VA residents: what OOS colleges would you turn UVA/W&M down for?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of the schools mentioned above.

Stanford, Duke, Chicago + top ivy

+1

+2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, you say OOS in your title but private in your post. Do you want public OOS or private, or private instate, etc.

My mistake. I should have said what "private colleges" would you turn UVA/W&M down for? Some of the ones he likes are in VA, and he probably wouldn't want to do a big OOS public (UVA is on the big side for him). Thanks for the responses so far. I figured most people's lists would be short. So, the VA kids who go to the schools I listed generally go because they didn't get into the top VA colleges? For a kid who likes the small school vibe, are there any SLACs or smaller universities that would be worth turning down W&M for?

This has not been the case in our experience. Lots of DDs friends are choosing to go OOS (public or private) for a variety of reasons including because they want to get a different mix of students than their VA high schools and/or they like the OOS state schools better than the VA schools and mostly, because the parents can afford to send their kids to the school the kid likes best (in/out private/public).

Actually, what I have seen is that the DC has won the Jefferson Scholarship (fullfreight) at UVA and has also got into Princeton (not the others). DC had a hard time chosing but eventually went with Princeton. IMHO most of the out-of-state SLACS, including my own and DH's, just aren't as impressive as what the VA university system offers, look shabby, and certainly aren't worth the pricetag. But if you have a shot at, say, the top three, then sure, but have your child visit and stay over night, sit in on classes and get a real feel for all the schools he or she has been accepted to. You can't get a real feel on a quick routine tour. Dig up the friend of a friend who has a kid at Yale and have them host your son for a weekend to really see what it is like. Same with the VA campuses. My DD HATED the very very SSLAC we saw last week but LOVED the VA University. Who knew? And she has really no sense of the pricepoint differential. To the extent possible we want her to go where she thinks she will be happy and succeed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, you say OOS in your title but private in your post. Do you want public OOS or private, or private instate, etc.

My mistake. I should have said what "private colleges" would you turn UVA/W&M down for? Some of the ones he likes are in VA, and he probably wouldn't want to do a big OOS public (UVA is on the big side for him). Thanks for the responses so far. I figured most people's lists would be short. So, the VA kids who go to the schools I listed generally go because they didn't get into the top VA colleges? For a kid who likes the small school vibe, are there any SLACs or smaller universities that would be worth turning down W&M for?

Williams and Amherst

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:None of the schools mentioned above.

Stanford, Duke, Chicago + top ivy

+3 unless you wanted to move to another part of the us and put down roots there, like CA, South, or Texas

[Anonymous]

I'll take this from another angle.

There are no top colleges that my DCs will be turning down UVA or W&M for, because virtually all of those colleges are out of reach for us financially. Our Expected Family Contribution is much higher than we feel we can afford and all of the Ivies and most of the other top schools mentioned in this thread give only financial aid, based on the EFC, not merit aid. The cost of attendance for my kid at any of these schools will simply be too high. So if my child's goal is to go to the highest rated school possible, then he will go to UVA or W&M (assuming he gets in). And I suspect that one of my DCs will do exactly this.

My other DC is not at all interested in school rankings, and there are certain other attributes he is looking for in a college that make UVA and W&M less than ideal candidates in his mind. If fact, he is not interested in applying to UVA. Assuming he is admitted to these schools, I think he would turn down W&M to attend a certain smaller, much lower ranked school if it offered significant merit aid to bring the cost close to that of W&M. That school would be a great fit for him, and I think he would thrive there.

[Anonymous]

I personally turned down William & Mary for Notre Dame.

This was in the mid-90s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I personally turned down William & Mary for Notre Dame.

This was in the mid-90s.

\

PS My parents told us we could go to any Catholic college or to any state college. But they said, if we wanted to0 go to an OOS college which was secular, there was basically no reason for that; we might as well just go to a VA college and pay much less $$ for it.

[Anonymous]

If your DC likes W&M enough, I think you can insist on it. I don't think you can go wrong. I say that having gladly sent our 2 out-of-state away from Virginia (different circumstance)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of the schools mentioned above.

Stanford, Duke, Chicago + top ivy

+3 unless you wanted to move to another part of the us and put down roots there, like CA, South, or Texas

+4 (or something -- I lost count)

[Anonymous]

If your DS definitely won't do STEM, then I would say only ivies would be the only things to override the instate tuition of UVA and WM. However, both are not strong STEM schools at all, so our list for DD are filled with schools like Georgia Tech, Michigan, Berkeley, Illinois, and other great STEM schools that may not be as highly ranked overall, but have wonderful engineering programs.

[Anonymous]

Rice (my alma mater )

[Anonymous]

Turned down U. Va. for Princeton. Did not apply to other schools in Virginia.

Other admits: Amherst, Williams, Wesleyan and Duke.