wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

My daughter and I have taken away a wealth of information from "The Choice" and it definitely made the college application process easier. Like you, I also have an eight year old and can only hope that you're still providing us parents with your wisdom during these stressful, emotional times. I look forward to ten more years of my "college education."

Students and parents have themselves to blame for some of the cost increases. They often demand state-of-the-art sports facilities, dorms, and classrooms. These things are expensive to upgrade or build, and colleges find themselves competing on those amenities, rather than keeping costs down or investing in more and better faculty.

My son is white, and we are "of means", but he will NOT be taking an SAT prep course because I believe they give affluent kids an unfair advantage on the SAT. Will my son now be penalized because he only got a 1210 and he is assumed to have an inflated SAT score because of his socio-economic background? That's not fair, either, is it?

What are some of the other good "up and coming" universities?? Not there yet (have an 11 yr old and 7 yr old) but worrying for them already!!! I would never risk my retirement fund to finance an overpriced higher ed - went to SUNY Bing and NYU myself and believe that there are other options out there than those 4 dozen your guest talks about! GOODLUCK TO ALL IN TEH PROCESS AND RELAX!

I think one elephant in the room isn't being addressed: Is this all worth it? I was thankful for going to NYC public schools before colleges and testing were an obsession and came out quite well. Flash forward to now and nobody is focusing in on how sick and obsessive it is to force children to be placed on a track to college without really paying attention to the real-life needs of students.

All you're getting are kids who are forced through a high-priced mill and at the end they can barely remember what they were there for but now somehow have a huge bill.

Is it still true that the ivy league colleges keep a quota on women because there are far more highly qualified female than male students applying?

What can your guest tell us about transferring to a more high-ranking college after their freshman year. Many students can do well at their "safety" school but can they transfer later?

Be careful about those Freshman grants, I've heard a few stories of aid being substantially reduced for subsequent years on the assumption that the student will take on more debt to stay then they would have initially.

"Need Blind" applications don't exist. On every application my daughter filled out, the first question was "Are you applying for financial aid?". That was a decade or so ago, but friends tell me they are still the same.

If it is truly "need blind", then it should simply state "Please send any financial aid applications to ___. If you are accepted, we will then consider a financial award to you."

Comment at a Princeton meeting for alumni on legacy:

"It can heal the sick, but won't raise the dead."

Leonard--

You can _definitely_ negotiate. I had a friend who got offered almost nothing from Brown (crap endowment), but got offered like $15k/yr from Princeton, so he called Brown and said "this is what I got from Princeton but i want to go here." they matched it. I know a lot of people who've negotiated aid packages. You can definitely negotiate, especially if you have more offers on the table.

I went to an absurdly over-priced small liberal arts school.

Almost a decade later, I am impressed only by what a staggering waste of money it is. As was said in Good Will Hunting, I "blew $150,000 on an education I could've gotten for a buck-fifty in late fees from the public library".

Please look into what you get for your money. Many 'elite' school are hiring instructors for classes (go on Medzilla.com and search instructor and biology, for example).

One should look into who is really teaching them.

I am directing my children to look at the complete package: who teaches, intern/student research opportunities, how they fit the student community.

One of the things you and your guest might be missing is that, there really AREN'T that many choices for applicants when you really get down to picking and choosing. By the time you're a senior in high school, you have SOME idea of what you want to do. You make a list of schools that are "good" at that. Then, you look at finances. You can effectively eliminate all the out-of-state state schools that charge more for being an out-of-stater.
Then you look at preferences. You might want to argue that preferences should take a back seat in hard economic times but i would counter that you should go where you feel most comfortable and hence, most likely to hit the ground running. Your choices by this time, have dwindled to about 20. From those, you winnow out what are your best fits. It's deceptive to state how many TOTAL schools there are but those aren't ACTUALLY how many are realistically available.

Do these issues also apply to graduate schools

I feel like the colleges deserve to be having trouble with enrollment. The rates they have been charging are outrageous - and the money is NOT going to the professors. I remember reading a report (about a decade ago) stating that rates were skyrocketing, not because of the schools' budget needs, but simply because they decided to charge whatever the market would allow! Who's getting all that money? The top executives?

Is there any recourse for a graduating senior whose parents will not help financially at all under any circumstances to attend a college to which this student was accepted and even got partial scholarship.
Please advise