<p>As some of you may have read in my first thread, I applied to Illinois Wesleyan early action. Well, I got accepted today. I got an offer for $10,000 per year scholarship, which brings the cost down to about $35,000 per year. That's the part that worries me. 35 grand per year is A LOT of money. I'm going to major in business, which I can do at many other schools for much less. But I really really liked Wesleyan, so I think paying the extra money for going somewher I actually want to go will be well worth it. What do you guys think?</p>
<p>Make applications to other schools you’ll love. See how they come to you with their FinAid offers and see if something is wonderful. Then go back to Il Wesleyan and see if they can match. Can’t hurt.</p>
<p>Is $35K acceptable for your family?</p>
<p>I say go for it! Just apply to tons of scholarships and you’ll get more money. If it’s your dream school, go there. If you go somewhere else, you may catch yourself in the future asking, “Would I have been happier at IL Wesleyan?” Chances are, the answer will be yes… Just my opinion :)</p>
<p>Is it possible you will also qualify for need-based aid? (Run the college’s net price calculator for an estimate if you’re not sure.</p>
<p>Otherwise (if you’re instate Illinois), you could go to UIUC or UIC for about $27,000 COA, to one of the other Illinois public schools for perhaps $25,000, to Truman State in Missouri for maybe $23,000. In my opinion, leaving aside the absolute top business schools, it really doesn’t matter much where you get a business degree.</p>
<p>Well, it depends on where the money will come from. If your family feels they can afford the school, great! If it will involve loans, very bad idea. This is not a top business school where you can feel somewhat comfortable about getting good job offers.</p>
<p>I don’t think I’ll be able to get any need based aid. I think we should be able to afford it, but it’s not going to be just pocket change. Plus Wesleyan has pretty great job placement from what I hear. I’ll keep applying for lots of other scholarships and see what I can get.</p>
<p>And yeah, mandypandy, I agree. I don’t want to go to another school and then regret not going to the place that I really wanted to go.</p>
<p>There are four reasons for picking a college: value of the credential, strength of the education, cost, and the “college experience.” For the first, once you get below the half-dozen most prestigious programs (think Wharton, NYU-Stern, etc.) one business degree is about as valuable as any other business degree. For strength of the education, that’s very hard to assess. So it comes down to balancing cost against what you want from the college experience. If you (and your parents) have think that Illinois Wesleyan’s college experience is worth $8k-$12K more per year than some of the less-expensive alternatives - speaking as a parent, I would not, under any circumstances, go into significant debt just so my kid could have a better “college experience,” but perhaps your parents feel otherwise.</p>
<p>No college has great job placement right now. Make sure you’re not confusing Illinos Wesleyan with the much more selective Wesleyan College.</p>
<p>
This is true, yet you repeatedly asked for <em>evidence</em> of the quality of a college's education in another thread... :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Waverly, are you confusing Wesleyan **College<a href=“54%%20acceptance%20rate”>/b</a> with Wesleyan **University<a href=“22%”>/b</a>?</p>
<p>Yes, I did mean Wesleyan U, though I’m not sure why an LAC uses university!</p>
<p>If you can afford it at $35,000 per year, great, but most people I think would say that’s a lot. I go to IWU in case you’re wondering. A merit scholarship for $10,000 per year is slightly below average here, I’m pretty sure, from what I’ve heard. I don’t think my parents would have let me go here if I’d gotten that…I’m not going to say exactly, but I have more than $10,000 per year for a scholarship here, plus I’m out of state so I have to figure travel costs for airfare to get home, in addition to tuition.</p>
<p>Based on previous years, I’m guessing next year’s total cost will be between $46,500-47,000, but they don’t have the numbers out yet…should find out sometime in late February like last year.</p>
<p>Also, for cost, something people forget…that figure includes tuition, room, board, and some fees for the year, but that does not include your May Term class (if you choose to take one), although that is not a significant amount for an on-campus course (they give you an amazing deal for an extra course- only $500!!!, so much cheaper than what it is per course during the year), but the travel courses are expensive (I’m doing one of those in May, they range from about $3600-6000 for about 3 weeks of travel).</p>
<p>Have you talked to your parents about cost? Definitely have a nice chat with them about it so you know what you’d be getting into…as far as if you’d have to take loans or not, if you have to work on campus or not, or if they can guarantee that they’d have the money for 4 years of that. I talked to my parents about it a lot before choosing a college because I wanted to be sure that we’d have the money for all the years and not have to worry about being forced to transfer…because I wouldn’t want to do that.</p>
<p>I’m not saying don’t come here…just giving you some more info about cost, hopefully helpful to you. It’d be great if you can come though!</p>
<p>If you have any other questions about IWU, I’d be happy to help answer them if I can too! Have you visited campus?</p>