Girlie AGDee's College Search Thread

[adpi*violet]

Congratulations to Hypoallergenic on making that final decision! And what a wonderful outcome for her.

[Psi U MC Vito]

Congrats! I find it kind of messed up that she lost money from Michigan when they found out she was in state.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by Psi U MC Vito

Congrats! I find it kind of messed up that she lost money from Michigan when they found out she was in state.

The amount that she had to pay went down, so the amount they gave her in grants also went down.

[Sciencewoman]

Congratulations to hypo!!! It sounds like it all worked out in the end! Whew! Have a wonderful and relaxing time on your well-deserved cruise.

My daughter received her highly anticipated rejections from Harvard and Georgetown, but she is extremely excited to have committed to her #1 choice: Washington and Lee.

We decided to drive down for a quick trip during spring break, instead of going to Accepted Students Day. The personal attention she received was wonderful. As a bonus, our W&L tour guide was the Panhellenic president. After each guide introduced herself we chose a tour group to join, and my daughter whispered to me, "Panhellenic girl!" Today, she received a call from the nearby W&L alumni chapter, asking if there is anything they can help her with, or if they could answer questions about professors, etc. My guess is that these Accepted Students days help convince those who are undecided, and also are a chance to show some love to those who have committed.

I think these schools will be a much better fit than Michigan would have been. I'm happy that a couple of wait-listed and desperate-for-Michigan kids will now have a chance to Go Blue! You know there are a lot of those kids in Michigan.

[barbino]

Congratulations Dee, hypo, and Sciencewoman & daughter ! All's well that ends well when it comes to choosing between schools to attend.
Now we'll just wait for some fun recruitment threads, hopefully...

[AGDee]

I don't think hypo is going to go the recruitment route.

Orientation begins August 26th and we'll be driving to that because it is also move in!

[txpacer]

First off, congratulations to your daughter for her options and for making a decision! Second, Have you considered asking for help so that she can visit again? Some schools are willing to help cover some of the costs of transportation. If money is the main barrier, you might want to look into it.

[KSUViolet06]

I vote save the money. She'll be back for orientation in about seven months. If you have limited resources, two trips is hard to swing.

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by txpacer

First off, congratulations to your daughter for her options and for making a decision! Second, Have you considered asking for help so that she can visit again? Some schools are willing to help cover some of the costs of transportation. If money is the main barrier, you might want to look into it.

We might have done that if we had a little more time to deal with it but we're leaving on Spring Break tomorrow and won't be back until the 15th. The accepted student event is the next weekend.

[madoug]

AGDee- congrats to your daughter, and best wishes to you when August arrives. Best friends son is at Columbia as a freshman this year. Quiet, super smart astro physics major who spends his weekends visiting the many museums nearby.

Sciencewomen- congrats to you too also. W&L is so pretty. A classmate of my son's is graduating this year in Poly Sci and headed to DC to work.

Both such exceptional opportunities.

[southbymidwest]

AGDee-Congratulations to you both for surviving the college application/acceptance matrix! Sounds like hypo will have a wonderful four years at Barnard.

Sciencewoman- Congratulations to you and your daughter! Lexington is a lovely town. Used to visit there a lot when my grandfather lived there. W&L is a fabulous school and beautiful campus.

[AGDee]

She still can't decide between Michigan and Barnard. I finally got to see both financial aid packages information myself and it's about $8000 more a year for Barnard. Discussing these things with her may drive me to an insane asylum.

[christiangirl]

Dee, I thought in your OP about the Barnard acceptance that it was only 3,000 in loans for that school? What did I miss?

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by AGDee

She still can't decide between Michigan and Barnard. I finally got to see both financial aid packages information myself and it's about $8000 more a year for Barnard. Discussing these things with her may drive me to an insane asylum.

On the bright side, this is the best discussion to be having.

You'd rather be having the "I can't decide between 2 of my top choices and 2 great packages" discussion than the "I'm so depressed because I only got into a safety while Suzie and Jenny got into blah blah blah" discussion. THAT would drive you to drink. lol.

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by christiangirl

Dee, I thought in your OP about the Barnard acceptance that it was only 3,000 in loans for that school? What did I miss?

Yeah, that's the Stafford loan she qualifies for. She wasn't looking at the $18,800 expected parental contribution, most of which will need to be in loans.

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

On the bright side, this is the best discussion to be having.

You'd rather be having the "I can't decide between 2 of my top choices and 2 great packages" discussion than the "I'm so depressed because I only got into a safety while Suzie and Jenny got into blah blah blah" discussion. THAT would drive you to drink. lol.

She's not considering them to be great packages given the amount of student loans she will have when she graduates. Things she's reading say that students should go somewhere they can afford so that they don't have more than $15K in student loans TOTAL when they graduate and she's looking at $60-90K in loans when she graduates. However, she's exaggerating some things and isn't listening to me when I tell her that I should have her first year Parent PLUS loan paid off before she graduates or that when her brother starts school, her part of the EFC will be reduced and he will have some of that burden so it won't really be $90K.

I've pointed out that even if she had applied to my alma mater, one of the cheaper state colleges in Michigan, whose costs just about equal what they all seem to think *I* can afford, she'd have $16K a year in loans because she wouldn't get any aid at all. The only way to get it cheaper is to go to community college.

It boils down to the fact that they seem to think that I can contribute 30-36% of my take home pay to her college expenses and, frankly, I can't do that. Once I finish my master's, I will be able to contribute more. I'm hoping to land a part time teaching gig at one of my alma mater's or at a community college too, because I've always wanted to teach at that level, since before she was born.

There are a lot of details that I don't want to post on the Internet, but my income appears overinflated last year for several reasons and I believe that EFC will go down over the years, or I'll get a new job and it will remain similar but I'll actually be making more money than I am now. I also expect to be able to bear about half of the re-payment burden because I do want to help pay for college. I've tried pointing out all the little expenses that I will NOT have when she goes to college too ($40 in gas per pay period for her, $30 a pay period for school lunch, marching band fees, etc.) that will, instead, go toward paying these loans off. My grocery bills, utility bills, etc. will all go down when she's gone. As she takes a half hour shower right now, I'm thinking about how much the water bill will go down...lol. My boy takes 5 minute showers, mine are about 10 minutes.. that girl is in the shower FOREVER. I'll be doing half the laundry I do now because she changes clothes so many times a week and brings me her dirty laundry from her dad's house when she's been there. The girl doesn't realize how expensive she is to support right now! When the boy is away at school too, my living expenses will be almost nil. I might only have a TV for an hour a day, can tolerate much lower temperatures in the winter than they can, eat the least amount of food, etc.

I'm trying to explain all this to her. I do plan on taking out the max in loans but also plan to pay them off as quickly as I can while she's in school so the total amount will not be as bad as she thinks. However, I will have wiggle room in my budget for unexpected emergencies also if I do it this way. And, we will negotiate how much of it I will need her to pay back once she's grounded in a career.