degree being particularly related to employment. He just knows he needs to have the degree (any degree) to have good prospects of advancement. In fact, his goal at present was simply stated as: to get a college degree as quickly and cheaply as possible.

I think the post I responded to had something to do with being unsure of a major. If my son had been at a different, larger college - even if he was unsure, he would have been required to take whatever general ed classes that college required, and if would have had whatever advising was offered. Instead he is ended up in a situation with courses that wouldn’t transfer or couldn’t be applied, and no option but to attend a college that didn’t offer some areas of study that he really wanted to pursue.

Obviously there were reasons for his original choice and there are positives as well as negatives…but the point is, in my mind, in hindsight, his uncertainty about major should have been a sign to us to opt for a place with more options and more flexibility.

binx · March 21, 2007, 7:39am

I guess I’m developing a certain skill for responding to periphery issues!

Someone made a comment a page or two ago about working through school, and this is something I’ve been thinking about - no opinions yet. As I’ve mentioned before, we will not qualify for need-based aid, although we should. Both of my sons have had a need-based package that includes a work-study. My D will not qualify for a work-study. My D has never held a job. Of any kind. And therefore has no work experience. I am wondering whether this is good or bad. I am wondering if she could handle a job while in school. Somehow, I doubt it.

In Germany (grades 9-11) she was not allowed to have a job - no work visa. She did have a couple paying gigs. Since returning to the US, her life has been too complicated. This summer she will go back to Germany for a couple weeks, and there won’t be a high likelihood of her getting a job for just 2 months, around here. We’ve been thinking of how best to fill her months. (She’s also never been to a summer camp - German school is year round.)

But I’m wondering if this is a #7 for the list. Something about whether the higher priced school will necessitate a job, (work-study or otherwise) and whether or not the student can handle that extra activity.

Responding to momfromme - I agree that a “pefect” school may or may not exist for any given student. In my D’s case, every one of the six schools she has applied to (5 acceptances with money so far) has strengths and weaknesses. I have no doubt we could have added another dozen (or more) had we had time to visit and explore. Whatever she decides, we will some excitement and some regret.

weenie · March 21, 2007, 7:43am

^ “I guess I’m developing a certain skill for responding to periphery issues!”

Yeah, me too. At least we’ve cleared up who has “lots and lots” of money, and who doesn’t. sigh

calmom · March 21, 2007, 7:53am

Binx, I feel that having a job is a positive – in fact, I think one advantage of my daughter’s choice of college is that there’s lots of work available, both on campus and off. I understand the reasons your daughter could not work, but I think that both my kids are better off because of their work experience, and I don’t think it cuts into their studies at all. It may cut into their college social life or other activities – but my son is doing fine right now working 20 hours or more a week, and my daughter combines her work-study job with occasional work from a couple of campus-affiliated agencies.

I think work experience helps kids develop a clearer sense of what they want to do in life (or what they don’t want to do) and how their studies relate to their goals. Developing workplace skills along with a good resume also will open the door to more internships.

Given your daughter’s travel plans, I wouldn’t push her to get a job over the summer - but my daughter surprised me last summer by accepting a position with a major retailer even before her high school graduation, only 2 weeks before she was scheduled to leave for China. She actually was able to get a new job even with plans to be out of the country for a couple of weeks soon after she started – and as she was going to college in late August she only worked about 6 weeks over all – but she was able to earn about $1500 in that time, which definitely helped with college expenses.

Anyway, as I said I wouldn’t push – but if she is offered a campus job as part of a financial package, I think it’s a good thing, not a bad thing. My daughter works as an assistant with an academic department at her school; the job is easy, puts her in contact with a lot of faculty and staff, and she has gained some web site design and p.r. skills as part of her job responsibilities.

oldolddad · March 21, 2007, 9:03am

Calmom : I concur with much of what you have said.
One thing I want to point out is that in discussions
I haves had with many parents they semm to think that being able to afford the expensive school and wanting to to pay are quite independent. There seem to be many on the boards that feel if you have the money it should go to the school. That’s’ cool. Many parents do not look at it that way. Perhaps I come from a strange part of the world or have been involved in a weird industry for many years but I know an awful lot of folks who were/are well off a who drive older cars etc.

Binx: On the work issue ,especially during the school year. We believe that our kids should be responsible for a certain portion of their education costs. (it seems to be a tradition in wife and my families, like getiing out in less than 4 years) For D, when she was choosing to go top private we fixed the amount we would pay and the amount for which she would be responsible. She, in addition to finding some outside scholarship money, worked and saved during summers even in high school and saved duing the school years in high school to pay for gas/insurance etc. Beginning her first semster in college she started not only doing research in her field for pay but also doing things such as earning money as a note taker and such. This her third year she works two or three research projects and up to thirty hours per week. She loves it and is also doing well in school plus is in the orchestra and does volunteer work. She has been cost conscious when since moving off campu. Not only has she taken care of her share but has paid off the student loans she took the first two years, banked money, and funded IRAS. She is planning on a Phd programs and wants to have money in the bank, no debt, and a car when she starts. She has given up things including a semester abroad but part of that is because her research will last all summer and the schools terms for overseas went longer than she wanted. She notes that many kids,even the ones she shares a house with, know nothing about manageing finances, budgeting etc. She has become an expert on seeing how little she can pay for textbooks on line and says she actually says shes feels much more prepared for grad school and beyond than many of her friends. These were some unexpected consequences. She has definitely become an excellent time manager and certainly for her age much more appreciative of costs than many. She says she likes feeling independent and knowing that she participated.
S, even though he attended summer schools and programs has also been able to cobble together some money, and like D has to pay for gas, insurance and fun a stuff (Actually he tries to avoid the gas issue by biking to school, to the university and to many functions-cheap but healthy). He has a rather high paying internship this summer and if he takes one of the full pay offers he will have most of his personal/book money before he starts. Whether he goes to a full pay or full scholarship school I think he will try to work a few hours, at least, each week. He may not have to work summers in college at least not with the intent to save much but already has opportunities for a research job and/or internships after freshman year.
If the full pay is the option, things will be like they are for his sister and I actually think there are some benefits going her way rather than having a full ride…as crazy as it sounds. Like I posted before: Maybe a hungry dog hunts best. That is our story though and we are a bit “different”.

momfromme · March 21, 2007, 9:17am

Re - having a job - I’ve read that student with part time jobs do better in college than those who don’t work or those who are working part time. I don’t have a link to the data, but it makes sense to me and comports with my own observations. When you have a part time job, this structures your time and makes it clearer how much time you have available to do your school work. It teaches time management skills, as well as the ability to work with others in a common endeavor, and makes it clear what you will gain from having a college degree.

In terms of bouncing around, I would counsel parents to keep an eye on the long term picture. Students who go back to school after working for awhile are usually extremely committed to their studies and ready to get moving. In fact, this may be an advantage over people who went straight through. These days people change careers frequently and I have seen a lot of people who pushed their way through from high school to college and even to law school or medical school who decided at some point that this wasn’t what fit their desires and interests. Then they had to go back to school to get a degree in international health or whatever. As my mother says, “nothing is wasted,” so whatever the students did and studied adds to what they do from then on, but let’s not assume that going straight through college means that our kids have figured out their life paths. Sometimes it’s better to go the long way around.

oldolddad · March 21, 2007, 9:29am

Momfromme: My mother used to say the same thing to me when I was young.
I like your thoughts. Thank you for posting.

calmom · March 21, 2007, 9:39am

That’s why I felt it was valuable that originaloog shared specific information. I understand the importance of making careful choices with your money. On the other hand, if you have it and don’t spend it on the things than you want – then what’s the point of having the money in any case? $2 million in assets, even very modestly invested, will generally yield enough income to pay for 2 kids in college – so a family with that sort of money can leave the principal intact and pay for the kids to go wherever they want, and in the end have the same amount or more as when they started. (I’m assuming that the parents also have income from other sources, like employment – if they are retired and simply living off their assets, then they would be wise to avoid tapping into the principal).

I’d rather be rich than poor – but if I am going to live the exact same lifestyle rich as I would be living poor… then I’d rather not have to deal with the complications of having money I wasn’t using. If I could had the money and could comfortably pay full cost for my daughter to attend her current college – quite frankly I’d rather write the check each year and be done with it than deal with the constant pressure and stress I have each year worrying about financial aid.

oldolddad · March 21, 2007, 9:49am

Calmom: That last comment is spot on. What a pain to fill out those forms and having to worry about it. I think it would be great to just know you could write the check and not have to think about whether or not you needed the money down the road. But you do what you gotta do and try to enjoy the rest of life.
Like reading CC, I look at it all as part of the learning experience.

epiphany · March 21, 2007, 10:04am

“If I could had the money and could comfortably pay full cost for my daughter to attend her current college – quite frankly I’d rather write the check each year and be done with it than deal with the constant pressure and stress I have each year worrying about financial aid.”

Yes! – ^^^worth mentioning because there does exist a misconception that fin.aid recipients “have it easy.” Beyond the aforementioned paperwork & stress, there are fewer options for such students during attendance. F.A. does not cover discretionary student spending: they pay for their own personals, recreational spending, etc. out of work-study jobs. Nor do they work year-round. Employment suffers during seasonal breaks (holidays, etc.) and any time the student perceives a need to cut back hours because of a heavier course load one semester or other competing needs. It’s actually more like "the real world’ (financially) than for students not on f.a. & who will not face debt after graduation.

That said, I do think that juggling work and studies is good experience, because one discipline aids the other. How often we hear about worry-free freshman in deep trouble their first yr. due to the illusion of more discretionary time & fewer responsibilities, without any structure besides class hours.

JHS · March 21, 2007, 10:10am

<ol>
<li> I want to pick up on something dstark and calmom were talking about: I agree completely with dstark that for English/lit students it’s crucially important to have good peers in classes with you. As I have said above, my daughter generally loves Chicago, but she did NOT love her first-year Humanities core classes. Her words: “They have six different levels of math people place into, so that I don’t hold back someone who knows a lot and cares about it. I wish they had at least two levels of literature – one for people who know how to read and one for people who don’t. Half the people in my class have no idea how to read poetry, don’t care to learn, and believe they are entitled to take up class time expressing their contempt for the whole process. I’ve been there, done that. It was called high school. These kids are maybe a little smarter than the kids in high school, but the kids in high school were pretty smart, too. The class is useless for me.” She is considerably happier now that she is taking upper-level classes.</li>
</ol>

That’s not to say that you need hundreds of peers, but I know that I wouldn’t have been so happy in college had I not been surrounded by a whole bunch of people who cared about the same things I did, and whom I respected, enjoyed, and argued with (and who, by the way, tended not to be my close friends). I don’t for a minute believe that is a HYPS-only experience, but it’s certainly one of the questions I would be asking of any school, especially if I were interested in less-popular corners of the humanities.

<ol>
<li> I also want to ask – and I mean, really, ask – about the common theme that it doesn’t matter where MDs and engineers do their undergraduate work. I only knew a couple of engineers in college, and have stayed close to only one of them, so I don’t really have a sense of where their careers fall in the range of possibilities. But my college future-MD friends have had really interesting careers. Most of them now have high-profile positions at high-profile hospitals and medical schools – my two pre-med roommates are at the Cleveland Clinic and Mass General, both with impressive titles and a ton of published research, and other friends are at Hopkins, Wash U, UCSF, and Yale – and some have had quirky careers – a GP/painter in Alaska, a poverty-medicine advocate. The only “just plain doctors” among our college friends are people whose lives have been profoundly affected by outside forces (a serious injury leaving permanent physical impairment, a spouse with Huntington’s Disease). (Not that it doesn’t happen: our children’s pediatrician, a wonderful “just plain doctor”, is a Brown alumna, with no “story” other than that’s what she wants to do.)</li>
</ol>

These were always ambitious, driven people; that’s what they were doing at an “elite” college in the first place. To illustrate, here are song lyrics I wrote freshman year for one of my roommates, based entirely on actual things he said:
The girl that I marry will have to be
A doctor, at least of Philosophy.
Around her snow-white neck
Hangs a Phi Beta Kappa key won at Cal Tech.
Our own little lab is the place we’ll be –
We two, and our molecule, that makes three!
We’ll be breedin’ in our Eden,
And she’ll carry my prize home from Sweden.
Oh competent, very, the girl that I marry must be.
(Yes, he was a little over-the-top.)

Anyway, I understand that your undergraduate institution matters not at all once you start medical school, but I also have a sense that Ivy-type schools assemble a greater proportion of kids who really want to win Nobel Prizes and to cure AIDS, and who are willing to take a serious run at it. (A personality type that is not 100% positive, by the way.) Obviously, they don’t have a corner on that market, but are other schools’ pre-med programs stuffed with people like that, too? Is it really clear that the range of career paths doesn’t differ? If you are a kid who wants to be a doctor, does it matter to you what your classmates’ ambitions are?

marite · March 21, 2007, 10:25am

totally off-topic, but I wanted to share this story about a recent Harvard graduate with a very different kind of ambition from the type usually discussed in conjunction with elite schools:

<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2007/03/20/the_goal_keeper/[/url]”>http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2007/03/20/the_goal_keeper/</a>

simba · March 21, 2007, 10:26am

“I’d rather be rich than poor – but if I am going to live the exact same lifestyle rich as I would be living poor… then I’d rather not have to deal with the complications of having money I wasn’t using.”

very true Calmom: Once in a while even lawyers can be wise ones. :)

Your kid takes the top scholarship instead of the top school. What's next?

CONNECT WITH US