<p>Greetings! Not to be dramatic or anything, but in ~7 weeks I'll have made the biggest decision in my young life. So, I decided to start this thread to work through my decision making process. I hope it'll keep me semi organized and be something I can look back on when I'm hit with the inevitable buyers remorse on May 2nd. Of course, this is a forum not a blog so I would love to get your advice and opinions!</p>
<p>Here is where I am so far, with everything in order of preference. All of the COAs are without loans or work study (not that I am averse to either, just to standardize it). </p>
<p>Accepted and Considering
MIT - waiting on financial aid
Case Western - COA is ~26000, aid package could increase
University of Pittsburgh - COA is ~15000, finalist for full ride
University of Rochester - COA is ~36000
University of Alabama (No longer considering but I can't figure out how to decline their acceptance... Does anyone know? :p )</p>
<p>Accepted and Declined
Georgia Tech (received no merit, would have been more $$$ than MIT)</p>
<p>Waiting On
Stanford
Cornell
Princeton
Harvard
Yale (unlikely to attend)
WUSTL (very unlikely to attend)</p>
<p>Congrats on some very nice acceptances! I know two MIT-caliber students who are happy at Case Western (MIT-caliber but didn’t hit the lottery).</p>
<p>What will it take for your family to meet the COA? Can they afford $36000 per year or are they looking at their own loans? Or is that kind of money a pure fantasy?</p>
<p>For some people, WUSTL is their top, most favorite ever. If you can afford and would prefer the others, you could maybe do one of those kids a favor and withdraw your application.</p>
<p>UA is unfortunately not a full ride. After I applied they dropped their NMF scholarship down… It only covers one year of housing now.</p>
<p>We are in a weird financial situation. My parents could pay up to probably 40,000/yr but I won’t make them do that. I am hoping to end up with an EFC of <20k from the most generous schools, which would be reasonable for us to cover. Some of the calculators gave us estimates of 5-10k/yr EFC which would be a dream, my parents are paying that much for my high school.</p>
<p>Right now I’m undecided but maybe physics or engineering or something else… I’m pretty positive it’ll be STEM though.</p>
<p>I am strongly considering all the schools right now, and Pitt would be very attractive with a full ride. The big thing is that I have yet to visit ANY college. So I have no idea really, and I’m not ruling anything out until I see it (unless I’m sure it would be a bad fit). But I am going to Pitt next Monday to interview, so things should become clearer then.</p>
<p>Updates! Accepted to WUSTL today, and got another 2k/yr at Pitt. My mom and I have agreed that I won’t turn down any acceptances until I have financial aid offers in hand. Hopefully those should start rolling in in the next week.</p>
<p>Accepted and Considering
WUSTL - waiting on financial aid
MIT - waiting on financial aid
Case Western - COA is ~26000, aid package could increase
University of Pittsburgh - COA is ~13000, finalist for full ride
University of Rochester - COA is ~36000</p>
<p>Accepted and Declined
Georgia Tech
University of Alabama</p>
<p>Waiting On
Stanford
Cornell
Princeton
Harvard
Yale</p>
<p>Reporting back from my visit to Pitt. I didn’t really like how undefined the campus was, sort of how all the buildings were interspersed with the city. On the other hand, it was awesome to see all of the opportunities and events were happening literally around the clock in Pittsburgh. But the campus was empty on spring break this week, with all the dorms shut down and stuff. It made me realize how many of the kids were right from PA and would be going home a lot more than I would plan to. </p>
<p>Overall I think I want a smaller student body, and more cohesiveness within the entire school. I have decided that I really can’t see myself attending Pitt. But I’m very happy I was able to make the visit, and I learned a lot about what I like and don’t like. Paradoxically, WUSTL looks much more attractive now than it did a few days ago. Rochester and WUSTL both gave me offers for free visits, so I’m definitely looking forward to seeing more schools.</p>
<p>Accepted and Considering
WUSTL - waiting on financial aid
MIT - waiting on financial aid
Case Western - COA is ~26000, aid package could increase
University of Rochester - COA is ~36000</p>
<p>Accepted and Declined
University of Pittsburgh
Georgia Tech
University of Alabama</p>
<p>Waiting On
Stanford
Cornell
Princeton
Harvard
Yale</p>
<p>If you didn’t like Pitt (for the urban reasons), you are unlikely to like Case. You may still like URoc or WUSTL (these are urban, but with more defined campuses). We’ve never been to MIT so I can’t compare that one. You should definitely visit.</p>
<p>Cogratulations! What an embarrassment of riches you have here and a happy problem in terms of deciding where you should go.</p>
<p>You are doing just as you should, visiting the schools to see where you feel the most comfortable, and waiting to see what all of your options are financially as well. Do bear in mind that many colleges are barren during spring break time and not to compare apples with oranges. My one son visited a college when they were having some special event plus all attention on him as a visitor and got the wrong impression as compared to other schools. However, Pitt’s upperclassmen tend to be interspersed in a wider area in the city in off campus digs and you will get a more cohesive campus with the ones that are enclose in the urban environments. One huge advantage to Pitt is that there is still a big “rah rah” atmosphere to it due to the availability and accessessibiity to their big time football and basket ball events, which is rare in a city school , if that sort of thing even matters to you. But that the school area is empty during spring break is not unusual. It is so, that as a state school, there will be a lot of kids who know each other from degrees of contact and if you are OOS, you can feel a bit left out. Though there is a bit of that with any school, the state schools where the large percentage of kids are in state particularly have this situation.</p>
<p>Also, if you are interested in an active campus, do visit during a weekend and see what the school has going on. Is the campus a draw for the kids or do upperclassmen tend to stay in dispersed off campus housing? Suitcase schools don’t neccesarily mean those where the kids go home on weekends, but where they are off doing their own things and the campus activity level will reflect this. Also whether most of the students live on campus can make the atmosphere of a school quite different from one where the get their own digs.</p>
<p>Do you have some idea what your family need amount is going to be and what a full need met award will look like? As you probably know, the MIT, Stanford and the ivies will not give you any merit money, though some of them will have loan free packages and will define need differently and more generously Where you can do the best financially is at those school where the merit money exceeds definition of need. Do let use know what the different aid amounts are. I’d like to see some comparison among those schools you are awaiting as to how they define need, and how they meet it. Thanks for sharing your journey with us. You have some great choices.</p>
<p>Unicameral, thanks for your report. The campus is definitely interspersed with the city. Sorry that Pitt wasn’t a good fit for you, but you MUST keep us posted and let us know what you finally decide. This is fun!</p>
<p>Thank you so much everyone for the advice and congratulations! I have basically lived on this site for the past year so I’m glad to be able to finally share my own experience. :)</p>
<p>Financially, we’re in a weird situation that I imagine is much more open to interpretation than most other family’s. I’m really hoping to get a couple more acceptances at the end of this month so that I can compare more financial aid offers… I hear that some people have had success getting peer schools to match each others packages so we’ll see. I am pretty much going to be relying on need based aid. For reference our FAFSA efc was about 20,000 per year, but that was inflated because more than half of my parents “income” this year was a massive withdrawal from retirement because of a family emergency. I am also keeping the option of a gap year open, if it appears that next year the finances will be easier to manage.</p>
<p>Anyway, thanks again for the support and I’ll keep you all posted!</p>
<p>Okayyyy… Just got my financial aid package from WUSTL. $8,000 in loans. That’s it. Uhhhhh? Honestly confused that Case Western and Rochester were significantly more generous. 62k/year is completely impossible for my family. I will be calling them since the award was so far off from our FAFSA efc and everything we were expecting, but honestly I’m not hopeful.</p>
<p>Accepted and Considering
MIT - waiting on financial aid
Case Western - COA is ~26000, aid package could increase
University of Rochester - COA is ~36000</p>
<p>No Longer Considering
WUSTL - COA is ~62000, totally unmanageable
University of Pittsburgh
Georgia Tech
University of Alabama</p>
<p>Waiting On
Stanford
Cornell
Princeton
Harvard
Yale</p>