Drexel is infamously known to be the most expensive school in the country.

<p>Huh, it was always free before, I have three admission letters all free. I applied for a PHD too and that was free as well. When I applied the second time to Drexel, I had 14 As, 3 B+s, and a B at community college in my field of study and at the college I transferred to had all As (graduated Summa Cum Laude) and I got an $8000 a year scholarship. Grad school I got nothing. despite having a 3.95 average and did an internship with a former adjunct professor there.</p>

<p>Anyhow if your specs aren’t spectacular and want a leg up after graduation because of your co-op experience Drexel may be for you and you may justify the cost and amount of debt. After calculating my debt, I considered it unacceptable but it maybe for you if your parents have the money to pay for it. Nobody is turning down MIT to go to Drexel, no matter what anyone says. </p>

<p>What I think though is that if you want to have a competitive edge and MIT or Stanford aren’t admitting you, then you need to pay the piper. I am sure you here about those full scholarships but they don’t happen often. Princeton and Penn on the other hand have a no loan financial aid policy for tuition but have no merit aid. Just be aware of what you are getting into before you sign up for it. Know what loans you are signing up for, how much your payments are going to be after graduation, and how much interests is accruing on those private student loans where the interest rates can be as high as a credit card if interest rates go higher. As I said though if you can swing it financially it may be for you but just know they are known as a high cost, high debt college.</p>

<p>That is too bad the application is no longer free. At least before you could see what merit scholarship you would get and what financial aid you were going to be awarded before making a decision. Of course they ended up with a much lower percentage of people that are admitted that actually attend because of that.</p>

<p>^^^^^I know a full pay family whose son got into Penn but he is going to Drexel. Penn just cost too much for his family. I also know an engineer who could’ve gone to Drexel for free but instead went into debt up to his eyeballs to go to Cornell. He wishes he’d taken the free ride at Drexel - he talks about it all the time. Biggest regret of his young life. (I think he’s about 25). </p>

<p>I guess we all have those “people we know” and exceptions to the case. For full pay families, someone may choose Drexel since they award merit scholarships. Penn does not have this. Penn of course looks better on CV since it is an Ivy League school and most students given a choice are going to choose an Ivy League college over Drexel. It also really depends on what they are studying as well. Not too many people turning down Wharton for Drexel but Drexel has a good library science program. For those families that require financial aid or those non-traditional students over 23 requiring financial aid, Penn would be the obvious choice over Drexel. The complaints about Drexel’s cost are mostly about their notoriously bad financial aid which they are rather embarrassed about since it is difficult to get information regarding it. But these are all factors when determining right school is right for you. </p>

<p>On another note, I would not be worrying about what “the people you know” are doing but what you are doing and the choices you have. I would have picked the free ride given the choice (I actually did for my undergrad, borrowing very little). Was this a financial aid student? Although I am not familiar with Cornell’s aid, most Ivy League colleges have generous financial aid and have the means to provide it. As I stated, I received $8000 a year for Drexel, they stated because I was transfer student and they consider that “part of my scholarship”. For my master’s they offered nothing, despite graduating Summa Cum Laude from a college in Michigan. They were not familiar with the college, but nobody at that college knew who Drexel was or their reputation when I asked.</p>

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<p>I think it’s a mistake not to learn from what the people around us are doing. We are a full pay family, but we can’t come up with the full amount without some serious lifestyle adjustment or borrowing. Truth be told, most everyone in our neighborhood is in the same boat. Parents of teens compare notes all the time. Although it’s not yet reflected in the common data sets, full pay families are starting to choose the Drexels of the world over the Ivy League. Reason being, their kids can graduate from Drexel with little or no loans as opposed to 60k to 80k from a top tier no merit granting school. </p>

<p>Back a few years ago, massive undergrad debt was a risk people were willing to take - parents assumed they themselves would still have good jobs and would be able to help their kids pay back those loans when the time came and they also assumed their kids would get good jobs coming from the prestige school. Neither of those assumptions is a safe bet anymore. </p>

<p>As far as the Cornell kid goes, I think he was expected to pay about 30k per year. He had also gotten into Princeton who had offered him a slightly more generous FA package, but since he was going for engineering, he thought Cornell was a better bet. The problem was that he and his parents combined really only had about 10k total per year to spare on his education. </p>

<p>And while I don’t know anyone who has turned down MIT for Drexel, I do in fact know someone who turned down MIT for Pitt’s Honor College. It was a cost issue. It was a full pay family who looked at Pitt’s tuition and saw a bargain. I also know lots of full pay folks who have turned down other great, but expensive schools (Carnegie Mellon, Penn, Cornell, Princeton) because those schools offered them little or no merit. Those kids ended up at schools like Penn State and Pitt but also schools that are merit heavy for high stats, like Drexel and Northeastern.</p>

<p>You’re right that nobody would turn down Cornell or Penn for Drexel if the costs were the same. But for most families with high stats kids, that’s rarely the case. Either you qualify for FA, and Cornell and Penn are bargains OR you don’t qualify for FA, and Drexel’s the bargain.</p>

<p>Cost is a big deal when it comes to college. Yes, a relative turned down Cornell for Drexel a couple of years ago. Though he numbers on the fin aid apps were such that he did not get any financial aid other than loans and work study from any of the schools that give only need based money, the family was having trouble financially and for the parents to borrow to meet the top dollar costs was not advisable He got a nice award from Drexel, and they had a program that really interested him to boot, and he wanted internshjps. He did live in their housing freshman year but has been commuting from home to save even more money since then–a stretch of a commute but doable and he has found some coop opportunities that have worked out well. This has been a win-win situation for him, and given that it’s been such a perfect fit with him so loving what he is doing, I don’t know if Cornell even would have been the preferred choice if the family could have easily afforded it. He really prefers the format of this college life, and Cornell is more traditional. He wasn’t that hep on Cornell anyways and it was a considered choice due to its prestige, not because of anything in particular he liked about the school. </p>

<p>Some kids are done with traditional classes and schools by the time they are through with high school, and it truly suits them more to be in a whole other environment than the traditional college one. Drexel offers something a little bit different. </p>

<p>So it sounds like Drexel is best suited for those that make too much money for financial aid but want a cost reduction. It also sounds like nobody should complain about the cost of Drexel or the amount of loans they have as they attend there to have a jump over others. According to one source, they have the most expensive real cost in the nation. This also depends on what you study. Cornell is ranked 6th for computer science where Drexel is ranked toward the bottom, 99th tied with several other colleges. Employers know this. In addition you have the alumni networks available and prestige of having a Ivy League degree. It is true, the prestigious colleges don’t give merit aid, only need based. Drexel is also relatively easy to get in. </p>

<p>Sounds like the co-op wont matter much after everyone else gets a year or two experience in addition to any summer internships in college. I would hope that someone would know more about their field after graduation than when they are a sophomore. Since I would have been a transfer student if I had attended, I would have only been able to do one 6 month co-op if and the length of it would depend on when I found one. I refused to take out private student loans to cover costs.</p>

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<p>Two years after graduation, it won’t matter where you went to college for computer science. Nobody in IT cares where you went to school, they care about what you can do.</p>

<p>And you are very wrong about co-ops being a waste of time. Over the years, I’ve hired Drexel co-ops. And yes, they do the jobs nobody in my department wanted to do. Sometimes that’s grunt work, but other times, it’s a win/win situation. If my co-op was competent, he was generally the one who did the travelling. (Family people typically prefer not to travel, and for most of the co-ops it’s exciting to fly to another city and stay in a hotel). But the best perk to being a co-op is that if his work is outstanding, very often he has a permanent job offer waiting for him. If he ends up going elsewhere, he’s had one heck of a reference - his co-op has given him the opportunity to network. These days, a job at graduation, a great reference, and knowing people in your field are worth their weight in gold. </p>

<p>It wasn’t that long ago, that Northeastern was considered a mediocre school. Thanks in large part to its co-op program, it is now a hot school. Georgia Tech (also a big co-op college) is also a hot school. I believe that Drexel is headed the same way. In this tight jobs environment, people want to be making solid connections in the business world before they graduate and a well established co-op program is a fine way to do that.</p>

<p>Both my kids applied to schools without looking at the “MSRP sticker price”. What mattered for us was the FA package with merit $$, FA etc. Drexel was generous, however, the “net” was comparable to other schools of similar caliber. The co-op was big draw for us. However , we failed to fully consider how Co-op and the quarter system limits summer and study-abroad expiernces. You’ll only have one summer vacation to earn that extra spending $$. Co-op income will be indexed into your FA calculations. </p>

<p>Being an independent college counselor I can verify that more and more of my full pay famiies are choosing schools that offer signifigant merit dollars. They do well there and then go on to great grad schools using the same system they used for their undergraduate degrees. In the past few years I have had students turn down Penn, Yale, Williams, Hopkins, and Carnegie in favor of Drexel and Northeastern (National Merit Scholars and Merit), U of Pitt Honors (merit), Penn State Schryers, and Temple Honors! As a counselor, I think it’s wise to have a student of a full pay family be aware of the financial opportunities early on in the game for them. It certainly motivates the family/student to concentrate on their GPA and focus on preparing for standardized tests. I look at it as an exciting time for education as top kids are looking beyond the same 12 schools. The question I ask of families in this situation is: would you rather graduate debt free from a great school or have debt from an Ivy? The answer to that is changing rapidly. Just some food for thought as I happened upon this thread while keeping tabs on CC buzz! Best of luck to all. </p>