<p>momreads, he’s doing great and taking full advantage of his opps. My kid did the same kind of things…</p>
<p>but… equally academically talented kids might not have taken full advantage of those opps at Rhodes or 'bama. Or, maybe, they could have been doing tequila shots while licking the salt off the chest of a Tuscaloosa/Memphis hottie starting every Thursday at noon. </p>
<p>Some of the opps my kid had came from her efforts at seeking them out, making herself available for them, and generally being pro-active. Some were handed to her on a silver platter. I’m betting your kid’s story is similar</p>
<p>My daughter starts year two at Pitt next week after choosing it over Georgetown and Chicago. She will tell anyone who will listen to her that Pitt is the best school in the country. Attitude, attitude, attitude.</p>
<p>We went in the reverse order of ldinct. #1 took full tuition scholarship at American U. because he thought he wanted to go into politics and thought going to school in DC would help. We thought that the merit scholarship would help us to be able to pay for law school afterwards. While he excelled there, going to school in DC taught him that he really did not want to go into politics. So after graduating he has gone off into an unrelated field. He also found he would have enjoyed being surrounded by higher achieving classmates more, so there are probably some regrets. </p>
<h1>2 wants to be a physicist and physics PhDs are usually paid for by the school so she was free to pass up various merit scholarship offers and accept admission to Harvard. So far, so good as she loved her first year and she is still in love with the idea of becoming a physicist.</h1>
<p>Interesting thread. Just saw for first time today.</p>
<p>Few observations: if money is not an object, this concept is not moot. It is always better to be wanted by the crowd than to want to be part of the “crowd.”</p>
<p>In the perspective of parents and student, it is always better to have less debt to pay at end of Bachelors.</p>
<p>Better name school definitely does not mean better education nor does it mean better opportunities. For example: Goldwater Scholarships are as often won in Oberlin than Harvard, but student’s chances are improved in Oberlin where enrollment is about 25% of Harvard’s. So lesser name school which gives our child money may be giving your child a better education and giving you money – seems too good to be true.</p>
<p>If you are lucky enough to get the good deal from an “okay” school as opposed to having the parents mortgage the home for the “name” (but not necessarily the holy grail of education) school, think many times about it.</p>
<p>And, of course: Child, not parents, is attending school – so child’s personality and emotions, not parents’, should be guiding force for the attendance decision. But, it is a parenting thing, and the parents make up the majority of these posts.</p>
<p>The one negative thing I can imagine is what I and children have done in making this decision. When people ask you about the college you attended, you respond and they give you that round-eyed doe-in-the-headlights look, and ask you “where is that?” And, you have to explain the school, maybe mention USNWR ranking of the same, and then they end the conversation with an “Oh” and another topic will immediately emerge. I can live with that – more than 35 years later it still isn’t a chore.</p>
<p>"Or, maybe, they could have been doing tequila shots while licking the salt off the chest of a Tuscaloosa/Memphis hottie starting every Thursday at noon. "</p>
<p>– speaking from personal experience curm? ;)</p>
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