Reply to I'm going to have a nervous breakdown

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "I'm going to have a nervous breakdown"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]How do people do all this? I have been researching so many colleges in between work tasks and it is too complicated and overwhelming. I feel like I am not equipped for this, that a wrong decision could have devastating consequences, financially, emotionally...[/quote]

Your kid should be doing this, not you.[/quote]

I'm paying for it so I need to be involved. If I could afford full pay 90k/year I wouldn't be stressing out.[/quote]

So stop looking at T25 schools (you won't get merit there).  Search in the 30-100 range (if you have a good student, go lower if needed). Basically find a good list of schools that give merit, then find ones where your kid is at/above 75-90% for scores/gpa and the acceptance rates are 25%+.  Find some that are also 50-60%+.  that is where you will find merit.  It exists for all kids.  
My 1200/3.5UW/No AP kid got 35% of tuition at 3 schools in the $65K range (6 years ago).  they were around 50% at each school.  Got 80% of tuition at a 65K school ranked near120---my kid was 85%+ for that school.   We were not even searching for merit, but it comes easily at most private schools ranked 50+, if your kid is 50%+

So that kid had 3 schools costing around $40K/year and 1 school costing ~$25K/year.  Oh and 2 in-state schools (not the flagship, but good schools) that with merit was only $18-20K/year.  
That kid is a good student, but not "great student"---they were not competitive for T50 schools.

My great student (3.98UW, 10 AP, 1520, excellent ECs) got 50% of total costs at a T50 school, bringing cost to $43K.  And 50% of tuition at T65 school, so freshman costs would have been ~$48K.  We did all of this without even searching for merit---they are attending a T40 school for full pay at $90K+.   But had we been searching, they could have found many places for under $20-25K, and gone in-state for about $15K.

[/quote]

I am having trouble identifying these schools. It is VERY overwhelming to me. I'm open to any level school at all, I really don't care. I just do not want to pay 90k, and I also want him to really like where he goes. Right now we do not have a good list for this.[/quote]
DP. OK, OP, many are here to help. Please tell us:
Grades and scores?
Annual budget?
Possible majors?
Geographic preferences? I see California. Anything else?
Size preference, small/medium/large?

What schools does he love, what are his top choices? That might also help point to alternatives. There is no perfect college, but surely there will be good alternatives of some kind.[/quote]

3.9 something unweighted, 1390 SAT, undecided, prefers CA, would like to swim (club), outgoing kid who loves sports of all kinds, also likes Tulane and UMiami which are a no due to cost, UNC but he would not get in. I would like to stay under 50k
(Have another child as well in 10th)
[/quote]
Most CA schools are not worth the OOS costs, and with those stats, they aren't getting into the Cal and UCLA level.  UC schools are almost $80K oos.  Think about the high housing costs.

-former Californian who went to a public CA college[/quote]

He needs to ditch the CA or bust idea.

What is desired major?  You can try some of the privates, but ditch the CM schools---your kid is not at level to compete there.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics