For Kyle, choosing a college wasn't such a big ordeal. He was a good student with a decent GPA and an above average ACT score. He had a solid resume with activities and service. He could have gotten in pretty much any of the schools he applied to, but his scholarship opportunities were minimal. He didn't really know what he wanted to do, but he knew he wanted to graduate with as little debt as possible, so he decided early on that he'd attend an in-state, public university in order to use his KEES money and get in-state tuition. Luckily for him, he scored a coveted full-ride scholarship at UofL because of all of his civic involvement during high school. Had he not gotten that scholarship, he would have probably ended up at UofL or Northern Kentucky University or Western Kentucky University, and it would have been fine. The merit scholarships he received were enough to offset the majority of the tuition, and he would have had to take out only a few thousand dollars of loans.
Claire, on the other hand, is in a quandary. She is my most academically gifted child with an unweighted GPA of 4.0 and weighted well into the mid 4.5 range. She's taken the hardest classes at school. She's involved in several clubs. She's danced since she was four years old. She works at a nursing home. She is a Kentucky Governor's Scholar. But her ACT score is at the bottom end of "full ride."
Claire is a perfectionist, very methodical, and takes her time in order to ensure accuracy. Therefore, even though she gets 100% of the questions correct when taking the ACT at home un-timed, she fails to complete some of the sections during the actual test and has to guess at the last few, missing enough to keep her from attaining that magic number that equals "Major Scholarship" even though she scores high enough to get accepted to pretty much any school she wants to attend.
So we are left with this: she can get in; she can get good scholarships, but we can't pay for the rest of the tuition without taking out tens of thousands of dollars in loans.
And this is where the bullshit starts.
Thankfully, we are able to afford ACT classes and a private tutor for her. After her first ACT test, we paid for her to attend a week-long class right before the next ACT, and she was able to bring her score up about 4 points. The next couple of times she took the ACT, she would go up in one area and down in another, getting basically the same composite score, which, while high by most any standard, wasn't high enough.
So we paid for a private tutor. She went twice a week for several weeks to work on speed and short cuts and tricks of the trade. We are waiting to see if her latest score improves, and I hope it does, because we've spent nearly a thousand dollars over a couple of summers trying to help her reach that magic number.
But here's the thing...what about kids from families who don't have the money to pay for a private tutor? What about kids who don't have the guidance from home? It's not fair to kids who may be just as smart or smarter than Claire not to have the same advantages she had.
And then there is the Common Application. This fabrication of a college application is so much crap that I don't even know where to begin. Okay, let's start with the essay prompts.
1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
2. The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success. Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
3. Reflect on a time when you challenged a belief or idea. What prompted you to act? Would you make the same decision again?
4. Describe a problem you've solved or a problem you'd like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma - anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.
5. Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family.
But you can't write about the death of someone you love, and you can't write about a sports failure, and you must make it "unique" and grab the reader at the first sentence. Claire has been working on hers for weeks, but she just can't find the right tone or idea. She knows the admissions people are looking for that certain "uniqueness" in the essay, and she is stuck.
Again, some kids are able to hire writing coaches who help them come up with a topic, do a rough draft, write, edit, and then turn it in. We haven't done that yet, but I know people who have. Good for them if they have the money. We could, I guess, but I just don't want to. It shouldn't be necessary.
There are people who are able to hire college counselors who do nothing but help their kids submit applications, prep for the ACT, do mock interviews, etc., all in the hopes of getting the full-ride. And that's great...for those kids. But the majority of people in the good ol' USA don't have that luxury, so what we are creating is a privileged class of college students who get the scholarships and the full-rides over kids from families who can't afford all of the one-on-one. I admit, we are a part of that first group. It's hard not to do it if you can, and it will benefit your child.
Meanwhile, we have all of these colleges and universities coming to the high schools, touting their institutions of higher learning, getting the kids all psyched up to go on a campus visit. And we go, and we love it, and then we see the sticker price, and leave with our mouths hanging open in shock.
Claire would like to maybe go to the University of Pittsburgh or St. Louis University. We visited both last week, and the campuses are amazing. The dorms at SLU are all new. The workout facility is fantastic. The opportunities for study abroad are top notch. They even have a satellite campus in Madrid. But the tuition alone is $40,000 a year plus fees. Room and board another $12,000-13,000 a year. If Claire gets the maximum amount of merit scholarship possible, she would get $76,000 over four years. Nothing to sneeze at, for sure, but minus $76,000 from $210,000, and you are left trying to figure out how to come up with another $132,000.
Sure there are grants and loans. We filled out the FAFSA with Kyle, and we make too much to get any grants and not enough to afford the tuition without taking out the loans. A student from SLU called our house after our visit asking if we had any questions. I laughed and asked how do people afford SLU? He replied that many of his friends get 50% tuition through scholarships. Okay, great. But that still leaves that tiny issue of where to come up with the other 100K.
The University of Pittsburgh, Centre College, Hanover College, the University of Dayton...all of them were the same. $40,000-55,000 a year. Probably half tuition in merit scholarships. We have to come up with the rest. All of them offer full-rides, but maybe 10-20 max out of thousands of applications. She could very well get one, and she might, but if she doesn't, then what?
So we are looking at in-state, public universities as a back-up plan. I've told Claire she can apply for any school she wants. She will also apply for any full-tuition scholarship she is eligible for at these schools (again with the "tell about a time you failed" essays). But unless she gets a full-ride to one of the other universities, she will be going to UK or UofL or WKU. Kirk and I feel very strongly that we don't want our kids to graduate with a mortgage payment unless they have a house to go with it.
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