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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DC committed and we’ve been trying to show our excitement for him, but [b]he is unhappy and says he should have applied to different schools and didn’t like any of his choices in the end.[/b] He is a great student, strong test scores etc, and worked so hard and was so engaged in school.  He seems deflated now.  Basically he did all this work and for what.  This part is immature, but he also has a few classmates going to the same school as him and he says they are lesser students (purely from an academic standpoint) so that likewise makes him feel like he should have aimed higher because he’s now ended up in the same place as them.  On one hand, I understand —[b] if money were no object he could’ve gone full pay to a more prestigious school (whatever that even means) but we were upfront with him that without merit we could not pay $75k/year and we’re opposed to significant loan obligations.[/b]  Ultimately that led him to a top 50-60ish school (honors college) and we’ll get him out with no debt.  I do believe he’ll be happy, but am just bummed that he is bummed.

Anyway, just feeling a bit sad that he is sad.  Any other parents experiencing this with their kids?  I’m also wondering if any parents of kids who are finishing their freshman year felt like this a year ago and can provide some perspective?  Thanks.[/quote]

What different schools, would there really have been the money to go there and would it really change his job outcome? When he gets to his first job after college, unless he works for a small business started by alumni of his university, chances are that there will be people that went to all different colleges. I noticed in my first job out of college that the local offices recruited heavily from nearby schools including state flagships so if it’s the NJ office, there might have employees that graduated from Rutgers as well as from NYU and the Colorado location will have University of Colorado-Boulder grads.  So while I enjoyed going to a top school and I think it prepared me well for my career, it didn’t really make a big difference once I got in the door.

As for money, my child had similar monetary constraints and had to focus on schools that offered merit. Early decision could not be part of the application strategy and state schools that were not public ivies (hoping for honor programs to make it feel smaller) had to be part of it.  I was also upfront in saying they always had the option to consider ROTC to help pay for college, apply to outside scholarships, and/or work toward getting into a more prestigious grad school program someday.
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