How did you decide between your DC's top choices?

[Anonymous]

After getting all financial offers, I told my kid which schools we could afford (that only eliminated one that he had already decided against). He had two top choices and I had him make a list of pros and cons for each school, which helped him decide where he wanted to go

[Anonymous]

I have two kids in college. Two different personalities, two different majors, and they picked VERY different schools. I would say their gut feelings won out.

[Anonymous]

Someone mentioned distance - yes, there was one school that had to be ruled out due to distance. While it looked beautiful, it was in a location that made it rather difficult to access in an emergency and/or for school breaks.

[Anonymous]

Another vote for Admitted Students Days. My son was deciding between his top two schools and the admitted students day for one of them really impressed him and made the difference in his decision.

[Anonymous]

Mambojambo2024 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You meaning you plural you and your DC. Or just your DC if there was no budget, no geographic limits, etc.

+1
Unfortunately, my DC had to go with our "top choice" as it was an in-state school. Even though her dream school was out of state, we couldn't help her financially achieve it and she had no aid or merit. It was super tough on all of us, but she was 17 when was was making this decision. We decided not to let a 17 year old saddle herself with that much debt. Even though she finds our in-state school "less exciting," she can graduate debt free.

We are paying so we get final say. Kids can’t borrow full COA anymore so no way for our kid to attend top choice at $95k/yr without our approval (aka check book!). Kid is at lowest cost option.

Student loan limits are:
1st-year undergrad 5,500
2nd-year undergrad 6,500
3rd- & 4th-year undergrad 7,500
Limit for all 4 years 31,000

Many parents do not realize things have changed and their kid cannot borrow for school like they did.

Now, the parents can borrow full COA, but rates and origination fees are insane. And they are the parents’ loans, not the kids.

Terrible situation for your kid to be in. Instead of making the decision for your kid, you should have done a better job guiding him to only apply to colleges you and your family can afford. Or at least gamble on the ones that typically offer a lot of need-based money. I would never dare to select my child’s college for him….

Kids 90k/year top choice school gives a handful of merit (not need) based scholarships. Kid knew they needed to win one of those (highly competitive) scholarships in order to attend. Kid applied, but didn’t win, any of the merit based awards. It’s still tough when you’re accepted to a school (where kid was a legacy too) and have to turn it down.

That’s not a terrible position to be in, that’s life.

[Anonymous]

Packages- the schools that offered the most % off with merit got a visit. After visiting, and confirming school would meet their demands, they got to choose.

[Anonymous]

Quality of academic program, cost, admitted student day, convenience. We didn't seek the expertise of DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Went to admitted students days and made the decision that way: they had four top-10s that admitted them and they picked the best fit /best program which happened to be one of the ivies

Had to throw in a big brag, huh. News flash: nobody is impressed by that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Someone mentioned distance - yes, there was one school that had to be ruled out due to distance. While it looked beautiful, it was in a location that made it rather difficult to access in an emergency and/or for school breaks.

Unless you mean emergency personnel can’t access the campus, this is a crazy reason to rule out a school.

[Anonymous]

All schools they applied to we could afford full-pay -- if we had to. Schools didn't go on the list unless we could. And we thought all were academically sound or they wouldn't have made it on the list. So, the final decision was theirs. for any reason. That was the ideal.

We did see significant merit aid roll in. It completely reordered the list from least to most expensive, by a lot. Note: almost all schools for our two DC, they not seen before acceptance. To be truthful and to give a complete answer, we ended up with some influence since we made it very easy to visit the schools, that were now, very attractive financially.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When DS applied to schools, we told him not to apply anywhere that he can't be happy. He wants a larger school, preferably a strong state flagship, so it was pretty easy to take a tiered approach where he is extremely likely to get into 3 or four schools.
The only mistake we made was encouraging him to apply to a private without fully considering the cost- which is outrageous (and considering how much college costs these days, that's saying something). We told him if that comes through it's a "no"- we're not permitting student loan debt, we plan to retire before we work ourselves to death, and his 529 won't cover all four years. Fortunately, he's a reasonable kid with only a small drop of entitlement, so he complained and moved on.

Why would you let your DC apply and tell them “if that comes through it is a no”? What a waste of time and resources. NPC is very accurate, so no reason to be surprised by the cost of attendance.

pp here- as mentioned, it was an error on our part. We hadn't fully considered all of the costs - if he gets a lot of merit, it's back on the table-- but as it stands, no. Also, note my first sentence- he should apply only to colleges where he can be happy. Assuming he did that, and I believe he did since he's thrilled with the acceptances he's had so far, he's not going to perish from disappointment if we have to take the 6 figure a year college off the list. He's not a spoiled toddler- he's a sensible eighteen year old young man.

Also, I don't understand how parents seem to feel they have no voice if they're footing most of the bill? I see this as a collaborative decision-- quality, fit, and resources.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When DS applied to schools, we told him not to apply anywhere that he can't be happy. He wants a larger school, preferably a strong state flagship, so it was pretty easy to take a tiered approach where he is extremely likely to get into 3 or four schools.
The only mistake we made was encouraging him to apply to a private without fully considering the cost- which is outrageous (and considering how much college costs these days, that's saying something). We told him if that comes through it's a "no"- we're not permitting student loan debt, we plan to retire before we work ourselves to death, and his 529 won't cover all four years. Fortunately, he's a reasonable kid with only a small drop of entitlement, so he complained and moved on.

Why would you let your DC apply and tell them “if that comes through it is a no”? What a waste of time and resources. NPC is very accurate, so no reason to be surprised by the cost of attendance.

pp here- as mentioned, it was an error on our part. We hadn't fully considered all of the costs - if he gets a lot of merit, it's back on the table-- but as it stands, no. Also, note my first sentence- he should apply only to colleges where he can be happy. Assuming he did that, and I believe he did since he's thrilled with the acceptances he's had so far, he's not going to perish from disappointment if we have to take the 6 figure a year college off the list. He's not a spoiled toddler- he's a sensible eighteen year old young man.

Also, I don't understand how parents seem to feel they have no voice if they're footing most of the bill? I see this as a collaborative decision-- quality, fit, and resources.

This. Unless kid has direct access to hundreds of thousands of dollars, parents (or whomever is paying) technically have the final say. Not to say you wouldn’t work with kid to find good fit, programs etc … but most families have at least some parameters.

My guess is a lot of these kids have never been told no. The poster that wouldn’t “dare tell kid where to go to college”. Um, you’re the parent. You get to make gigantic financial decisions for your 17 year old if you want.

[Anonymous]

We hadn't expected this ~ before the college search began DD said, "I don't want to go visit, don't show me any school we can not afford."

There would have been things to learn, we as parents knew that, but we respected her wishes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When DS applied to schools, we told him not to apply anywhere that he can't be happy. He wants a larger school, preferably a strong state flagship, so it was pretty easy to take a tiered approach where he is extremely likely to get into 3 or four schools.
The only mistake we made was encouraging him to apply to a private without fully considering the cost- which is outrageous (and considering how much college costs these days, that's saying something). We told him if that comes through it's a "no"- we're not permitting student loan debt, we plan to retire before we work ourselves to death, and his 529 won't cover all four years. Fortunately, he's a reasonable kid with only a small drop of entitlement, so he complained and moved on.

Why would you let your DC apply and tell them “if that comes through it is a no”? What a waste of time and resources. NPC is very accurate, so no reason to be surprised by the cost of attendance.

pp here- as mentioned, it was an error on our part. We hadn't fully considered all of the costs - if he gets a lot of merit, it's back on the table-- but as it stands, no. Also, note my first sentence- he should apply only to colleges where he can be happy. Assuming he did that, and I believe he did since he's thrilled with the acceptances he's had so far, he's not going to perish from disappointment if we have to take the 6 figure a year college off the list. He's not a spoiled toddler- he's a sensible eighteen year old young man.

Also, I don't understand how parents seem to feel they have no voice if they're footing most of the bill? I see this as a collaborative decision-- quality, fit, and resources.

This. Unless kid has direct access to hundreds of thousands of dollars, parents (or whomever is paying) technically have the final say. Not to say you wouldn’t work with kid to find good fit, programs etc … but most families have at least some parameters.

My guess is a lot of these kids have never been told no. The poster that wouldn’t “dare tell kid where to go to college”. Um, you’re the parent. You get to make gigantic financial decisions for your 17 year old if you want.

Agree in part: the parent should make any financial restrictions known before applications are sent. It is irresponsible of the parent to say oh we cannot afford that or this after they get in. There are excellent NPC's and financial planning tools that allow one to figure that out in advance, then the kid will be able to choose for fit

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When DS applied to schools, we told him not to apply anywhere that he can't be happy. He wants a larger school, preferably a strong state flagship, so it was pretty easy to take a tiered approach where he is extremely likely to get into 3 or four schools.
The only mistake we made was encouraging him to apply to a private without fully considering the cost- which is outrageous (and considering how much college costs these days, that's saying something). We told him if that comes through it's a "no"- we're not permitting student loan debt, we plan to retire before we work ourselves to death, and his 529 won't cover all four years. Fortunately, he's a reasonable kid with only a small drop of entitlement, so he complained and moved on.

Why would you let your DC apply and tell them “if that comes through it is a no”? What a waste of time and resources. NPC is very accurate, so no reason to be surprised by the cost of attendance.

pp here- as mentioned, it was an error on our part. We hadn't fully considered all of the costs - if he gets a lot of merit, it's back on the table-- but as it stands, no. Also, note my first sentence- he should apply only to colleges where he can be happy. Assuming he did that, and I believe he did since he's thrilled with the acceptances he's had so far, he's not going to perish from disappointment if we have to take the 6 figure a year college off the list. He's not a spoiled toddler- he's a sensible eighteen year old young man.

Also, I don't understand how parents seem to feel they have no voice if they're footing most of the bill? I see this as a collaborative decision-- quality, fit, and resources.

This. Unless kid has direct access to hundreds of thousands of dollars, parents (or whomever is paying) technically have the final say. Not to say you wouldn’t work with kid to find good fit, programs etc … but most families have at least some parameters.

My guess is a lot of these kids have never been told no. The poster that wouldn’t “dare tell kid where to go to college”. Um, you’re the parent. You get to make gigantic financial decisions for your 17 year old if you want.

Agree in part: the parent should make any financial restrictions known before applications are sent. It is irresponsible of the parent to say oh we cannot afford that or this after they get in. There are excellent NPC's and financial planning tools that allow one to figure that out in advance, then the kid will be able to choose for fit

This is true and I agree when it comes to need based aid. BUT in the case of merit... NPC doesn’t factor this in for most schools. If you’re full pay and chasing merit, you can try to target schools where kid may get enough merit to make it affordable. But you have to apply and get accepted to know the actual merit offer. It’s all a guessing game until that point. (Except in cases of schools with published auto merit charts - but there aren’t many of those).

In fact, looking back I think there are a few schools where my kid could have gotten huge / near full tuition merit scholarships - but the NPCs showed those schools being way over budget so kid didn’t apply, and stuck to schools with published auto merit where bottom line was transparent from the outset.