Anonymous wrote:Our daughters got into what this forum considers prestigious colleges and our son turned down Penn for a full merit scholarship. All three are doing really well. My niece is currently senior and her middle class parents, my brother and sister in law, did not ask any of us for advice. When discussing plans for this holiday week last night on FaceTime, my niece's application process came up and they are confidentially clueless and made so many mistakes. I bit my tongue. I or the kids would have been happy to help but they never asked and I didn't want to force myself on them.

To those of you with a track record of college admission success, do your less sophisticated family come to you for help or do you give advice unprompted? I regret not being pushier because the sums of money involved and the opportunities and options she missed out on are life-altering for both my niece and her parents.

This is why I hope this post is fake. Carry on.

I don't think I would have asked you either.

Anonymous wrote:I feel like you’ve posted this before?

OP has definitely posted before. She is super socially awkward.

They probably hate your holier than thou attitude.

Anonymous wrote:So, I have a different take on this thread. I'm helping a family where the HHI is $40K. Their student qualifies for a full ride (minus $2-5K) at every school they are considering. The family had NO IDEA this was true until I showed them how the NPC worked, walked them through the CSS, etc. Now the student can apply to many more schools. I am doing this as volunteer work, but it might apply to OP's family, too. Sometimes people don't know what they don't know and it can disadvantage their kids needlessly.

Qualifying for a full ride and getting one are two totally different things.

Anonymous wrote:For everyone offended by OPs attitude, you may not get it. A lot of people think that applying to any college is the same; it isn’t. A successful application to George Mason can be ripped out in moments, but not one for a highly selective school. Successfully applying to a highly selective school takes advanced planning and careful application work. Most average families have no clue about this. That’s why they keep going to the same schools and repeating the same patterns of their parents. Half the job of doing better in life is to expand your worldview to know what is possible and how to achieve it.

Agree. Some of you snobs apparently aren’t aware that not every family has been going to college for generations. Choosing among the enormous array of college options & navigating the admissions & financial aid applications is completely new to many people, & unlike anything they have ever done. Not only do they not know the answers, they often don’t know what questions to ask. I would let it be known that you would be glad to help out, but don’t push it past that.

Anonymous wrote:For everyone offended by OPs attitude, you may not get it. A lot of people think that applying to any college is the same; it isn’t. A successful application to George Mason can be ripped out in moments, but not one for a highly selective school. Successfully applying to a highly selective school takes advanced planning and careful application work. Most average families have no clue about this. That’s why they keep going to the same schools and repeating the same patterns of their parents. Half the job of doing better in life is to expand your worldview to know what is possible and how to achieve it.

Eh. Our family does quite well going to state schools. We aren’t driven by name brands or someone else’s definition of success. Perhaps if a family is trying to break into some perceived higher social circle, this may matter. For many of us, our worldview doesn’t include impressing others and making more money than we need.

The OP’s post is insufferable to me.

Maybe they’re losing out on valuable info. Or maybe they have different priorities.

We send our kid to GW, that costs 85K a year with 20K merit knocked off per year. It’s still 65K. It’s worth it for us because they have a great Disability Services office and he can grow at his own pace in comfort, with some independence. He turned down the more prestigious and/or less expensive places that accepted him.

We have different priorities for this kid, that’s all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, I have a different take on this thread. I'm helping a family where the HHI is $40K. Their student qualifies for a full ride (minus $2-5K) at every school they are considering. The family had NO IDEA this was true until I showed them how the NPC worked, walked them through the CSS, etc. Now the student can apply to many more schools. I am doing this as volunteer work, but it might apply to OP's family, too. Sometimes people don't know what they don't know and it can disadvantage their kids needlessly.

So this I could have used as a child. I didn't know I could have gotten full rides at schools or how to manage the FA game. I likely could have gotten into a fancier school than I did in an affordable way if I didn't just throw spaghetti at the wall. I had a perfect SAT and still didn't get good advice. However, I still wouldn't appreciate the condescension or pity I heard in OP's offer of support.

This may be true. But, would you have fit in and graduated? People who have been to college know how college works and support their kids with knowledge as well as money. Class registration, add/drop, housing, withdrawals from classes or college for a semester for health reasons, direct admit majors, applying to majors after freshman year. Etc. Etc. Could you have navigated it with no support? Even with financial aid, could your family help at all? How much would you have had to work? How much debt? How would you have faired socially in a place where everyone had money to go out but you?

Most schools have only recently begun to address the issues of high first gen dropout rates. Most still don’t do it well. 20 years ago? You were on your own at many colleges.

This article about what happened to first gen kids at Indiana sums it up. Rich kids know how to self advocate and solve problems. First Gen thinks they must take their lumps and leave. Really fascinating (gift link)

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/education/edlife/elizabeth-a-armstrong-on-her-book-paying-for-the-party.html?unlocked_article_code=1.AE0.WxMq.gL0ZRcyQkuvh&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Anonymous wrote:My dh and I offered to give advice and no one asked us anything. Both of us were the first college graduates in our families and we are treated as if we are the weirdest people they've ever met, so we certainly didn't push advice on to anyone. They can do it the hard way like we did, if they want.

Yep

Anonymous wrote:So, I have a different take on this thread. I'm helping a family where the HHI is $40K. Their student qualifies for a full ride (minus $2-5K) at every school they are considering. The family had NO IDEA this was true until I showed them how the NPC worked, walked them through the CSS, etc. Now the student can apply to many more schools. I am doing this as volunteer work, but it might apply to OP's family, too. Sometimes people don't know what they don't know and it can disadvantage their kids needlessly.

So this I could have used as a child. I didn't know I could have gotten full rides at schools or how to manage the FA game. I likely could have gotten into a fancier school than I did in an affordable way if I didn't just throw spaghetti at the wall. I had a perfect SAT and still didn't get good advice. However, I still wouldn't appreciate the condescension or pity I heard in OP's offer of support.

My dh and I offered to give advice and no one asked us anything. Both of us were the first college graduates in our families and we are treated as if we are the weirdest people they've ever met, so we certainly didn't push advice on to anyone. They can do it the hard way like we did, if they want.

Anonymous wrote:For everyone offended by OPs attitude, you may not get it. A lot of people think that applying to any college is the same; it isn’t. A successful application to George Mason can be ripped out in moments, but not one for a highly selective school. Successfully applying to a highly selective school takes advanced planning and careful application work. Most average families have no clue about this. That’s why they keep going to the same schools and repeating the same patterns of their parents. Half the job of doing better in life is to expand your worldview to know what is possible and how to achieve it.

i


Not everyone covets a selective school. Amazing, right?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So tell us what mistakes they made.

Did not apply for any outside scholarships. 4.0 GPA but submitted good not great test scores when she should not have. Did not know about app fee waivers. Did not know she is technically an under-represented minority. Did not apply to any T25s when they have the most financial aid and their family is MC. Essays were dime a dozen cliche. She is deeply involved in a really, really hook-ish activity but she did not mention it at all because she was embarrassed. They think the automatic tuition discounts regional non-selective universities are offering them are amazing scholarships only offered to her. They are letting the mailers they random receive drive their interest.

None of these are life altering in the way that a PP’s discovery of a full ride minus 2-5k is.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So tell us what mistakes they made.

Did not apply for any outside scholarships. 4.0 GPA but submitted good not great test scores when she should not have. Did not know about app fee waivers. Did not know she is technically a under-represented minority. Did not apply to any T25s when they have the most financial aid and their family is MC. Essays were dime a dozen cliche. She is deeply involved in a really, really hook-ish activity but she did not mention it at all because she was embarrassed. They think the automatic tuition discounts regional non-selective universities are offering them are amazing scholarships only offered to her. They are letting the mailers they random receive drive their interest.

Going based on what you wrote, you have successfully navigated the college process with your kids. I agree that you would have had good advice for your niece. They probably don't know what they don't know.Maybe they didn't want those outcomes? Regional U was good enough or they thought prestigious colleges weren't in the cards for her?

Reading your OP reminded me of this article that was in the Post a couple days ago - https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/interactive/2023/affirmative-action-race-teen-college-applications/. I wanted to scream at some of the advice Demar was getting. If he had only gotten better advice, he wouldn't feel like the Ivys are out of his league.