FSU vs. UM vs. OSU vs. USC vs. LSU

College Search & Selection
21

@rjkofnovi “With all due respect” You are nothing but disrespectful. I never compared UGA to Michigan the same way I never said that OSU was the more well rounded school vs Michigan (You did not read the whole post) … But while we are at it, UGA happens to be an excellent school and one that many would be very proud to attend. As public Universities, both UGA and OSU are highly ranked and many of their programs are tops. including some within the Business Schools.

Having said all of that, you are right Georgia is not Michigan. But to imply that Georgia it is not an excellent school. They are much closer than you think. Many people end up turning down Michigan for the simple fact that it is not worth $60K a year for an undergrad degree (OOS) The fact that you have been around these boards for a long time, does not mean that you need to be condescending.

22

Direct admit to Ross at Michigan is a significant achievement. However, it is easy to understand your desire to study elsewhere in a warmer climate.

I think that you really need to trust yourself & your family in making this decision. Much depends upon where you’re at mentally at this stage of life. Are you really into academics or do you want to let loose & party ?

23

pbmcdoug - Congrats on your direct admission to Ross. I see you are very interested in Honors and IB at USC. My son chose USC last year over some higher ranked schools (Indiana -Honors and Kelly direct, OSU - Honors and Fisher direct, Case Western, Miami - Ohio Honors and Farmer, and several others). We are from New England and he applied to mid-west and southern schools because he wanted a different experience. He ultimately chose USC based on a combination of feel/fit, merit scholarship (goal - no undergraduate debt for him or us-we are in the middle- too much for FA too little to pay $45 - $70K per year without debt), SEC sports, school spirit and community. He was not selected for the HC at USC ( I think his essays were not his best effort) but he did get Capstone and applied and was accepted to IB in the cohort program. You can apply for the cohort program now, even without knowing if you get into the HC and I see that they are having a webinar to describe it on Feb 6th. the link is https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/moore/academic_programs/undergraduate_programs/undergraduate_majors/international_business/international_business_curriculum/cohort_programs/index.php

Please note that he became interested in the IB program only after orientation and scoring well on the USC language placement test. He applied after the preferred deadline but was considered and accepted none the less. You are way ahead on this. He is very happy at USC. Good luck with your choices. There is no single correct decision. You have a host of good options that you have earned and you have the opportunity to choose among your very good options. Best of luck.

24

" My son chose USC last year over some higher ranked schools (Indiana -Honors and Kelly direct, OSU - Honors and Fisher direct, Case Western, Miami - Ohio Honors and Farmer, and several others)."

…but not over Ross, which is my point.

25

“Having said all of that, you are right Georgia is not Michigan. But to imply that Georgia it is not an excellent school. They are much closer than you think. Many people end up turning down Michigan for the simple fact that it is not worth $60K a year for an undergrad degree (OOS) The fact that you have been around these boards for a long time, does not mean that you need to be condescending.”

I apologize for appearing to be “condescending” but someone has to interject some semblance of reality here. The OP is NOT out of state for Michigan, so your comment about not being worth 60K a year is not pertinent. Furthermore, not all good schools are “excellent.” In the world of business, to obtain that all important first job in a prestige driven industry, where you go to school makes a definite difference. The Michigan Ross name will give the OP a leg up over the other schools mentioned.

26

@rjkofnovi Nobody here is arguing that Michigan is not perceived as the better school. All the posters get that including the original poster. We are all alluding to the fact that many have the desire to go out state and by doing so, they are bypassing whatever “excellent” choices they have. For my us it is UGA and for this poster, it is Michigan. This is not a matter of UGA being better than Michigan. Keep in mind,the better school does not always translate into the better fit.

Based on all the choices the OP currently has, The University of Michigan is the obvious choice. However, the University of South Carolina IB program is tops. If he is able to get into this selective program and he works hard, he will be successful.

No shame here:

“Companies that have hired recent Moore School international business graduates include
Accenture, Amazon, Bank of America, Barclays Investment Bank, BMW, Boeing, Booz Allen
Hamilton, Coca-Cola, Deloitte Consulting, Deutsche Bank, Ernst & Young, IBM, Integration
Point, Johnson & Johnson, JP Morgan Chase, Manhattan Associates, McKinsey & Co.,
Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Nestle, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Wells Fargo.
According to a recent USC Career Center survey, the average starting
salary for Moore School international business graduates is $64,114.”

27

In any case OP should apply for a cohort program that matches his/her interests at USC Moore, just in case :).

28

As someone who grew up in metro-Detroit and went to UM I want to reinforce that attending UM as a student is completely different from growing up 20 minutes away. Ann Arbor truly is 26 square miles surrounded by reality. There is no other place in Michigan like it, and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s far enough away that your parents aren’t going to just “drop by”. It’s big enough that you are not going to have to worry about running into classmates from high school all the time. I honestly think you can have the same social experience at UM than you can have at USC but with the convenience of being close to home IF you need to be.

I was in a similar situation as the OP and had similar dreams growing up and ultimately could not turn down UM when looking at the situation objectively. It would be nice if we could all “follow our heart” and do whatever the heck we wanted to all the time. But that is not how life works. This is your first real “business decision” and when you look at the Xs and Os I think your decision is an easy one.

What do you honestly know about international business? What if you decide you want to be in investment banking? What if you don’t want to do business at all? You are going to be in much better shape at Michigan because it is a top school across the board and it comes at an incredibly low sticker price for you. If you do ultimately decide to go for USC I would strongly recommend you to bargain for more money. Also keep in mind that even though USC looks a bit cheaper on paper, when you add in moving expenses, flights home for the holidays etc. it will probably be a wash.

Best of luck!

29

“Based on all the choices the OP currently has, The University of Michigan is the obvious choice.”

Agreed

30

If I had a kiddo in your shoes - Michigan would get my vote.

31

@pbmcdoug I hear ya, my D is also struggling with staying so very close to home and attending Michigan, or going away. She has cut some options as they are just too expensive (Univ of Miami, Wisconsin). But she is still debating Tulane (her favorite) and a couple others. None are cheaper than Michigan (like your choices), so kudos to you!
It seems like either school is a good choice for you, and they are affordable. You have worked hard, done your research, and now have a nice problem - picking from two places you could see yourself.

I do know many students at Michigan who grew up close by. They realize AFTER they get on campus as freshmen that it is far different than walking around AA as a high school kid. Tell your parents you can’t see them until Thanksgiving. You can’t go home on weekends. Just don’t. Don’t room with people from your high school. Get the full experience as if it were a far away campus. Michigan is an amazing place - if you take advantage of the great opportunities.

But only you (and your parents) can make this decision. If my kid had done the research and gotten the merit aid to bring it down in price, I would let her consider SC. If she visited, attended a couple of classes and spent at least one night in a visit program…and still loved it…I would most likely let her go. One size does not fit all, and Michigan alone does not guarantee success. You are in the driver’s seat for that.

Good luck to you!

32

While I can see your desire to go out of state, you should look at this beyond the next four years. What will most likely get you to your goal without a ton of debt? You likely know that answer. Also, any high school student is still at a rather young age and should seriously take the advise of parents.

33

Totally agree with wayneandgarth.

Certain areas of business (e.g. investment banking and management consulting) are extremely prestige-oriented and Ross is on a very short list of places outside of the Ivy/Ivy-equivalents that are targets for such areas. The other schools that you’ve listed simply aren’t on that list (even if you managed to get into honors-type programs there). As a result, from a professional and academic perspective, Ross is clearly the best of your choices by the far and over 55% of the undergrads in that school there are paying out-of-state tuition for the privilege and advantages of being there. The fact that you would be able to get all of that at an in-state tuition price is arguably one of the best returns on investment that you could receive on a college degree from ANYWHERE in the country.

While I sympathize with the desire to get out-of-state, I think one of the biggest mistakes that I see with high school students is getting worried about how “too many of my classmates” are going to a certain school (such as their home state flagship) and then bypassing what might be a better academic choice (and very often a better financial choice). Take it from someone that went to my in-state Big Ten flagship and had over 80 people from my high school class come with me at the same time: I never saw ANY of those people unless I actually proactively wanted to do so since the student population alone is the size of a good-sized city. Michigan has an even larger out-of-state student population and Ross specifically actually has a majority of its students from out-of-state (as noted above), so it’s one of the most nationalized student bodies that you’ll see at any public university. Once you get on campus, it IS going to be very much a bubble that will make that 20 mile distance from home feel like it’s 2000 miles (especially in a place with as many amenities as Ann Arbor). On the flip side, the other public flagships that you’re looking generally have 80%-90% in-state students with all having higher in-state enrollment percentages than Michigan, so you’d be on the opposite side where it may feel like everyone is from the same handful of towns that you have no association with.

Finally, it would be different if you were comparing Michigan to a school like, say, Duke or Emory that is substantially different in terms of size or character. In those instances, I could see where school fit becomes more important. However, you’re looking at other out-of-state flagships that aren’t going to feel much different than Michigan in terms of size and culture (outside of Ann Arbor having a much more intellectual atmosphere compared to those other choices).

As a result, this seems to be more of an emotional choice of wanting to get away for the sake of getting away. I also see that your family all appear to be Wolverines, so this might be a case of wanting to forge a separate identity and using a different college choice to do so. Those are all valid emotions and feelings.

However, as hard as it might be, just picture where you actually want to be in 4 years. Going to Ross is one of the few places outside of the Ivy League and Ivy-equivalents that will allow you to work in every place in the country and you don’t have to worry about being in the top 1% of your class to get there. Wall Street hoovers up Ross grads and, to the extent that they don’t go to Wall Street, they get hired en masse in places like Chicago, Silicon Valley and pretty much every Fortune 500 company anywhere. The other schools on your list are significantly more regionalized… and that matters a ton in the business arena. If you were looking to be an engineer or wanted to head into a profession that required more schooling (such as medicine or law), then sure, taking lower tuition at a lower-ranked school could make a lot of sense. That’s not the case with the business field, though. Prestige rules in the particular area that you’re looking at and there really is a huge difference between the opportunities that would be open to you at Ross compared to everywhere else.

That’s all just my opinion based on what you’ve written here. No matter what, good luck to you on your decision.

34

I have been accepted into both Ross and the USC honors college. It is down to these two.

35

Are you any further in your reflexions?

36

@MYOS1634 Not yet! I had campus day at Umich and Ross on Friday, and will visit USC in early April. Probably won’t be able to decide until then!

37

Yes, that’s wise - do an overnight, attend a few classes, line up and sit in the cafeteria to eat the food but also talk with students, read the campus paper, go to the gym and the library, hang out in the dorm lounge.
Take copious notes of your impressions, including gut feelings and straight up narratives (to read and review later).
Did you feel comfortable? When you were uncomfortable was it in a way that excluded you or a way that made you feel you had to step out of your comfort zone? Did you feel intellectually challenged? Did the classes stretch you and were the students enthusiastic/passive/ something in between? Did you like your environment and surroundings?

38

I have decided that I will attend the University of South Carolina! Go Gamecocks!

39

Congratulations! Can you explain, for future readers, how you made that decision, what made you hesitate, any family factors, what sealed it?

40

Yes! I thought about it a lot over the last month, visited Umich since it is so close and talked to a lot of people. The only thing drawing me to Michigan was the ranking and name. I live 20 minutes away, grew up a Michigan fan, both parents went there, and I have two sisters there now. I really really wanted to do my own thing and try something new. All of that being said, I really wanted to go out of state. I found South Carolina, loved the campus and overall vibe I got from visiting. They offered generous scholarships which made going out of state affordable, and actually a bit cheaper than Michigan. On top of all of that, they have a terrific business school (and international business program) and honors college which intrigued me. When I thought a lot about it, I realized that I could see myself being much happier at SC. It offered a good price, great school spirit, and great academics in what interested me (maybe not as high as Michigan, but I just liked it better). My family definitely pushed Michigan, but everyone else I talked to said they had never seen anyone love as school as much as I seemed to like SC! @MYOS1634

I also thought about where I would possibly get a job after college. I know Michigan would open more opportunities all over the country, but I wouldn’t mind living in the southeast in places like Charlotte or Atlanta.