college admissions process so far, financial aid disappointment

[Anonymous]

DS has similar stats to your DS and is deciding between Towson (honors) and UMBC. There are strong, motivated students at all schools, especially now that UMD has gotten so hard to get into.

I'd suggest having your DS go to the admitted students days and see what he thinks of Towson and Salisbury. Anecdotally, the students I know who have gone to both of them have had overwhelmingly positive experiences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your DC could take a gap year to regroup and, as a PP said, save a good amount of money. There are a few schools that are test optional that might give her excellent merit. The first to mind if Oberlin, which has merit awards between 35-45K for high stats kids. You could do a little hw to see if test-optional kids ever get those. Excellent for pre-med. Case Western, too.

Nah she should just go to Towson and get on with her life.

+1 - as a bonus, students actually seem happy at Towson.

[Anonymous]

If medical school is the goal, you’d better check admission stats from those safeties…doesn’t matter that you have the $ for med school if she can’t get in.

Also—she doesn’t have to go straight through to medical school. She could graduate college and move back home for two years and work in a medical related field, saving everything to pay for medical school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I think we should keep this post focused on solutions and positive stories. Those doubting my child's stats are taking away from posts that can be productive for me and others. My child isn't special or better than your child, I know that. My child worked hard, did well, and wants to see their results realized.

UMBC. Honors College or one of the scholars programs. Lots of grinders. Many who go on to med school, masters, and Ph.D. programs.

[Anonymous]

Donut hole family Op.
There's been tons of posts about it.

Fwiw, DD turned down Clemson, FSU, and UNC b/c we couldn't afford tuition. We thought we'd get FA, but nope. We are not able to front $70k and def not for 4 straight years. The money we channeled into the 529 over the last 15 yrs isn't enough.

Frustrating, that dd's friend got into OOS with FA offers. The mom is divorced, but well-off (based on house, cars, vacays, job title), but us (4 kids, 2 working parents, frugal vacay/cars/lifestyle/sacrifices) did not.

There's a lot of us this boat op. Wish there was a way

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is the child's exact substantial college savings and what are the extenuating circumstances related to how the savings came to be? Is the savings in a 529 and if not, what kind of plan is it in?

OP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the child's exact substantial college savings and what are the extenuating circumstances related to how the savings came to be? Is the savings in a 529 and if not, what kind of plan is it in?

OP?

Not a specific plan. Family. But I don't make the income relative to the amount there is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the child's exact substantial college savings and what are the extenuating circumstances related to how the savings came to be? Is the savings in a 529 and if not, what kind of plan is it in?

OP?

Not a specific plan. Family. But I don't make the income relative to the amount there is.

I don't understand. So this is a family gift that will pay for post high school education, not in a 529 and not with a limit, but you also don't think it is limitless?

[Anonymous]

Apologies if this was already mentioned, but if your child strongly prefers UMD and is willing to wait, they could go the transfer route from a community college. https://admissions.umd.edu/apply/maryland-transfer-advantage-program

This would save $. Wishing her the best

[Anonymous]

Consider joining the military for medical school.

[Anonymous]

Is your teen working? Are they working summer jobs? A motivated teen can pull in $15,000 over the summer working 2-3 jobs.

[Anonymous]

I am sympathetic to the people who are hard on the OP. She has been cagey re how much college savings she actually has, and the child's SATs. Both play major roles in college admissions and getting merit and aid.

Colleges do not care if your kid plans on going to med school and wants to put aside current savings for it. They do not accept you ring fencing 100k or 200k of your college savings for grad school. If you have that money, they expect you to use it for undergrad. It doesn't matter if salary is a lot lower than the savings may imply, if the money is there they expect you to use it. And you don't even know if kid will go to medical school anyway. The percent of 18 years old dreaming of med school who change their minds is going to be, what, 90%+ of intended premeds. And it's a field that is going to change dramatically due to AI, anyway.

Second, your kid most likely didn't have amazing SATs. If you wanted great merits, you needed excellent SATs. I had a recent conversation with an experienced parent who put three kids through college with merit aid and she said one of the smartest things to do is to invest in SAT prep classes and game the SATs to get the highest possible scores because merit offers are so heavily based on your SATs along with grades.

OP's kid didn't get the college admissions outcome she was hoping for because she has too much money and her SATs weren't high enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This has been hard. My child has gotten into their safeties (Towson/Salisbury) which they are NOT enthusiastic about. They have also gotten into some of their reach/target schools. Unfortunately, those schools so far are around 60k per year with merit (child has 4.8 gpa). Financial aid is minimal. I don't have an amazing salary, but child has substantial college savings because of extenuating circumstances (not enough to cover 240k though). They go to a decent high school in Montgomery County, and it is sad for them to see their classmates commit to schools they cannot commit to. How do you help your child handle going to a safety so they can graduate college without debt? My child is so disappointed to have to go to school with peers who didn't grind like them and sacrifice time. But they/we just aren't willing or able to pay 50k PLUS per year. They want to go to med school after college as well, so the price of undergrad really matters. Please tell me your stories of going to a safety bc of money and kid thriving.

College is just a mere pitt stop on the long road to life. Your DC's hard work will serve them well in college - any college - and they will thrive as they did in HS and move onto bigger and better things. It's not where you go, it's how you go. And going without going into debt is definitely worth it for longer-term success.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the child's exact substantial college savings and what are the extenuating circumstances related to how the savings came to be? Is the savings in a 529 and if not, what kind of plan is it in?

OP?

Not a specific plan. Family. But I don't make the income relative to the amount there is.

I don't understand. So this is a family gift that will pay for post high school education, not in a 529 and not with a limit, but you also don't think it is limitless?

Sounds like there is more than enough with the family gift but OP doesn't want to say the amount because it is more than most have AND it will cover all the way through medical school so long as undergrad is on the cheaper side. It isn't even in a 529 which tells me it is not finite. So who cares what your income is? Who cares how your income relates to the amount of money your family is setting aside. It seems your kid can afford any undergrad he wants but can't afford without debt all post high school education. My guess is that the money wasn't put into a 529 to likely try and game the financial aid system so undergrad would be supplemented by the school reducing the costs (i.e. no need to disclose the 529 balance but the money is nevertheless there/available).

Sounds like you then had kid apply to schools and while he "can" afford to go, it isn't advisable if you want education to be fully family funded. So your idea (to try and get financial aid for free) didn't work even though it was worth a shot to you. I don't think people are going to be sympathetic...your kid is fine regardless what is selected.

[Anonymous]

My daughter had to turn down her first choice because of cost. We had warned her at the time that it wasn’t in the budget, but she said she just wanted to see if she could get in. HA HA.

She was salty about it for a little while, until she found her people at the school she ultimately attended.

And then after graduation, when she was living in NYC, she told me how much harder it would have been to live there in an entry-level salary with student loan debt and how grateful she was that we didn’t let her take any loans.