<p>Why don’t you try appealing your fin aid so that Columbia matches what Amherst has offered you?</p>
<p>1) Ask Columbia if they can match the fin.aid like shaheirunderdog said.</p>
<p>2) I know a number of people that went to the Ivy’s and the Little Ivy’s. People often tout the Columbia network as so amazing (it really can be if you do it right) but the Little Ivy’s often have very proud alums in a lot of places you might not expect them. Just sayin.</p>
<p>@OP, Engineering at most Ivy schools is not good. Maybe Cornell has the best engineering of all ivies. If you are an enginnering major, then mit, caltech, stanford, northwestern, georgia tech, etc. are much better than the ivies except for cornell. Engineering at harvard, yale, princeton, columbia, upenn, dartmouth, brown, etc. are a notch below the aforementioned schools. What I am trying to tell you is that Columbia SEAS is not worth $30k more than Amherst, it is not even worth $5k above Amherst. I wouldn’t even pay $25k total a year to go to SEAS. just my opinion.</p>
<p>you must be dreaming if you think Amherst is as prestigious as Columbia.</p>
<p>Wifey, I’m assuming you are an international. How else would you think they are not similar prestige levels? Amherst is the best LAC out there, its just as selective and well known among people making decisions as Columbia.</p>
<p>Ignore wifey. She has been stirring up trouble on this board for years. ■■■■■■ will be ■■■■■■ no matter how old they get.</p>
<p>OP: No one can tell you what is the right decision to make since no one knows all the fine details of your circumstances. Is the money going to make a difference to you? If you can make do without the savings that attending Amherst would entail, then I recommend that you choose whichever school you think you would be happier attending (ignoring the factor of money). Your happiness over a 4-year period is worth more than savings of 7.5k a year I.M.O.</p>
<p>what did I stir up? I was just telling the truth.</p>
<p>I love Columbia but it has its fair share of BAD TAs and BAD professors. Wifey, unless you have attended both Columbia AND Amherst, I would refrain from making any premature judgments about the value of either degree.</p>
<p>Every school has good TAs and bad TAs, and every school has good professors and bad professors. The value of the degree is not determined by good or bad professors. It’s all about school’s reputation both domestically and internationally.</p>
<p>I can see that you place value on nothing more than the prestige of the degree. Some people out there actually value the quality of the education you know? And to some people it’s a bigger factor than mere “brand power”.</p>
<p>Then again, those are only issues one might be concerned about if one were attending. I can understand how spectators like to simplify the “value” of an “education” to mean nothing more than reputation.</p>
<p>OP: You won’t likely regret it if you attend SEAS and are serious about working like a mad man, but I don’t know a single student who doesn’t think it’s a brutally challenging undergrad experience. It’s a trade-off for having greater employment opportunities after graduation, compared to the other undergrads.</p>
<p>If you’re aiming for graduate/professional school instead of immediate employment, you might want to consider avoiding an engineering college.</p>