Dilemma: State School vs. HKUST

Student Lounge International Students
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<p>University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Great ranking for my major though, which is psychology, ranking #9 in some...famous ranking system. I forget. </p>

<p>So here's the thing, I got a really good deal from HKUST, full tuition scholarship = means I only have to pay 10k per year. From UMN I got approx 5k scholarship = I pay 30k per year.</p>

<p>A big UMn pro (for me) is that I started buckling down and getting back on track in junior/senior year BECAUSE I wanted to go back to America. I had a intense homesickness phase back in frosh/soph year where I thought I wouldn't be going back to America for college for some reason, that something would end up stopping me. To be honest, I'm not sure my brain could handle not going to America; it's become a tiny bit of a fixation. It's lessened over the years, but now that what I thought was an irrational phase is rapidly becoming very very possible, I'm sort of panicking.</p>

<p>And also HKUST doesn't really have a psych department, which is really what I want to study.</p>

<p>So UMN has an enormous psychological pro, and I was accepted into Honors.
HKUST has a good financial pro, and #1 ranking in Asia. Prestige is not very important to me, however.</p>

<p>So...WWYD? D:</p>

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<p>I am a European student going to HKUST next year for their business program. I am not sure about how HKUST compares to UMN, but I would not go to HKUST for any social science except economics (they only have the china studies program).</p>

<p>HKUST is located in the financial centre of Asia and will give you unparallelled opportunity to start a business career in Asia and establish a strong network within HK/China. But for paychology? Probably not a good idea. Psychology (assuming you like clinical psych) is clinical and I suppose an Asian business network will of nearly no i portamce if you are in the US</p>

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<p>How badly do you want to study in the US? If the stats that you posted on the other threads are correct, there could be serious merit-based aid for you at some universities a bit further down the prestige scale. Here are two threads that discuss those institutions. Some of this aid is also available to international applicants:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html?highlight=automatic[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html?highlight=automatic&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>If any of those look good to you, but turn out to be places where you’ve missed the cut-off dates for international applicants, consider a gap year.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the replies. I think I’ll end up going to HKUST for Science because of financial costs (10k per year) unless one of my waitlisted schools miraculously offers me some cash.</p>

<p>I’ll probably see you next year, GlobalApplicant.</p>