<p>should have applied to MIT…
I just got back from a visit, and by the brief view I have seen of you, I think you would have liked it (and the top Aero/Astro in the country).</p>
<p>My son goes to an IT hs and we are loaded with future engineers. We have a saying around here… You don’t go to MIT, MIT comes to you. In a way that seems backwards, but you get the idea. Along the lines of, if you have to ask, you can’t afford. Many of the students visit and even if their parents can and will foot the bill, it is not their top choice. GA Tech is 2nd behind MIT in aero and their oss is around $33k. Another big school here is VATech. At $18k for in state and ranked 10th it is the biggest bang for the buck for students who want to save their money for their graduate degree. Rarely past your first or second job will anyone look at where you got your undergrad, but where you got your graduate degrees and research will always be noticed.
Matt- It sounds like you have done a good job at keeping your classes competitive while staying involved in a select group of EC’s. IMHO, the way to go. I sincerely was not trying to be rude, only point out from your OP that people just couldn’t make judgements that you ‘should have gotten more’. The WASP male didn’t hurt you but it didn’t help you either. Think of it as ‘neutral’ 
You can not change the fact that you are a WASP male, OOS, and a non-legacy. They are a non-issue. Focus on what you can control, like keeping your work up & making the best decision for you.
Good Luck & for what it’s worth, I wouldn’t go into debt for undergrad if you feel you would be happy at A&M.</p>
<p>No, I know exactly what you mean blueiguana. I’m rather tired of people telling me I should’ve gotten more, myself haha. And yeah, I really didn’t do as much research as I could’ve (or should’ve)… however, I don’t think that in this instance it has hurt me. Distance was another consideration I didn’t mention - although I would’ve gone to MIT if I had applied, gotten in, and been able to afford it, I’m glad to be somewhat close to home for now.</p>
<p>Matt516 -I cannot say about MIT specifically, but most schools waive tuition and pay a stipend to engineering and science grad students. MIT may be an exception since they are so heavily an engineering school. But check it out when you get to that point in your life.</p>
<p>Best of luck.</p>
<p>A wonderful mentor that worked with my son’s team last year left to got to MIT grad school with a financial package you have mentioned fallenchemist. I am not sure how often it happens, but it does happen. Outside of his high level of volunteer work with IT students I am not sure what his qualifications were (ie job, connections if that matters, etc.). He may have been an extreme exception.
Another possibility I have seen happen with the mentors that work with the IT students is working for several years after your undergrad, proving yourself valuable to a company, and receiving tuition reimbursement from that company to pursue your graduate degree. When applying to graduate school the top tier schools have loved their involvement in mentoring the students. I guess it’s one of the golden EC’s on a graduate school application :)</p>
<p>Good choice to go with A&M. My best friend in High School went to A&M and got a great job right out of school in a cutting edge area of engineering with a household name aerospace company.</p>
<p>I would assume you’d have a bunch of the ROTC engineers in class with you to keep you on your toes (and honest).</p>
<p>Matt, you are facing almost exactly the same dilemma we have. Our son has credentials pretty much identical to yours. Like you he was not interested in and did not apply to the Ivy schools. He did apply to Rice, and he was accepted, but Rice offered no scholarships or aid. Our son was also admitted to our state flagship, Wisconsin, a truly great University in its own right; in fact its academic departments are ranked as high or higher than Rice’s in every area he is most interested in. He was also admitted to and received substantial merit scholarships at several other very fine private universities. All things being equal, Rice was his first choice. But they obviously aren’t equal. The cost difference between all of those schools and Rice is simply jaw-dropping. So we had to ask ourselves the question – what about Rice could justify paying so much more? It really came down to only two things; the college system and the “prestige.”</p>
<p>The college system is very attractive, but ultimately the undergraduate experience is what you make of it wherever you go. Rice’s colleges just hold your hand a little more. “Prestige” is, of course, inherently difficult to quantify. I gather you are from Texas or nearby, and that may change the equation for you, as our impression is that Rice has a stellar reputation there. Here in the midwest, however, our experience is that it is not well known, if it is known at all, except by academics. Even most of the professional people we talk to are not sure where it is and have only a vague idea that it is a great university. Many even think it’s a religious college, strangely enough. So for us, anyway, the prestige factor just doesn’t play very well.</p>
<p>You have to make your own decision, but I cannot imagine going $100,000 into debt for your undergraduate education – particularly for an engineering degree. And especially when TAMU has an excellent engineering program. </p>
<p>I think you already realize this, but I sense what’s holding you up is this feeling you have that “I’m an ‘ivy-level’ kid; am I settling by going to the state school?” I don’t think it’s conceited of you to think that way. Like my son, you must have worked awfully hard to attain those credentials. And like my son, you were unfortunate enough to do so in a year when you had more competition than applicants to top schools have ever seen before. I don’t know why Rice didn’t give you a scholarship. I don’t know why they didn’t give one to my son. And I’m sorry that Rice has accelerated its costs and tuition to the point where there is now no significant cost difference between it and the Ivies and similar schools. But it is what it is. A generation ago before all this college mania started (another thing to blame on us baby boomer parents) kids like you and my son wouldn’t have thought it unusual or felt they were “settling” to go to a great state school. And you’re not settling. Places like TAMU and Wisconsin value great students just as much, and will give you the same challenge. And in fact they can offer you many more academic possibilities than any small University can offer, even one as good as Rice. If you work as hard as you already have worked, the chances are excellent that you’ll have just as good an experience in college and be just as successful when you get out, whether you go to Rice or TAMU. But if you walk out of college debt-free, it will open up a huge range of possibilities for you that will have been foreclosed otherwise.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>An addendum, now that I have read the whole thread: MIT IS a great school – but getting admitted is a complete crapshoot. Fewer than 10% were admitted this year, and that’s from a highly self-selected applicant pool. My son applied and was not admitted, notwithstanding his credentials, and there were surely hundreds if not thousands with similar credentials who also were not admitted. But at least that saved us from that particular cost dilemma. MIT is just as expensive as Rice, but unlike Rice its name has “instant credibility.” In other words, the prestige factor might have tempted us to take the financial risk.</p>
<p>Also, someone above suggested the OP should have applied to “at least one Ivy.” I don’t agree. I don’t believe any kid should apply to any school unless he really could see himself going there. They just didn’t interest my son, and I’m sure that’s true of many kids. </p>
<p>Finally, as for the speculation about why some kids get merit scholarships and some don’t, despite great objective criteria, the answer is obviously that there are subjective criteria also, and what catches one admissions’ officer’s attention will not catch another’s. These decisions are made with very fragmentary information, not through any bad faith or laziness on the part of those making them, but just as a consequence of the size of the task. Our only real frustration about the process is that it’s obvious (from this site) that many of the applicants offered merit scholarships applied to Rice as a backup to other schools, and had no intention to attend it if they were admitted elsewhere. (Of course part of the purpose of offering a merit scholarship is presumably to tempt students who may have other offers.) Our son would have selected Rice in a heartbeat over the other schools he applied to if he had received a scholarship. Of course there’s no way for the admissions office to know that in advance, and we have been told very firmly that Rice does not reconsider its scholarship decisions. C’est la vie and On, Wisconsin.</p>