“I don’t think laughing at UVa in comparison is appropriate.” Agreed. The average SAT in SEAS these days us 1420 with many above that. SEAS also has good existing programs as well as emerging ones (Technology entrepreneurship for instance). UVa may not be as highly ranked as Cornell but it certainly has no problem placing many of its graduates in good jobs and graduate programs. It may not be for you but I hope you don’t end up feeling superior to your UVa and VT friends. That kind of attitude doesn’t get you far.
And no, monydad, The kid from NY that was denied at UVa but accepted to Cornell was not in one of Cornell’s statutory colleges. He was in an arts and sciences, business type of thing. His parents are both Harvard Law School grads.
Oldfort, You keep saying $60,000 in debt for undergrad should be fine. But you seem to be wealthy so you may be able to provide a cushion. It is unclear if the OP’ s family can or want to provide the loan repayment if it came to that.if the parents were truly wealthy, all of this would probably be a nonissue.(unless they just didn’t want to pay for college at all).
My older daughter TA as a senior for a finance course. Both of my kids were able to get on campus work very easily and they were not on work study.
My older daughter, math/econ double major, was able to get very lucrative summer jobs and eventually at her finance job. But my younger daughter, humanities major, always worked at non-profit and low paying jobs (legal aid, district attorney). She is pre-law, so she wouldn’t have been a good candidate to incur 60k+ UG debt, but she will take out some loans for law school.
Your risk is if you don’t do well in school and not able to get one of those high paying jobs.
I do get oldfort’s logic here. But the one thing that bothers me is the repeated, “not able to get one of those high-paying jobs.” It just makes it sound as if these jobs are growing on trees for the correct Cornell graduates. And if they’re not, OP is stuck holding the bag.
There is no business major in arts In Sciences at Cornell, FWIW.
The business major is in the ag school, and has become a very big deal.
It is actually the most selective program at Cornell these days. Sign of the times (sigh). But it didn’t used to be.
OP would indeed be stuck holding bag, if bag is $60k. CS types make some decent change, should be able to pay it off. Eventually. At one time somebody posted some Cornell CS salary results, too lazy to look now. Thing is, these results are not guaranteed. There was a tech bust not too many years ago, some of those people were probably driving taxis. And OP could get there and find that he stinks at CS. Or that actually he loves German Literature.
“Economics and Spanish”
That expalins it. Absent the dual interests, lots of in-staters interested in business would have applied to the ag school. Even people who went to fancy law schools are not averse to saving a few bucks,. I knew several ILR (another statutory college) students there whose parents went to fancy law schools.
Has the OP made a decision? I’m going to be the dissenting voice here and put in a vote for Cornell given his interest in Comp. Sci, finance and intended career in Finance or SV.
Cornell is one of the top 10 feeder schools to 3 of 4 top SV firms in the survey: Google, Facebook and Twitter. Apple hires mostly locally from San Jose State, Berkeley, Stanford, Cal Poly.
UVA is not on any of these lists. That’s not to say of course, that you can’t still do very well and get a job in investment banking or Silicon Valley coming out of UVA, most large companies hire from everywhere. But when companies hire a lot of graduates from one school, it usually means they like the program from that particular school. There’s also large alumni support within the company to help get your foot in the door.
As far as the debt, the NYT or WSJ had an article a while back about SV employees who have no trouble paying off their student loans because of their high starting salaries. Many SV firms now even help their employees pay off student loans. The rule is you shouldn’t borrow more than what you will make first year out of college. With SV starting salaries now over $100k for CS majors, you’ll be able to pay off your debt in no time.
cmsjmt makes a great point, particularly due to your interest in CS. Maybe my situation will help you out, and I’m keen to hear what you decide(d).
I have been pondering UVa McIntire (instate; no debt) vs Cornell ILR ($50k debt) for the past week or so. I’ve been accepted to both as a third year transfer. Although I prefer nearly everything about the ILR curriculum, I’m going to UVa. For me, financial independence is important. Huge debt is bonkers for mostly subjective factors. Plus, ILR has a two year graduate course that’s considerably cheaper. $20k/year vs $49k/year undergrad.
That being said, I’m currently abroad and nearly everyone I’ve talked to knows Cornell and that it’s prestigious - Europeans, Aussies, and especially East Asians (thank you Lee Teng-hui). No one has recognized UVa except the one Scott who read the rape article.
Already having McIntire makes the decision clear for me. If you go CS, Cornell is one of the best places for it. UVa may be the best value for money but if you’re not entirely risk adverse and know you can perform at Cornell then… well, I’m indecisive so I’d say flip a coin.