Decisions...

I got into both JHU and Cornell and I plan on taking the pre-med path. While I kinda like Cornell more, JHU gave me more money (I would only have to pay 25k vs 49k for Cornell). Which should I pick?

Unless the extra 100k is a meaningless amount to your family, go to Hopkins, especially if you hope to go on to med school (very expensive!).

Have you tried appealing at Cornell to get their price down to JHU’s?

JHU for sure…awesome college (as is Cornell) at half the price!

Pre med at Cornell is not for the feint of heart.

JHU is no cakewalk either but paying more for the Ivy brand for premed with jhu as the other option, would not be my choice.

But if you like Cornell better and the extra money for med school isn’t a concern- go to Cornell for sure!

Is the 25k cost of JHU affordable for your family? Start with that.

Thank you all for the responses… So I tried appealing Cornell but they insisted they would only match Ivies or Duke and Stanford… we’re not exactly poor but the extra money drain would definitely be noticeable. but my parents are pretty supportive of me (not to mention they (and i guess me too) are “pretty Asian”) and they are willing to essentially remortgage the house for me and I knew and agreed to the fact that since they aren’t exactly young, I would need to help pay them back somewhere down the line…

Based on the details you’ve offered in post #5, I recommend pretending that JHU will pay you and your family $100,000 if you attend, and Cornell will pay you nothing. That’s basically what will be happening – you will end up with a VERY prestigious degree from JHU, plus $100,000 in your/your family’s pocket. No remortgaged house, no undergrad debt repayment for you down the line… The choice seems clear to me, but you know yourself and your needs better than we do. Good luck with your decision!

@Anson192 Regarding the Asian parents’ mindset and filial responsibilities… $100K is a lot of money for most professional-class families and can be the difference for your parents of retiring in comfort vs. penny pinching in their final years especially if something happens ie. home values fall or their job industry has a downturn and their salary doesn’t keep up or health issues arise, etc. You never know. (I’ve seen this happen to a close friend who attended an Ivy that was really pushing the parents’ finances. A lot of heartache ensued.)

This puts a lot of pressure on you. If you change your mind about being a doctor or don’t get into med school, how much will you and your family regret the extra money paid for your education? Will you feel forced to go into a profession you don’t feel suited for just because of its status/income potential? Will you be happy in that situation? And if you go to med school, your parents will again want to do as much as possible to pay - will you feel pressured choose your specialty with the obligation of repaying your parents in mind? Not that these thoughts aren’t going thru your mind if you attend JHU, but they may weigh more heavily with more debt at Cornell.

Not every Asian family is the same. You know your situation best. But try to have the discussion about expectations with your parents as openly as possible. Is it worth the extra money for the extra expectations? And in the end, is the difference in your college experience between Cornell and JHU going to matter enough to you?

Loans from family, while less financially restrictive, can come with way more emotional baggage depending on the type of relationship you have…

JHU is the easy answer. Do not let your parents “remortgage the house” in order to be able to attend Cornell when you can go to a higher ranked university for $100,000 less.

I agree Johns Hopkins for $100k less is the better choice. Great school, great location.

Congrats!!

I agree with the other posters. Johns Hopkins seems like the best choice. It has a fantastic pre-med program (better than Cornell based on most rankings, although rankings aren’t always very reliable) and is offering you a better financial aid package than Cornell. I don’t think it’s worth having your parents remortgage the house to finance your education (I’m Indian and my parents would probably do the same haha) for almost a meaningless difference in the level of education between the two schools. So, unless you really like Cornell much better (in which case the decision might be slightly more difficult), Johns Hopkins seems like the easy choice.

Remortgaging the house? Do you really want to graduate college knowing you already have that millstone around your neck? What happens if the housing market crashes at some point again and the mortgage value is more than the house is worth? For some mythical gain in prestige of Cornell over JHU? To be blunt, this just isn’t a rational decision, especially with med school on the horizon. You have a fantastic offer from a fantastic college (which, if it matters, is 6 places above Cornell in the USNWR rankings). Take it!