Just want to know what students out there thinks. My daughter having second thoughts. Thank you.
What is she thinking and what is the reluctance
@privatebanker, thank you!
She wants to go to Rutgers for the full merit scholarship.
Upitt GAP, we will still have to pay despite scholarships due to out of state tuition. She doesn’t want to have a debt for undergrad.
Cornell- she’s thinking about the IVY league for pre med
What is the cost for Cornell and can you simply afford it
@privatebanker She will have to take a loan for Cornell due to high EFC. So it’s like paying 7k more than Upitt Gap. The answer is no we can’t afford the whole price.
I can tell you Rutgers is a very good research university with a lot of very smart kids. And all the opportunities of life is in front of her. Many kids go on to be drs professors lawyers and other fine careers. And for the price it is like winning a powerball ticket.
However it is hard to see that Ivy League name and not feel torn.
Are you sure they calculated everything corrrctly. Ivy League schools give 100 of what you need.
That’s exactly how she’s feeling 9 days before deadline… torn.
Ivy Leagues I heard don’t give a lot of money however we didn’t try to ask for more. That’s the price they offered us so far. You’re right maybe we can go back and appeal. Thank you
Ivy’s give 100 percent of need but not sure anything based on merit. For what it is worth read this to her and maybe it will help form a MD PHD from Stanford
“I would like to gently take some issue with the notion that students at Stanford are “really, really bright” or “brilliant” or “qualitatively different” from those at other top schools. I speak as someone who attended Stanford, albeit a few decades ago. I also served as a freshman advisor at Harvard College for many years, and got to know my students’ academic performance quite well.
At these schools, I found relatively few students that were truly brilliant. They were generally hardworking and motivated and had generally done well in the context of their local high school, or were likable enough that they could get A’s from their high school teachers. They obviously knew how to do well on standardized tests. Many had excelled in some particular activity, although typically at a local level, not at a state or national level. But I often wondered what the admissions office had seen to let some of these people in.
I was not particularly struck by students’ intellectual curiosity either. A large proportion of students were premed or prelaw or pre-business, which meant they wanted a high grade more than anything else, and often looked for the easiest courses they could take in order to achieve their goals. There were many recruited athletes, who were not always there for their intellect. Dinner conversations were generally about mundane, everyday topics.
I don’t know how things are at other colleges, but I do know that at my medical school, some of the most accomplished people and those that received the highest scores on our tests came from places like USC. Also, the Dean of Stanford Admissions has said that they could have picked a second or third set of people that were equivalent to the set they admitted. I would imagine that the second or third set of students probably went to other top schools.
Anyway, I just wouldn’t put the student body on some sort of lofty pedestal. The students at these colleges are just like the people at your school like yourself who got accepted recently and are considering them now. You can use that as a basis for comparison.”
And That’s her plan, what you just said to go to a Stanford and the likes for MD. I will def share her all responses that I get here. Thank you!
Wow, I appreciate all that information. Everything you said is true. as a parent all I can do is guide her and share what I think cuz eventually she will decide. She actually did not apply to Harvard, she was gearing more on the “quiet Ivy’s”, dream school was Brown PLME but was waitlisted ED and eventually rejected. Thank you again!
My d was waitlisted at brown with plme supplemnt too!
Cool! Did she get in?
Great! Did she get in?
No waitlisted haven’t come out. But that ship has left the port. Once it was a wl it turned her off as she had some reservations about the school anyway.
True, she can’t just be waiting she has to move on. I told my D when she got waitlisted ED. Did your D commit yet? And where is she going?
Imo, if you think that med school is both a realistic goal for her and one that she is likely to stick to, I wouldn’t choose Cornell. Those kids work hard to get ok grades- and really really hard to get the kind of grades that you need for med school. I have a STEM grad student there right now, and through lab work & TA’ing the grad students see what the undergrads go through in the pre-req classes- her descriptions are not pretty!
She got an offer from an “Ivy”, which is a nice ego boost. But she doesn’t need to prove it to other people by having the sweatshirt / car decal 
@collegemom3717 lol on that sweatshirt/car decal. To be honest, at first I thought that decal would look great on my car. but then I realized even if we have that decal she has to work hard maybe harder just to get to to a med school. Thanks for your input.
Looks like USC
Also very very bright nephew goes to Pitt and finishing sophomore year. Absolutely Loves it. He got into some great schools Syracuse and Providence college. But no one like your daughter did . But he has friends from all over there and school spirit and happiness factor is high. He works really hard there though