<p>
OP said, “About need based, I don’t think I’m going to get anything.”</p>
<p>So the choice could very well be $50K vs. a free ride (or at worst free tuition).</p>
<p>Hopkins offers merit scholarships to only around 20 freshmen per year - and most of those cover only 1/2 of the cost. Not good odds.</p>
<p>To me, personally, the choice would be which school do I feel that I would be the happiest at. I feel that my satisfaction at a student would go a long way to determine how I would succeed (or not) at a given college. Personally, I despise cold, snowy winters. I would not be able to learn to the best of my ability if I was to go to a school such as Michigan Tech. Also, US News rankings don’t carry as much weight in the real world as most people make it seem.</p>
<p>For example, I was recently offered a full ride to a non-flagship state school where the average ACT score runs about 24. Although it would be free, I did not feel like I would belong with the student body and the prospect of going to a ‘Tier 3’ school just isn’t that appealing to me. I’ve worked hard in high school, and to go to a school that I could have gotten into by taking the last four years easy would make me feel as if I wasted my time.</p>
<p>We are in this exact situation with out son. We are very supportive of him and want the best for him-but we are a family and we can’t spend 50K plus to send him to his dream school. We have been very clear about the financial support he can expect-we will give him 25K a year-the cost if he attends the state school. Anything else is on him. If that seems harsh so be it-what better time to have him start to really learn about the financial realities of life. We have worked hard and saved all our lives and been good parents-but you know what-we also need to be responsible to our other child and to ourselves. Do you have any idea what kind of money parents need to save so they can afford to live after retirement? I don’t think kids have any idea about that-it is something they should be made aware of. To you it may seem like your parents have limitless resources-they probably don’t.</p>
<p>I respect my son for his hard work and efforts. I respect you as well-and for all the students I read about on here who work hard and are very good kids. However, the reality is schools at the “elite” level are not going to give much if any merit aid.</p>
<p>I think is you expand your search from the schools you mentioned you may find other very good schools that would give you good merit aid packages. That is what my son is doing. He loves Cornell but after running the numbers he wonders if it is worth the $25K that would come out of his pocket per year-versus going to a very good school that frankly is almost the equal of Cornell but where he could probably go for 30K v. 50K. He also could never get loans even approaching that-he’d have to borrow it from us.</p>
<p>You would be surprised at how many schools have the Honors Program like Pitt where you would be very challenged-I know I have come to find many schools not in the “elite” category where my son would be very comfortable academically for a lot less money.</p>
<p>My family is in the exact same situation as Pepper03. I’ve told my D that we’ll provide funding up to $25K per year. With a ACT 34 and NMSF status, D has shifted her primary college search to schools with substantial merit aid. She is currently at our kitchen counter finishing up the Chancellor’s scholarship application for PITT. She’s received the full tuition scholarship also and is hoping for the full ride. If she received the full ride, there is a 95% chance that she’ll attend PITT. She really liked the school during our visit this summer. As many of you have suggested however, she will still apply to some reach schools (Yale, Stanford, Princeton); although she recognizes that they will probably not provide the aid that she’d need in order to attend. D is looking at 7+ years of school and understands that a debt-free undergraduate education is very important for her financial future. If she doesn’t use the $25K/year for undergrad, she has those funds available for grad school. ferrariman610, I recommend that you keep PITT on your list of strong possibilities!</p>
<p>How much time do you have to respond to the Pitt offer? If you have until May 1st, then apply anywhere you want and wait for April 1st to compare packages. If the other schools SERIOUSLY lack in giving you aid, then yeah, Pitt it is. But most of these schools have great FA plans, so maybe you’ll be fine either way. Best of luck !</p>
<p>I live in an area which may have the highest concentration of engineers. Guess what, their salaries are based on talent…not what school they went to. So, whether they went to GT, Vandy, Alabama, Miss St. Purdue, Auburn, or wherever makes no difference in their starting salaries…they all start around the same salaries. Their raises and promotions also have nothing to do with where they went to undergrad; those increases are determined by performance.</p>
<p>So, imagine how frustrating it would be to be paying a chunk of your salary every year for 10 LONG years towards big loans while your colleagues without burdensome loans get to use their money towards buying a new home, investments, etc.</p>
<p>My son faced similar situation two years ago. He ended up taking the merit scholarship route and attended ASU’s Barrett Honors College. He got a paid summer internship after his freshman year and then another one after his sophomore year. Now in his junior year, he has gotten two summer internships offer with the better one paying him over $4000 a month with relocation all pay for including free summer housing. He has gotten an excellent education so far at ASU. I do not believe he can do any better by attending any of the higher rank colleges that admitted him. He will be debt free when he graduates in 2012. Pitt is a great school and you can certainly get a very good education over there. Do not be blind sided by the prestigious factor.</p>
<p>mom2college…I am the HR Director of an Engineering heavy high tech company. We have absolutely no salary adjustment based on the school you attended. Granted, we are in Indiana, and are blessed to have tons of Purdue and Rose engineers, but I have hired kids from Cornell and Harvard and Georgia Tech, etc…and their salaries all started at the same place. The thing I would tell an engineering student is…go wherever you are going and make good grades…because unless your GPA is at least a 3.0 when you graduate…you’re going to have a tough time getting the invite for the interview.</p>
<p>Pitt’s offer is good until May 1 so OP has time to decide. There are PLENTY of very smart students at Pitt who have turned down more “prestigious” schools. </p>
<p>Once again, I would agree with the above posters – graduating debt-free is nothing to sneeze at! I have colleagues who are still carrying over $80,000 in debt for their undergrad education degree and they have been teaching for years! It is not a fun thing to be still paying your student loans when you have been working for over 10 years. At the very least, the monthly payment could be going into their savings, retirement or college funds for their kids.</p>
<p>debrockman:</p>
<p>*mom2college…I am the HR Director of an Engineering heavy high tech company. We have absolutely no salary adjustment based on the school you attended. *</p>
<p>Right…thanks for agreeing with me. :)</p>
<p>Now, if all the kids who think that they’re going to start at higher salaries because they went to Pricey U could read this. They might not agree to taking on big debt.</p>
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<p>“She” and nope, I didn’t go to Pitt (I actually went to a lower ranked school) ;).</p>
<p>OP, I think there are a lot of positives to going to a school where you have a full tuition or full ride scholarship, not the least of which are reducing the financial pressure on yourself and your family and having a bit more leewaY on educational and extracurricular “extras” (e.g., unpaid internships, Greek life, etc) in addition to the obvious benefits of graduating debt-free. Granted, I know this isn’t the best choice for every student, but it worked well for me and for many others on CC.</p>
<p>In fact, when I met with a big name professor at my grad school recently, he had nothing but praise for the work my undergraduate research advisor and co-workers do. Additionally, I think being a big fish in a small pond (though I definitely wasn’t the “biggest fish” at my undergrad university–I was surprised and impressed by the caliber of a lot of my classmates there, even though I was technically in the top 3% or so percent of incoming students) can help with getting opportunities. For example, I’m one of only two people in my cohort who has published–and the only one who has published a journal article, AFAIK–and it’s opened a lot of doors to be able to come in with that sort of experience.</p>
<p>All of MIT, Hopkins, Cornell, Harvard, Stanford, U Penn, UC Berkely, Wash U are reaches with your stats, most of them serious reaches. Substantial merit money would be extremely unlikely, maybe only at Wash. You need a few more options at a tier below for safeties, and also where solid merit money might be possible. Of course, Pitt is a fine school, and if you hit that full ride, you need to seriously consider how great that is.</p>
<p>I know I haven’t been good about looking at this thread, but I thought I should at least post an update:</p>
<p>I got accepted to most of my schools, including Cornell, Hopkins, Wash U, Berkley, Pitt, and Drexel. I got rejected from Harvard, MIT, and Stanford, but I wasn’t really upset.</p>
<p>Like I originally posted, I got almost NO financial aid. Most schools offered me a few loans, a couple of which were subsidized. Cornell was the most generous, giving me a $1,000/year grant. Other than that, everything was loans.</p>
<p>I’m almost positively going to Pitt, and plan on kicking butt there. I will definitely be going to grad school, most likely for an MD/PhD. My dream is to attend the Harvard/MIT MD/PhD program, but I will most likely be reapplying to similar schools as I did for undergrad (i.e. Hopkins, Cornell, Stanford, UC, etc), with the addition of U Penn (which I ended up not applying to for undergrad). </p>
<p>Do you think that by going to Pitt, I will be increasing or decreasing my chances of getting into one of these programs?</p>
<p>Pitt will not keep you out of any of those programs. </p>
<p>What will get you into those programs is your own effort as reflected in your grades, course selection, internships, research experiences, paid employment, publications, etc. and the letters of recommendation from your professors and work supervisors.</p>
<p>Going to Pitt for pre-med will NOT keep you from going to a top med school. Kick hiney, do research, and ace the MCAT.</p>
<p>Our best to you.</p>
<p>Similar Dillema…</p>
<p>UT Austin for 50K or U of D for 20K for Chemical Engineering.</p>
<p>I am still deciding.</p>
<p>UT is better everything but is expensive. However, I’ve heard of cases where OOS students received instate tuition after making some efforts. I shall look more into it.
Also, If i do well enough in my freshman year, I may be qualified for some scholarships…</p>
<p>So…I’m deciding…</p>
<p>UT Austin (risky financially) 4th rank
or
U of Delaware (cheap) 9th rank (the rank is misleading since the high rank comes from the fact that Dupont is giving a lot of fund to the university…)</p>
<p>Wish me luck and Good luck to you!</p>
<p>If you go to UT Austin and either (1) get a scholarship from the school worth as least 1000 or (2) work 20 hours a week, you’ll be qualified for in-state tuition. Don’t really count on (1) though, it’s extremely hard to get those 1000 scholarships but (2) is quite do-able. I know 3 friends from the school who are able to cut tuition down to only half. There are some limitations and the exact figures may not be as I quote, but the principle is the same.</p>
<p>UT is NOT worth $50k per year…unless your parents have lots of money and don’t mind spending it. If attending UT requires big loans, then it’s a really bad idea.</p>
<p>UD is fine…go there.</p>
<p>Are you pre-med? If so, do not spend that much on undergrad…save your money for med school. Ranking won’t matter at all.</p>