<p>I don’t have time to do more visits; I have a senior year to finish up. And it honestly comes down to the money. Will I have more of it after UCF or OSU? Will it really make a huge difference by the time I’m 40??</p>
<p>There should be admitted student days/honors, and your school should give you 1-2 days for those.
OSU means more opportunities and better learning conditions. However UCF sounds like it’d allow you to discover another part of the country.
An employer will pay his/her employees the same regardless of where they got their degree.
However OSU and UCF won’t have the same employers recruiting on their campuses.
You sound like you want to go to UCF. If that’s your pick, it’s a fine school, and of couse your parents will be happy about your choice and will want to visit you when the weather’s like today! :)</p>
<p>If you go to grad school, your undergrad won’t have an effect on how much you make.</p>
<p>I would rather go to OSU than UCF. UCF would not even be an option had it not been for the very tempting scholarship. I would think that undergrad doesn’t matter, so going to UCF would be a smarter choice. I would love to go to OSU, but I feel like I would cry thinking of how much money it cost to attend D: </p>
<p>Hm, seriously, that much money is a LOT less than what most students pay, and they have to be in debt on top of it. If you’d rather go to OSU and your parents can afford it, you should go there. </p>
<p>More reasons for the OP to pick tOSU over UCF:</p>
<p>First-Year Experiences
<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/first-year-experience-programs”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/first-year-experience-programs</a></p>
<p>Second-Year Transformational Experience Program (STEP)
<a href=“http://whatsgrowingon.osu.edu/second-year-transformational-experience-program/”>http://whatsgrowingon.osu.edu/second-year-transformational-experience-program/</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://step.osu.edu/”>http://step.osu.edu/</a></p>
<p>Above all, besides honors dorms, OP will most likely end up staying at one of Ohio State’s brand new state-of-the-art dormitories ($400 million set to be opened in Fall of 2015) planned for the new mandatory school requirement to include all Sophomores to living on campus. Frankly, for a grand total of roughly $41k for 4 years at tOSU over UCF in exchange for an unmatched Buckeye experience worth every single dime imho. </p>
<p>Ohio State to ramp up 2nd-year experience
<a href=“Gee: Ohio State to ramp up 2nd-year experience – The Lantern”>http://thelantern.com/2013/04/gee-ohio-state-to-ramp-up-2nd-year-experience/</a></p>
<p>“By the way, I miscalculated. My parents would have to pay $14,000 (at least for the first year). I broke it down thus- with my scholarships, tuition is $7,000, room/board/fees/books- $10,000. With my summer job, work study, and minor scholarships, they pay $14,000.”</p>
<p>You have more miscalculations.</p>
<p>Room and board is $10,000. </p>
<p>Books/supplies are about $1000 (this may be more if the school is on the Quarter System)</p>
<p>You haven’t allowed for “day to day” and misc expenses (which is essentially what your work study job will pay for), and travel…these will total between $2500 - 4000. </p>
<p>Tuition and university fees are $27,000 for this CURRENT school year. How much is your scholarship? </p>
<p>How much are “course fees” FEEs at OSU? </p>
<p>Your estimate of paying $17k per year is off by at least $3k-5k (maybe more if there are course fees). </p>
<p>Have you asked your parents how much they’ll pay? If not, please do so.</p>
<p>The reason that it’s very important that you ask your parents is because they may not be able (or want) to pay $15k+ per year when there’s a cheaper alternative…or they may be fine with it. But you need to find out so that you don’t go down one path only to find out that it won’t work…or that it’s more expensive than you thought.</p>
<p>@sparkeye7: I was unaware of that! I’ll be sure to look into that when I revisit OSU this spring.
@mom2collegekids: I was just going off a rough estimate based on the prices I found on the website. I picked my preferred plans for room and the meal plan, estimated my summer earnings, put in scholarships I already have, and came up with that total. I know there’s going to be things like gas, toiletries, new clothes, push pins for my cork board, etc., but I’m factoring in the costs of the main money guzzlers. My parents are by no means new to this process; my brother has gone through college already. They have told me they can afford it and are encouraging me to lean towards OSU. My parents are really smart with money: we penny pinch whenever possible to have some extra leftover for the good stuff!</p>
<p>^^
oh good. Glad to hear that there has been a discussion about costs. The only reason that I was pushing that is because sometimes students post these X vs Y scenarios with different costs and they later find out that their parents can’t/won’t pay for the higher priced school.</p>
<p>Sounds like it’s tOSU for you! Good luck!</p>
<p>BTW…you may need to find your own job once on campus, because often WS jobs at large public univs are only for low-income students. Many large schools don’t offer WS to those with EFCs beyond Pell.</p>
<p>Remember : Sometimes, “free” doesn’t mean “good bargain”.
Sometimes “cheap and affordable but good for what you want” beats “free”.</p>
<p>Some things to think about. Being locked into having to have a summer job means that you can’t take research experiences or internships unless they pay enough. So while you are adding up the annual costs realistically, add that factor in. Once you have a grad degree your undergrad won’t matter with regard to earnings or prestige even. Only your grad degree will matter. And I have never known where my vet or pharmacist got their graduate degrees from either so, like med school, maybe any vet school is good and most any pharm school. But if you plan on a research career it could matter. The extent the undergrad college helps you get into grad school is another matter. Whether it be better advising or easier A’s. Last I talked with someone, vet schools are full and very hard to get into. Have you visited the pre-vet and pre-pharm forums here?</p>
<p>Locking yourself into a required 3.5 for honors college is pretty tough, no matter how good a student you are. Do you have to keep that to retain the scholarship? Same question for UCF, even if lower, is the scholarship guaranteed for 4 years or is there a gpa requirement?</p>
<p>A few things about the full ride from UCF- It covers all tuition, room, food, expenses, research/ study abroad stipend, and gives a free laptop. I get to register for classes even before the seniors. If I have any money left over (AP credits, I pick a cheaper room/meal plan) they give it to me as leftover cash. I actually talked to one of the current NMF students there, and he said he lives off campus and they give him the actual money to do so. He also said I can take what leftover tuition money I have and put it towards grad school. It takes a 3.5 GPA to keep. This option does free up more time and money for other things, and while they have promised to give me special advising benefits, I also have to think about the facilities and program at OSU. This is really a hard decision. </p>
<p>No, it’s not. You could even start out at UCF and transfer to OSU later. Save your money for grad school. You will have more job options as a vet if you have less debt, less need for the large income to pay back the large debt. I have no affiliation with either school and thus no horse in this race.</p>
<p>Okay, that UCF scholarship really is a very good deal.* Check out how many honors classes you’d be taking per semester vs. how many “regular” classes you’d be taking (“regular” classes at UCF are huge, because their faculty:student ratio is very bad and they’re overall not nearly as well funded as OSU because UCF isn’t the flagship.)
Ask what, precisely, the benefits of each Honors Program is.
At each school, email the admission’s office and ask to be contacted by a current Honors Junior or Senior.
What percentage of students can’t maintain the required GPA and have to leave the Honors Program?
Priority registration: do you get it at OSU too? If not, that could tip the balance toward UCF.
Do you have access to the Honors Dorm at UCF? If not, what type of dorms do you have access to and do they guarantee you space in the dorms (preferably, if not honors, then living-learning community)?
re: whatever tuition money is left over => only in the sense that you can take graduate-level classes while an undergrad, but that’s also true at OSU.
What do the “special advising benefits” entail?
At both schools, what have been the results in the past 5 years? Considering your own plans, what percentage of students have been able to accomplish that in the past 5 years (ie., among entering Honors Students at UCF, what percentage were either employed or in grad school within 6 months?)
What’s the <em>honors</em> graduation rate at each? </p>
<ul>
<li>For other readers’ benefit: what is it called and what are its basic application criteria?</li>
</ul>
<p>@jkeil: if OP transfers later, she loses her scholarship to OSU, so the university wouldn’t be affordable. Of course OP could always transfer back to her in-state university, but she’d have to pay full price and it may be more than what OSU would cost. It doesn’t mean UCF isn’t the best solution, but it’s not so simple as testing UCF out and deciding later.</p>
<p>you’re right, MYOS, but he doesn’t have a scholarship, does he? at 41K?</p>
<p>It’s 41K total for 4 years (zlthough probably more) so about 11-17k/year - yes OP has a scholarship and OSU Honors.
Total COA per year at OSU for OOS is about 40k, and OP would have to pay between 11 and 17 depending on calculations, so I assume it means a full tuition scholarship +. </p>
<p>oh, that’s wherein my confusion lies. thanks. still think it isn’t worth it to take more than 40K away from vet school. it’s not like he’s going to be an orthopedic or plastic surgeon when OP’s done.</p>
<p>I just think this is funny, but I’m a girl XD
(The number of female veterinarians far exceeds male nowadays) As for the mysterious scholarships you are discussing:
UCF’s is the National Merit Scholarship. Once you become a finalist in the National Merit competition, it’s guaranteed (and it’s about $9,000/year if you’re just a Semifinalist)
OSU is the National Buckeye ($12,000/year) and I got the Maximus ($6,000/year) so it pays for a vast majority of my tuition, but not all. And of course, there’s more to the costs than just tuition.
I’m waiting on the Morrill Scholarship from OSU, which would be full tuition, but I haven’t heard anything yet. I’m definitely going to go to OSU if I get it, but in case I don’t, I’m just speculating whether the extra cost would still be worth it.</p>
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<p>1) I never said anything about class rank. I explained, explicitly, in my post why I was talking specifically about the use of standardized test scores and acceptance rates in comparing schools.</p>
<p>I’m saying this to make a point: people often focus on the wrong numbers when evaluating the difference between the two schools.</p>
<p>2) I feel like a couple of people also skipped over the part where I said</p>
<p>Ohio State is clearly a better overall university when it comes to resources, faculty quality, and research, and their acceptance rate doesn’t really have much to do with that</p>
<p>I repeated something similar in the second post.</p>
<p>My point is not that the quality of your peers is not important; on the contrary, I think it is. I just think acceptance rates are numbers that are skewed by too many other factors (like how much the school advertises, how desirable the school’s location is, how slick the school is able to make themselves look, etc.) Look at Lawrence University - a top LAC with an 80% acceptance rate because it’s located in small-town Wisconsin. I also think the Ivies’ acceptance rates are artificially deflated because they invite EVERYONE to apply, even people they know have little chance of getting accepted, just to up their application numbers and brag about how many applications they got - plus because they are name brand schools. <em>shrug</em></p>
<p>Class rank and average GPA, on the other hand, are different. I’m also not totally opposed to standardized test scores’ use, but within reason. Comparing schools who are 5+ points apart? Makes sense. Comparing schools that come within 3 points of each other? I’d say that they’re about roughly equal on that measure (and statistics would agree with me - given that the variation between students within their schools is larger than the variation between the schools, if you get my drift) and it’s time to move on to something else to compare the students.</p>
<p>Also, </p>
<p>You may choose to believe that there’s no difference between students in the top quartile and students in the top decile, but I guarantee you there’s not a college or university in the country that will buy that argument.</p>
<p>Actually, this depends on a lot of factors, and I’m sure a college or university who understands how numbers work would buy it in certain situations.</p>
<p>For example, if you have a high school class that’s 100 students - student #10 is in the top decile but student number #11 is in the top quartile. Is there a big difference between the two of them? Probably not.</p>
<p>Also, it depends on the achievements of the students, too - perhaps the distribution around the mean is very tight. For example, the valedictorian (#1) might have a 3.8 unweighted and the #15 student might have a 3.65 unweighted. Do I care that much about the difference between a 3.65 and a 3.8? Eh. Maybe, maybe not.</p>
<p>Also depends on school quality. Do I think there are huge differences (ability and motivation-wise) between the top tenth and top quartile of students at Andover or Choate Rosemary? Eh. Probably not. They’re getting into the same types of schools.</p>
<p>Besides, that, there are other factors. Maybe the valedictorian has a 3.8 because all he does is study, or has a 3.8 because he chose to take easier classes, while the #12 3.65 student has a bevy of extracurricular activities or took a more rigorous course load. For example, at my high school, AP courses were weighted more heavily but Magnet/honors courses were not, so excellent Magnet/honors students were frequently not in the top 10% even though their course loads were heavier.</p>
<p>Remember that the admissions officers at Harvard et al. routinely say they could make up entire freshman classes of just 2400s, or just valedictorians and salutatorians. But they don’t.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>That’s all moot, though, because the question is not whether Ohio State is a better school (it is). The question is whether this OP should pay to go to Ohio State rather than accepting scholarship aid from UCF, especially when she plans to go to either pharm or vet school. The amount is relatively small ($41,000) and IIRC the OP’s parents will be eating the cost rather than the OP going into debt.</p>
<p>And this may be a moot point overall, OP, so I’d say not to stress too much about the decision until you find out about the Morrill.</p>
<p>OP, and yes, I assumed honeymelon was a girl, just so you know: when you get money based on cost of living anywhere (except when required to live on campus), if you save money somehow, you get to pocket any excess over the COA allocation, and use or save it as you want. My daughter also moved off campus Jr year (not allowed earlier) and was given the amount of room and board into her bursar account to spend as she wished. She was able to save a bit of money on housing, went to off campus reduced meal plan and saved by buying some groceries. Of course, if you are in an area where housing is more expensive off campus, then you would have a gap to make up on your own.</p>
<p>I do not see a 3.5 gpa requirement for UCF. It looks like 3.2 overall.</p>
<p>“Honors classes are not designed to be harder and they typically do not cover more material than their non-Honors equivalents. In fact, at the end of every fall and spring semester each Honors student is audited to make certain an Honors level GPA (3.2 UCF GPA and 3.0 Honors GPA) is maintained, and we find that, actually, students tend to perform better in Honors classes than in non-Honors classes. Remember that likeminded, bright, curious, and talented students populate Honors classes, which are taught by some of the best UCF faculty. The result is an engaging and exciting classroom environment that will help you continue to excel!”</p>