Thanks for the support. We do usually pick up barbecue, but I kinda feel like I have overdone that. Fortunately, dh has said he will be able to come home from work early to grill and/or he can take off half a day if needed. That will help. I have told ds he does not have to be at home the entire time they are here. And, y'all are right; I don't have to be either. However, I do want to be here when ds is here. I have e-mailed mil telling her that I have no idea what plans ds may have over Spring Break and that she should text him to figure out what days will work the best and let me know. It is what it is. Sorry I have been whiny.

Oh, no, they will not stay the whole week. They will probably stay two nights. And, we will probably go out one of those, though my fil really dislikes going out to eat (and has no qualms about making that known). But, he will do it 'cause he can't even make himself a sandwich. :/ We have asked them to come in the middle of the week as I don't want to encroach on any time ds might have with local friends (our state flagship has its Spring Break the same week). Ds really likes to sleep in, and fil gets up at the crack of dawn, so there is a lot of sitting around as they wait for him to wake up. Dh will be at work during the day, so the buffer will be gone. Not only does fil not like going out to eat, he doesn't really like going anywhere. He isn't incapacited in any way - just a homebody. But, I may suggest we all go up to the museum as an outing. He can always choose not to go, but he probably won't, and then we will complain about how crowded it is, etc. Honestly, as I am sure you can tell, it really is my dealings with him that are challenging. Ds isn't very close to him, moreso his grandmother. As always, I will rely on my go-tos of Jack and Jesus. I have also implemented a new policy whereby I select an item of clothing that I want but do not need ahead of time and "reward" myself with it at the end of the visit if I manage to behave myself and not be snarky to him. I am quite certain there are better coping mechanisms, but hey - it works. Honestly, I think I would have an easier time of sharing with a GF or with his going on a Spring Break trip with friends. It's just the anticipation of repeated annoying patterns of behavior with fil. But, they won't be around forever, and I certainly can't deny them time with ds. I just wish there was some recognition of, "Hey, you know what? Ds will be home for a longer break in three more months. Your Spring Break time is limited, so we'll let you have your nuclear family time together." But, it is truly wishful thinking. And I feel like I am always accommodating their needs. Sorry - ranting again! Think I will go with shoes for my "reward" for this visit. I did a dress at Thanksgiving and a jacket for Christmas.

Ds has decided to come home for Spring Break. Yay! With a Friday final he won't get in until later on Saturday. We have told the in-laws that we won't travel to their house (about three hours away), but we did tell them they could come up here while ds was home. So, they are. I know this makes me come off as a selfish %itch, and perhaps I am. But, ds saw them at Thanksgiving (they came up here) and again at Christmas (we went down there). I only had one grandmother growing up. I usually saw her once a year, though she did not live as close as my in-laws do. Thus, my experience was different. Now, I have to get ready for their visit, cook for them, etc. My mil is a delight, but my fil is a real PITA. I certainly don't want to keep ds from seeing his grandparents, but I really get tired of always having to share. Mixed up in all of this is the fact that both of my parents died before dh and I married. I am an only child. Every holiday is about dh's family. Ds could drive down there to visit without us, but then I would have to move beyond sharing. I have much less trouble sharing him with his friends who are in town than with my in-laws. What is wrong with me? Sigh. I really have no choice. I guess maybe I just wanted to know that I wasn't the only one who finds it annoying to have to share your dc during college breaks. Thanks for letting me have a pity party.

We did photo cards through Sam's Club. They have several configurations, or I believe you can make your own. We used one that had three photos.

Just updating a bit on this topic if anyone is interested. Stanford released to requesting students through student computer accounts all of their own application materials (stuff that students themselves had submitted). Review of *other* documents requires an appointment to be set up to personally go in to view them. The FERPA language indicates that students have a right to "inspect and review" them. Students are currently setting up appointments to go in to see them. No hard copies given and no photographs allowed at these appointments. No idea if ds will follow through or not. Totally up to him. I think for many it will depend on what early viewers see and what spreads through the rumor mill. Additionally, this column was also shared with all students who made FERPA requests: http://files.parsintl.com/eprints/84787.pdf

I really wish there was a way to have this thread permanently pinned on this board. It is so heart-wrenching reading posts both here and on College Confidential (which, by the way, also has some very useful information on its Financial Aid boards) each year where the process is not fully understood and students are left with few (sometimes no) financially feasible options. I think the biggest point of confusion is the concept of "meets 100% of need," and understanding that "need" is determined by the schools individually and that "need" oftentimes includes substantial loans. And many, many schools do not meet 100% of need in the first place!!

I agree with this. Our state requires a semester of Fine Arts and a semester of health. Some states require a basic computer class (usage of). However, I will say that ds applied to an OOS public that had a high school requirement (the computer class) that our state did NOT have as a high school requirement. Because our state public schools don't require it, that OOS public waived that requirement. But that might not be true for all OOS schools. Hope I am making sense! I would definitely have whatever public school high school graduation requirements there are for your OWN state's public universities - if he is applying to any of those.

Congrats! I know theirs is kind of a crazy system. I have two non-homeschooling friends who have been suffering through as their children were not auto-admits. I have not heard results from them which is making me nervous, though I could not tell if all decisions were released yesterday or not. Congrats to your DD! What is her major?

OMGoodness! TRULY did lol.

So happy to hear this!!!! My ds is going on a giant, group blind date tonight! I believe all the freshmen dorms have the same event sometime during the quarter - it's called, "Screw Your Roommate." Ack!!! I know! It sounds awful! This is not his dorm's event, but another freshmen dorm's event. He knows the name of the young lady with whom he has been set up, but she does not know him. It's her dorm event, and a girl with whom ds had a class last quarter selected him to go with her. The whole group goes ice skating. I truly wish it didn't have such a dreadful name!!! My mil was aghast when I told her the name. Anyway, of course, I got the name of the girl from the mom of the girl who lives in the same dorm (they are in a town 30 minutes away from us, and we have all become friends). So, of course, I have crept on her FB page and have seen how cute she is (ds confessed that he, too, has crept on her FB page! He did not know her). I hope they have fun, but how awkward if they fall madly in love, get married, and have to explain to their children that they met at an event called, "Screw Your Roommate." :D

Yeah, I think it was my fault that the font on the list from last year go so TINY! Eek! Techno-goob here!

Well, my ds only applied to schools that appealed to him, at least on some level, so it is somewhat difficult for me to relate to this scenario. However, I will tell you what we did, in general with regard to cost. We had a designated amount of money that we were willing to pay for ds's education. Together we crafted the list of schools to which he applied. He was free to choose any school where he was accepted. He had two options that would have been totally free (lower-ranked SEC schools), but he was also accepted to some top-ranked schools where we were going to be full-pay. The designated amount of money for education would cover any of his choices, BUT if he chose one of the top-ranked schools, he knew he would be on his own for graduate school. He also knew that if he didn't spend all the money in the designated fund that he would receive that money for graduate school or as a down payment on a house, for a car, or for summer travel abroad or any number of reasonable things. Picking full-pay meant no summer trips on our dime. Ds chose the top-ranked, full-pay school. I have to confess it was his "dream school." He IS living the dream. He loves it and is thriving. I wish the pile of money had been larger so we *could* help with grad school. We'll see how it plays out in a few years. He was accepted to a summer study-abroad seminar sponsored by his school. It's highly subsidized by his university, so the course itself is only $600. We did agree to pay for that (he earns some credit) as well as his books, but he is going to have to cover his cost of air-fare, eating, and incidentals. He has an on-campus job and is squirreling that money away for that very purpose. Sorry, I am getting OT. We did not try to persuade him one way or the other. We talked with him about the decision when HE wanted to talk about it. It was HIS decision.

^this makes me very happy! Yay! :party:

I don't know where you are located in NC, but I think it's about six hours (farther than you would like, but still not *that* far) from Lexington, KY to Charlotte, NC. Scroll down on this page to see the NMF scholarships. Tuition, room & board, + a stipend, iPad, etc. Is she a basketball fan? ;) http://www.uky.edu/financialaid/scholarship-incoming-freshmen

I feel sorry for their parents! I want my ds to be able to function well as an adult so he can help me out when I am old(er).

I don't always feel like I am being treated like an adult when I receive texts, e-mails, and phone calls reminding me of appointments! I get that professionals' time is valuable, but just set up a policy that if the patient/customer doesn't show s/he charged a fee! That would be a reasonable consequence. I don't *NEED* reminders. I am a grown woman!

Our situation was different than yours, but I will explain *our* purpose in seeking out large, stats-based, merit scholarships. Ds was pretty much "come big or stay at home," in his approach to where he wanted to attend college. Meaning, if he did not get into a top school, he wanted to go where the money was. He applied to two "match schools" which were privates (one which was thrown in at the last minute as it had no supplements). He received merit awards of around $20,000 per year at each of those, which would have put their total cost of attendance at around $40,000. In his mind, a private match school was not going to be worth $40,000 per year. He would have preferred going to a safety for significantly less. He had some good (combined to = full COA at two different Big State Us) options because of National Merit AND winning some competitive merit scholarships. Without knowing specific numbers for your student, it's hard to make any predictions. Even *with* specific numbers it can be hard to make predictions. However, the list for which you ran NPCs includes some pretty competitive schools. So, as another poster pointed out, life works out great for her IF she gets accepted to those schools. The point of seeking large, institutional merit money for a high-stats kid is to have a back-up if she doesn't. And, as another poster pointed out, you are fortunate to live in a state that meets a lot of need. If you didn't, your choices might be free if she got into Duke, Wake, Emory, etc. OR something you could not afford without loans if she had no financial safety. There are residents of certain states (VA and PA are often mentioned - I'm sure there are others) where, depending on your income and assets, your student is going to be able to go to certain private institutions for FAR less than s/he could go to the flagship. That is *IF* s/he can get accepted to the private institution. But those schools who offer need-based aid without loans are few and far between and extremely competitive to gain admission to. Not saying your daughter doesn't have the stats to do that. However, you can't *rely* on getting into one of those types of schools. And many private schools that are "matches" are going to prove unaffordable because of gapping. From your examples, Furman would likely be one of those. You are wise to be running numbers now and learning about the mixes of aid (grants/loans/work-study) that schools offer.

By how much? I was unaware of this. And what is the process? Is there some sort of "proof" required to demonstrate that the parent did apply and was denied? Always good to learn something new.

Depends on the school. Some schools do not include loans at all in their packages. These tend to have massive endowments and be high up on the food chain. Or they only include Stafford loans which puts a reasonable cap (IMO) on what has to be borrowed. When we visited Rice, they fell in between; they did indicate that loans were included in their FA packages but that the amount was lower than Stafford loan amounts. On the other hand, some schools include significant loans. Anything above the Stafford amounts requires that parents co-sign. EFC is recalculated each year and can change if circumstances change. If a student isn't comfortable with loans and big loans (or any loans, depending on your view on them), then they need to look elsewhere. MANY times the EFC is not attainable for families. This is where the concepts of "gapping" or "financial rejection" come from. Someone else who has more knowledge about how everything works together needs to answer your last question. I think merit can go toward lowering either grants or loans if those are included (I think it's up to the school as to what gets reduced first???), but my understanding is that your EFC is your EFC is your EFC. Thus, the goal of obtaining as much merit as possible so that the EFC *IS* covered. So, yeah, someone else needs to answer this last question.

Here is an example of the same type of discussion on CC: I liked post #117, because that poster echoed the sentiment I made here in post #89. Always like having someone agree withe me! :D So, if you want to read more opinions and more anecdotal evidence, here ya' go: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1738001-full-ride-to-a-state-school-or-paying-for-an-ivy-p1.html

But you will have to cosign anything above Stafford loans, correct? I'm just putting this out there for future readers who may not know that the child can only borrow in his/her name only the Stafford amounts - to point out that any loans above that amount belong to both child AND parent. Y'all correct me if I am wrong.

I think these types of threads can be very helpful because they offer many different perspectives and personal experiences. But the problem with these types of queries - there are always MANY of them on CC this time of year, usually with titles such as "Full-pay at Top 20 or Full-ride at Big State U" or "Is such and such school with debt worth it?" - is that there is no one-size-fits-all answer. The anecdotal evidence is great because it may lead to considerations not previously thought of. However, regardless of the number of anecdotes, one cannot draw a sweeping conclusion. As is evidenced by the replies shared on this thread, the bottom-line answer is, "It depends."

^I wish there were a "love" button for this entire post!

I think this is the big unknown and what can be so worrisome in these kinds of situations. I believe that the answer will depend on the individual student and there is simply no way to know ahead of time if a child will continue to challenge himself. As far as your experience with the scholarship weekend and how these young women feel about where the ultimately landed, it's also impossible to know why the feel that way. It could be many things. I will say, as I have said before, that parents do themselves and their children a disservice when they are pie-in-the-sky about admissions and ability to afford schools. I have expressed here before that ds had classmates who made comments along the lines of, "It makes me sick to my stomach to think I might have to go to the local state U." Well, guess what? That's where several of them wound up either because they didn't get into their "dream" school or because the dream school was unaffordable for their parents. I personally heard two moms dissing the local state university and how their kids had NO interest in going there. If you (not literal you, I mean this figuratively) go around acting like having to attend a public state university whether flagship or directional is beneath you, then, of course, the kid is going to feel like s/he had to settle. These moms had to do all kinds of backpeddling when Big State U wound up being the only viable option for their respective children. I am not saying YOU are doing this, OP. I was certainly not the poster parent for admirable behavior during the admissions cycle, and I am sure I could have handled MANY aspects of it far better than I did. However, the one thing I do think I did correctly early on was to emphasize the "love thy safety," concept. Ds had three safeties. We rejoiced/celebrated/got excited about every single acceptance he received, regardless of school rank/prestige whatever. We were enthusiastic about specific opportunities at each of the three safeties and made a big deal about how much merit money ds had "earned" because of his hard work and academic achievement. I wanted him to feel good about all the options he had. If they were not good options, they were not on the list of schools he applied to. You cannot, as a parent, go around acting like anything "below" fill-in-the-blank school is not going to be good enough for my little snowflake. You cannot, as a parent, beat yourself up or express guilt because you don't have the financial resources to tell your kid he can go anywhere he likes. My point is, if a parent acts like a child is having to settle, the kid will feel that way, too. This is how ds's classmates felt when all the dust settled, and I blame their parents. Now, children themselves, can get all high and mighty on their own about where they are "entitled" to go or where they "deserve" to go, so I am not saying the parents were necessarily the cause of the attitudes of these young women. But you never know. You can't keep a kid from having a dream school - but, as an adult, you can certainly keep yourself from jumping on that ridiculous bandwagon. Again, I am not saying you are doing this, OP. Sorry - this is all rambling and kind of rant-y. I have been trying to figure out how to respond to this query for a couple of days. A go-getter kid may always be a go-getter kid, even if not surrounded by gobs of academic peers. But maybe not. He may become lazy and complacent. A kid who has always been a big fish may struggle horribly no longer being the big fish if he IS surrounded by gobs of academic peers. A kid may push himself more if he is surrounded by those who are stronger academically than he. You just can't know ahead of time. Pond sizes, fish sizes, number of fish - I'm not saying that doesn't matter at all, but I am saying it mostly depends on YOUR particular fish, and you cannot predict what that that little booger will do. ETA: "ComplaceMent?" Egads! I really do proof what I submit - epic fail! Ha ha! I fixed it!

Ds had a classmate that had Champlain as his number 1 choice. It was his "dream school." Received some merit aid there, but not nearly enough. They wound up being gapped on finances and couldn't swing it. I think it's a fairly newish school (as in founded sometime in the 1940s or 1950s) so I think their smallish endowment hurts them. He was interested in some of the gaming stuff I think. I do recall that one aspect that was particularly appealing to him was that students jumped into courses in their major right away - gen ed type stuff was deferred for later in the college career. That was appealing to him, but might not work well if you had a child who (as so many do) changed his/her mind.