Relieved My Child Did Not Get Into Her Dream School

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes you don't know if you can afford it, until they apply.

Friends son applied EA to school that gave significant merit to a Mminimum ACT or SAT score. After acceptance, they allowed him to retake but still did not make the cut (friend hinted that he was sooo close). They could afford to pay the difference, but let him decide. He knew it wasn't the best financial choice compared to his close 2nd option, so decided on to attend #2 instead and save his parents $

Nonsense. You can run numbers via the FAFSA and NPCs for each school. When acceptances and aid come in, there should be no surprises. If there are, you have not done your homework.

Merit can still be a surprise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Admissions can be very tricky. Accepted where you thought no chance, denied when you thought safety. You can't plan everything in advance.

Why is that "tricky"?

OK, so not "tricky" but even if the schools are not random in their choices, the impact of compressed test score distributions, the need to create a well-rounded class, and a concern for yield rates means that as an applicant, there is a serious random component (i.e. you don't know the circumstances of the other applicants and can't predict that!).

When things are partially random and you need at least one good outcome, you have to apply to more and know you can't plan everything.

Why is that hard to grasp?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes you don't know if you can afford it, until they apply.

Friends son applied EA to school that gave significant merit to a Mminimum ACT or SAT score. After acceptance, they allowed him to retake but still did not make the cut (friend hinted that he was sooo close). They could afford to pay the difference, but let him decide. He knew it wasn't the best financial choice compared to his close 2nd option, so decided on to attend #2 instead and save his parents $

Nonsense. You can run numbers via the FAFSA and NPCs for each school. When acceptances and aid come in, there should be no surprises. If there are, you have not done your homework.

Merit can still be a surprise.

Not really. The net price calculator was very accurate for all 10 of the schools that my son applied to. The merit aid was within a couple of thousand dollars of what we expected based on the NPC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We made the mistake of allowing our daughter to apply to her dream school in the first place. Really, if you can't afford it, don't visit it and don't let your kid apply. Then there is no heartbreaking to do. We straight up told our daughter she could only go if she received a substantial merit aid award. That happened at a few other less desirable schools. She was very disappointed not to go to her dream school but understood that we did not want her or us in debt. She ended up at the perfect school for her and is happy as can be and doing amazing academically. It all worked out. We will not let our other children apply to schools we can't afford going forward. There is no point to it if you aren't going to let your kids go there anyway.

What if parents cannot afford any of the colleges? The kid should not apply?

There is a college out there for every family, based on their specific finances. It may be that your child needs to go down a tier or three to get the kind of aid necessary to send him or her to college. But it can be done.

If the family has a lot of need, then it's important to limit the search to schools that meet 100% of the families demonstrated need. For donut hole families, the EFC may simply be too high. In that case, families need to limit their search to in-state public schools, or private schools that give a lot of merit aid.

The mistake that a lot of people make is thinking, "if he can get in, we can afford it," which was certainly true in 1981. But it is definitely not true now. You need to do your homework. It's that simple.

[Anonymous]

Somebody's got a real attitude about homework here. Maybe it's not random for them. When scores are low and you apply to bottom level state schools. Yeah pretty easy to predict.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Somebody's got a real attitude about homework here. Maybe it's not random for them. When scores are low and you apply to bottom level state schools. Yeah pretty easy to predict.

It is not random for anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes you don't know if you can afford it, until they apply.

Friends son applied EA to school that gave significant merit to a Mminimum ACT or SAT score. After acceptance, they allowed him to retake but still did not make the cut (friend hinted that he was sooo close). They could afford to pay the difference, but let him decide. He knew it wasn't the best financial choice compared to his close 2nd option, so decided on to attend #2 instead and save his parents $

Nonsense. You can run numbers via the FAFSA and NPCs for each school. When acceptances and aid come in, there should be no surprises. If there are, you have not done your homework.

Merit can still be a surprise.

Not really. The net price calculator was very accurate for all 10 of the schools that my son applied to. The merit aid was within a couple of thousand dollars of what we expected based on the NPC.

We found the actual merit awards to be wildly different from the NPCs where there is a picture of a notebook with a calculator on top.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We found the actual merit awards to be wildly different from the NPCs where there is a picture of a notebook with a calculator on top.

We did, too! We basically tossed out results from any of the net price calculators with this image on the website:

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes you don't know if you can afford it, until they apply.

Friends son applied EA to school that gave significant merit to a Mminimum ACT or SAT score. After acceptance, they allowed him to retake but still did not make the cut (friend hinted that he was sooo close). They could afford to pay the difference, but let him decide. He knew it wasn't the best financial choice compared to his close 2nd option, so decided on to attend #2 instead and save his parents $

Nonsense. You can run numbers via the FAFSA and NPCs for each school. When acceptances and aid come in, there should be no surprises. If there are, you have not done your homework.

Merit can still be a surprise.

Not really. The net price calculator was very accurate for all 10 of the schools that my son applied to. The merit aid was within a couple of thousand dollars of what we expected based on the NPC.

Disagree completely re merit awards. I have had 3 apply to colleges in the past 4 years and while merit from most of those colleges was a possibility, there was no predictability. Example: DC #2 with better stats, excellent ECs and recs was waitlisted at Grinnell, while DC#3 admitted with significant merit $.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We found the actual merit awards to be wildly different from the NPCs where there is a picture of a notebook with a calculator on top.

We did, too! We basically tossed out results from any of the net price calculators with this image on the website:

I was told specifically not to use the calculator with that picture. I think it means that the college did not customize their calculator and is just relying on the one developed by the Dept of Ed.

[Anonymous]

You sound strange to me OP. I wouldn't post that kind of negative news. Keep it to yourself...your poor child

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes you don't know if you can afford it, until they apply.

Friends son applied EA to school that gave significant merit to a Mminimum ACT or SAT score. After acceptance, they allowed him to retake but still did not make the cut (friend hinted that he was sooo close). They could afford to pay the difference, but let him decide. He knew it wasn't the best financial choice compared to his close 2nd option, so decided on to attend #2 instead and save his parents $

Nonsense. You can run numbers via the FAFSA and NPCs for each school. When acceptances and aid come in, there should be no surprises. If there are, you have not done your homework.

Merit can still be a surprise.

Not really. The net price calculator was very accurate for all 10 of the schools that my son applied to. The merit aid was within a couple of thousand dollars of what we expected based on the NPC.

Disagree completely re merit awards. I have had 3 apply to colleges in the past 4 years and while merit from most of those colleges was a possibility, there was no predictability. Example: DC #2 with better stats, excellent ECs and recs was waitlisted at Grinnell, while DC#3 admitted with significant merit $.

Let me guess: One was a girl (waitlisted) and the other a boy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes you don't know if you can afford it, until they apply.

Friends son applied EA to school that gave significant merit to a Mminimum ACT or SAT score. After acceptance, they allowed him to retake but still did not make the cut (friend hinted that he was sooo close). They could afford to pay the difference, but let him decide. He knew it wasn't the best financial choice compared to his close 2nd option, so decided on to attend #2 instead and save his parents $

Nonsense. You can run numbers via the FAFSA and NPCs for each school. When acceptances and aid come in, there should be no surprises. If there are, you have not done your homework.

Merit can still be a surprise.

Not really. The net price calculator was very accurate for all 10 of the schools that my son applied to. The merit aid was within a couple of thousand dollars of what we expected based on the NPC.

Disagree completely re merit awards. I have had 3 apply to colleges in the past 4 years and while merit from most of those colleges was a possibility, there was no predictability. Example: DC #2 with better stats, excellent ECs and recs was waitlisted at Grinnell, while DC#3 admitted with significant merit $.

Let me guess: One was a girl (waitlisted) and the other a boy?

Nope, 2 middle class white boys.