Reply to How do you steer your dc from not getting caught up on private/$$ schools versus good in state public options?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Dc is a junior and really not very mature or focused on specific academic programs, but suddenly he is obsessed with pricey colleges (not necessarily the very highest ranked ones, either, but ones in nice areas and/or pretty campuses and wealthy students) as ‘better’ and dismissing basically every in state affordable option as ‘shit’. Yes, this is my dc. He has caught the ‘prestige’ buzz, and I don’t know how to talk him out of it. I’ve explained that I can pay for in state in full with some extra to give him when he graduates, but he will likely need to take partial loans for a private school. He’s got an athlete hook and otherwise is a good student but not top, and I doubt he’ll get much if any merit money. And we will get no FA.

This is maybe not the best crowd to ask this question of…

Thoughts? Ideas? [/quote]

You and a lot of the people commenting here don’t seem to understand college admissions very well.

“Merit aid” at regular private schools is not usually genius aid. It’s just a discount nice kids get that’s designed to pry them away from their state flagship

If your son applies to a wide range of private schools, including several safeties as well as well as targets, he probably will get enough merit aid that he can afford at least one of the private safeties, as long as he has a job during the school year and a summer job and he takes out a guaranteed federal student loan.

Another important point is that the most selective schools tend to have better needs-based aid than less-selective schools. The odds that any given kid can get into Princeton may be low, but, for most students who do get into Princeton the net cost of going there will be low.

Finally, an obvious option for solid student athletes could be ROTC or the military academies. Trump might put those options out of bounds right now, but things could get back to normal pretty quickly. [/quote]

Op.

Your post came off as obnoxious. I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way.

I do understand college admissions and in fact have an older dc. He applied to several private schools as well as various state schools and they did offer merit aid, but it was not significant enough to bring the cost down to instate. He ended up at a non instate public school. The cost is less than private but more expensive than what an instate would be. He could have gone to a private with merit aid for roughly the same cost, but chose the public.

Dc may have slightly better merit options as an athlete (yes I know d3 doesn’t give athletic scholarships per se, but they do seem to find a way to find some ‘merit’ for strong athletes who are also decent students, from what I’ve seen). He will not be able to have a job during the school year as an athlete.

ROTC and academies are possibilities, and personally no one I know in the military would recommend making a potentially life long decision based on any current administration, but dc is not sold on either of those for obvious reasons- post school commitment etc. [/quote]

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