<p>I'm also considering Stanford as well, so info about that is welcome. They gave me approximatly the same amount of financial aid as MIT.</p>
<p>In terms of the starting salary, I'm just taking the average figures for my major from those schools, and I'm resonably confidant that I will do well enough in school to get at least that much. I've looked at the coursework for MIT on the opencourseware site, and while it won't be easy, I can handle it.</p>
<p>At the moment, I'm not too concerned about the name value thing. That will definitely be beneficial as a starting point, but I believe that its how well I perform once I get a job that'll be the major factor on how well my career goes. Right now, its more the quality of the academics, my classmates, and the social atmosphere that's influencing my decision. I believe that I will have a much better experience overall at MIT, and I'm willing to put up with the debt after graduation to go there.</p>
<p>After reading some of the posts, I'm feeling a bit better about the debt issue. 40k sounds like a lot of money, but $432 a month isn't that bad, especially if I get a decent job and work hard at it. Plus, I'll probably be living by myself or with a roommate after I get my undergrad degree, so living costs won't be too expensive either.</p>
<p>For grad school, I was hoping to get a fellowship, except they usually only offer those to pure science majors, and EECS will probably be considered engineering. I might be able to pull it off though if I do CS theory or something though. If I go for a phd, that'll mean 6 more years of college and a lot more debt. My father claims that I'll be able to work as a TA and do internships and "easily" pay for most of it, but I'm not so sure.</p>
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After reading some of the posts, I'm feeling a bit better about the debt issue. 40k sounds like a lot of money, but $432 a month isn't that bad, especially if I get a decent job and work hard at it. Plus, I'll probably be living by myself or with a roommate after I get my undergrad degree, so living costs won't be too expensive either.
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<p>There ya go, that's the spirit. Break it down to the actual parts and then it's doable, isn't it?</p>
<p>As for grad school...wait and see where you end up. If you work for a few years, you might find a company willing to sponsor you. Also, a kid with MIT, UMICH and Stanford acceptances (3 out the top 4 schools), is probably going to be mighty attractive to grad schools. Mighty attractive. </p>
<p>Find out what prompts grad schools to throw money at EECCs and aim yourself in that direction.</p>
<p>Very exciting days ahead for you, kiddo. Well done to you for giving yourself those options.</p>
<p>Besides a roommate, there is always the POSSIBILITY that you will fall in love with a very capable woman/man and discover the upside to dual incomes. ;)</p>
<p>^ Now there's a great idea. Plan on marrying someone who will pay off your student loans for you. (Until you find out they too have $80K in loans...oops. ;) )</p>
<p>Well, you know how it is, Weenie. Your mom always said it was just as easy to marry a rich man as a poor one (only that isn't really reality, but whatever...not to mention whatever happened to people being self sufficient?).</p>
<p>Some of the top grad schools like CMU and MIT offer stipends to all their grad students (in particular fields- I know at CMU this includes CS). It might not be enough to pay off that loan on, but it certainly would be enough to live on, especially if you don't mind a roommate. Generally, summer internships for students in engineering/computer science at top schools can be quite well paying, so you might be able to take care of some of your debt that way.</p>
<p>If you have federal loans, you will not have to pay them until after you stop being a full-time student -- if you go back to graduate school, your loans will go back to deferral. </p>
<p>Given that graduate school stipends in the sciences and engineering are high enough to live on comfortably if you're willing to be a little frugal, you can pay on your undergraduate debt while in graduate school, even though you technically don't have to.</p>
<p>I will be finishing my PhD with zero undergraduate debt, even though I finished undergrad with about $20k -- I put a few hundred toward my loans every month, and my particular loans do not accrue interest while in the deferral period. ;) Win!</p>
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Your mom always said it was just as easy to marry a rich man as a poor one
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<p>Don't misquote mom! What she always said was, "It's just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor man!" Marrying him is a little trickier.</p>
<p>Stanford is a great school for the connection. I never interviewed any undergraduates from there either, my guess is that students at Stanford usually work for their professors in one of those startups. I know my friend went to Stanford and knew a lot of people working at Google when they were still startup.
As for whether a certain school is more popular than others, it still depends on the number of alumni working at a certain company. I know where I used to work there were no MIT graduates period that I know of. A lot of University of Michigan, University of Illinois, etc... But I cant' speak for the whole company. Just the people I know. </p>
<p>Larry Page
Co-Founder & President, Google went to University of Michigan. I think Google is still the king of Silicon Valley right now isn't it?</p>