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<p>Georgia Tech and Emory aren’t “places”? Do you understand that there are very few states in the union with better schools than those 2? I would have killed to have gone to GT on HOPE. Let’s be realistic: this kid wasn’t getting into MIT or Harvard, and GT and Emory are the next tier down, and to be able to get a huge break on cost going there is a huge boon.</p>
<p>I don’t know what your background is, but I suspect you are not old enough to have an bird’s eye view of this kid’s situation.</p>
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<p>Given the OP’s stats, he is in a good situation to go to well-respected universities for virtually no debt. There is no reason to go anywhere else, and I completely reject the idea of acquiring so much debt for college. You speak almost as if paying out the yin yang for school and then paying it off 20 years later is character-building.</p>