Anonymous wrote:What's wrong with kids getting disappointed?

If you are clear up front that money will affect the outcome.

They apply. Hopefully they study extra hard for the SATs because they need that merit aid.

School makes a choice.

Parents and child make a choice.

Sometimes life is disappointing. If the kid had a reasonable chance of getting in with aid, why was it bad to try?

When I applied to grad school, I got into some but not many. The more elite the less likely I was to get in with money. It still made sense to apply for that NSF even if I was a longshot.

It's not bad to try **if the kid has a reasonable chance of getting in with aid.** But if you are applying to a school that offers no merit aid (or very little) and you have used the net price calculator, you can make a pretty good guess whether you can afford it. If you can only afford to spend $30k per year, and you run the net price calculator at Harvard for your brilliant child and it estimates that your family contribution will be $55k, why would you/your kid waste the application fee and the time needed to write a good application? Time and money better spent elsewhere--such as a school that offers significant merit aid to students like your brilliant child.

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 $

Bolded is only true at schools that offer merit aid. Most of the 'elite' schools don't offer merit aid, or offer a very small number of awards. Those of us who have run the net price calculators and estimated FAFSA have a very good idea of whether we can afford those schools.

What's wrong with kids getting disappointed?

If you are clear up front that money will affect the outcome.

They apply. Hopefully they study extra hard for the SATs because they need that merit aid.

School makes a choice.

Parents and child make a choice.

Sometimes life is disappointing. If the kid had a reasonable chance of getting in with aid, why was it bad to try?

When I applied to grad school, I got into some but not many. The more elite the less likely I was to get in with money. It still made sense to apply for that NSF even if I was a longshot.

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 $

Yes, but in the end if the parents are footing the bill it is not up to the DC to make the final decision. Michelle Singletary is right that colleges are wrong when they tell parents to let their kids make the decision. I let my DD take ownership of much of the process of choosing, but there were clear budgetary guidelines - no net price cost exceeding in-state Virginia costs.

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 $

My's DS's two top choices right now are OOS, but they really aren't any more expensive than in-state, so we're ok with that...of course.

The first school we toured happened to be a state school, and it hit all the marks for my son. We toured many others, including private colleges, and he had many acceptances, but nothing had that immediate fit. We were very lucky that he didn't have his heart set on a "name" school and will be able to graduate debt-free as a result.

1. We don't ever use the phrase "dream school." There is no such thing. There are dreams, and then there are lots of schools at which people can work towards making those dreams come true.

2. Our DC didn't apply to any schools we could not afford. We used the FAFSA calculator and individual schools' Net Price Calculators to determine what our ballpark bottom line would be. And these tools proved quite accurate.

Anonymous wrote:We knew we would qualify for little to no financial aid, and we also knew we could afford about $30k per year out of pocket, so we didn't allow DC to consider any schools that don't offer merit aid to students with stats like DC's. That pretty much took every elite school off the table (since most don't offer merit aid and the ones that do offer it only to the tippy-top applicants, which DC was not). It was made perfectly clear to DC that the most important factor in his final decision would be cost of attendance. If the cost were much more than $30k, DC wouldn't be going there, period.

As with any investment, choice of college should be made with the head, not the heart.

Forgot to add: regarding Michelle Singletary's advice--I don't have a problem with students borrowing a modest amount of money to get an undergrad degree. I took out student loans to go to college and had no problem paying those loans off, even though my first job out of college was for pretty low pay. So I have no regrets about the money I borrowed--it wasn't a burden on me in any way. Adjusted for inflation, the amount I borrowed was $20k, and I've used that as a benchmark for how much debt my kids should take on. My DC1 will likely borrow $5k per year to get an undergrad degree; DH and I pay the rest.

OTOH, DH and I are adamant about not borrowing money ourselves to send the kids to school. We are using savings plus what we can swing in monthly payments. If that wasn't enough, then we all would have had to adjust our expectations. DC1 would have accepted the scholarship he was offered at a non-premiere state university, which would have meant spending about half what we are spending now.

We knew we would qualify for little to no financial aid, and we also knew we could afford about $30k per year out of pocket, so we didn't allow DC to consider any schools that don't offer merit aid to students with stats like DC's. That pretty much took every elite school off the table (since most don't offer merit aid and the ones that do offer it only to the tippy-top applicants, which DC was not). It was made perfectly clear to DC that the most important factor in his final decision would be cost of attendance. If the cost were much more than $30k, DC wouldn't be going there, period.

As with any investment, choice of college should be made with the head, not the heart.

I told my DD I would pay up to the full cost of tuition, room & board at any of our in-state schools. We are in Virginia. If she went OOS or private, I said she would need to make up the difference.

She was accepted OOS with a scholarship that makes the cost much less than attending in Virginia.

As Michelle writes in her column, no school is worth going into significant debt.

If I could not afford my child's dream school I would have certainly told her before she applied. I would never have alllowed it to get to the point of her getting accepted and then break her heart.

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.

Congratulations.

Though, I would have prepared her well in advance for what her realistic options were. That way, she wouldn't get her hopes up to begin with instead of rolling the dice and letting her go through the motions only to be relieved after she has her heart broken.

Because I would have had to break her heart and tell her we cannot afford it. Instead, she is accepted to a solid state school with a generous financial aid package that is $30K less than the dream school. We can comfortably afford this.

If you could not afford your child's dream school, how did you break it to them?

What do you think of Michelle Singletary's advice:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-bottom-line-when-picking-a-university-no-debt-for-our-daughter-or-for-us/2014/04/17/d3310c5c-c4ac-11e3-bcec-b71ee10e9bc3_story.html?utm_term=.a6bdefa03c67