getting over giving up dream school

College Search & Selection
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Any approach can be good as long as it is part of a well thought out plan executed with discipline.

While I don’t agree with MOD’s overall premise, her approach of breaking it down to facts and figures is an important one. If you have MS Excel, there is a loan amortization template that you can plug your own numbers into and see the full effects: payment amounts, balances, and (shockingly to most) interest paid and the amount of time it takes before your monthly payment affects a significant part of the principal. As Einstein famously didn’t say; “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it … he who doesn’t … pays it.”

Debt in and of itself is not a bad thing. It can be a very useful thing. But any plan where you “figure that part out later” is a bad plan. Whatever you decide, think it through before you decide. You have one shot at this decision.

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@MYOS1634 uh his original post says that he wants to major in PPE? is that a Wharton major?

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^ my bad - ppe is sas.

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I only know that I went thru Tufts Medical School when it was the most expensive med school in the US and got an Army HPSP scholarship. I was proud to serve my country and was offered 4 year Army, 4 year Navy and 3 year USAF. I chose Army. I also took out loans and got grants to pay for my undergrad ed.

I’m not cruel. I’m realistic. My parents couldn’t afford my tuition, but I wanted to go and found a way. My viewpoint is valid though I agree not the only one.

But don’t tell me not to dream or that I’m cruel. I found a way, and if I can, anyone can. You hafta have a little persistence though and stop whining.

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@MYOS1634 , yes to you ^^^^^^

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It was med school, not undergrad, and those were different times.

Wanting something badly doesn’t make college affordable.
I’m all for dreams. That’s what I do for a living. I know that for dreams to come true, you need a solid plan.
I’m very happy you found a way - that’s all people here hope for OP. But my guess is that you entered college before 2009, so your ideas don’t apply to this student and 'where there’s a will there’s a way ’ implies that if you want it enough, you’ll make it happen. It’s what adolescents really want to believe, too. That’s how parents get into impossible debt.
So, my remark wasn’t against your experience, but against the hopelessness that comes from believing that if you want it hard enough, you’ll find a way… and then realizing that this does not apply to the way college costs have worked for the past 6-7 years.

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^^We’ll have to disagree. Although I went to college and med school in the 1990s, my niece had the same experience and borrowed money to pay for her education. She is finishing a residency in Radiology. Since the dawn of time, there have been plenty of people like me who came from nothing, have been given nothing, and still found a way. I’d recommend the OP go talk to the financial aid people at Penn and tell them how much he wants to go. Ask what the path is. It will likely be a combination of scholarship, grant, loan and work-study. But they’ll help him make it happen. It happens every day. I have two in college now. I do know what I am talking about.

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OP, I think you are really smart to be thinking about how to get over disappointment and move on. You realize that Penn will put you into debilitating debt. The good news is that you have two excellent universities to choose from! UGA and Georgia Tech are both great schools, and someone pointed out that the honors college is as selective as a top school. Many students turn down Ivy League schools to go to UGA’s honors program.

UGA has the three component majors that make up a PPE program - political science, philosophy, and economics.
They have an honors interdisciplinary major program that you can use to design your own version of PPE at Penn - you can also draw from examples of PPE at other universities. Take what you like, leave what you don’t, and design your own way forward with one or two professors as your guide. The Philosophy Department at UGA has an exchange program with Oxford in which you can go study philosophy there. With the honors program, you get the big university experience with a lot of the benefits of a small close-knit community of honors scholars who are invested in their education.

Georgia Tech doesn’t seem as great a choice for someone with your interests - they have a major in economics and minors in political science, public policy and philosophy. You could major in economics and then minor in one or two of the other fields, or take classes in them all. It’d still be a decent option, especially if you are interested in PPE as applied to technology, innovation, and science.

No, that’s not true. The average salary of a new investment banker with a bachelor’s degree from a top school is around $75,000 base. That’s certainly a lot of money, but OP estimates that she’d have to borrow $140,000 to attend Penn. $75,000 is not enough to reliably repay $140,000 even on a standard 10-year repayment schedule, much less to “crush” it in a few years. That’s not even taking into account that many investment banks are in expensive cities where costs will be higher and disposable income will be lower. And that’s not even accounting to the fact that those jobs are very, very competitive and even a top school degree does not guarantee this.

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@scotlandcalling <<<
end. It is not crazy to borrow 30k for a great education for many people. But on cc, it seems no one pays for college


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Go back and read what we wrote. We said it’s a bad idea to borrow $30k PER YEAR…not $30k total.

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If u are interested in breaking into investment banking then Penn would offer a substantial advantage. You don’t have to be in Wharton, PPE and other majors at Penn are very successful in getting finance jobs too. This could indeed help you pay off the debt faster, and then you can exit I banking like lost people do and do my what you really like to do.

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Ummm… unless someone is clairvoyant, GaTech hasn’t released their EA decisions yet (that happens on Jan 14).

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Military-based options are great for those who want to enter military service. But not all do, and not all who are interested qualify (only about 30% of young people in the US are eligible for US military service these days).

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@juillet

Do you know much about the industry? 75k base? Yeah that’s like half of what you actually get paid when you include signing bonuses and bonuses that go with all the deals. Look at the average total compensation of investment bankers.

For example, I go to UVa and McIntire sends roughly 30% of its class into IB. Avg. total compensation for a first-year right out of undergrad is $145k.

https://www.commerce.virginia.edu/sites/default/files/CCS-Documents/DestinationsReport2016.pdf

Wharton placement is the best there is. Yes living in cities is tough, but you can bag 140k debt quite easily by living frugally (obviously). Also, Penn CAS still gets the same OCR as Wharton, you just have to hustle, stand out, and be able to explain why econ instead of finance.

Plus, Penn is one of the few undergrad schools that gets recruiting from all the MF private equity firms, MBB consulting, etc.

I didn’t say it was a walk in the park. OP would have to hustle, but it certainly is an option, and by going to a top target, OP is as good as position as possible.

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While most people in CC advise on no debt… I’d like to say…no risk, no return. That is the motto for IB anyway. Go for your dream!! Invest in yourself!!

Whether the parents are paying the $120k or OP incurs the debt, it looks like someone has to pay the $120k, when Penn is not budging on financial aid. At the end of day, it is a question about what kind of education, environment you want to have, what kind of people you want to have as classmates and lifetime friends, what kind of network you want to have in the future.

Best of luck!!

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Not if OP goes to one of their other much-cheaper options. That is the point.

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OP, please let us know how this all turns out. If it were me, I would go back to Penn one more time and also go back to my parents one more time and see how much money you can get out of both and then make my decisions. Are there grandparents around who may be able to pitch in?

Also, are there any other out of the box alternatives that you have not looked into? Can you take a gap year and make a bunch of money in heavy construction or something similarly lucrative? While you probably won’t bridge the gap, at least you can make a dent in the first year’s shortfall. Good luck!

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Thank you all for your comments! Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend Penn. The deadline for the confirmation of enrollment is tomorrow and, while we will ask if there are any more options for further appeal, etc, my parents and I had a discussion last night about it and decided it was very improbable that I’ll be able to go there next year. The financial aid officer we had been speaking with was very sympathetic and did tell us that the results of our first appeal were “disappointing” so maybe they will be willing to help us out further but I’m definitely not banking on it. While my parents told me that they would support any decision I made, I ultimately decided that I just don’t want to make the decision to graduate with that much debt when I am so young. It sucks because I’m still very embarrassed/disappointed and there is nothing I want to do more than take out those loans, but I’m hoping everything turns out ok. I really wanted to go to Penn.

On the bright side though, I’m getting a new car as somewhat of a consolation prize, I won’t have to kill myself getting scholarships and second jobs to pay for college, I’ll have a higher standard of living if I attend Tech or UGA since I’ll have more spending money and no loans during my time at either, and I can spend more money on grad school if I choose to go.

I’m already been admitted to UGA Honors and will hear back from Tech on Saturday, so fingers crossed. Out of the two, I definitely prefer Tech so I’m really hoping that I get in.

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Good luck to you, @keepyajessin . Your parents are lucky to have you and I am sure with that attitude you will succeed in whatever you do.

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Oh, a new car is a great consolation prize! Both Atlanta and Athens really require cars to enjoy yourself and be mobile; I went to college in Atlanta and I wished I had a car all the time. Spending money during college is also a great way to have a good time. Atlanta and Athens are both pretty low-cost, but when I was a college student in Atlanta as an upperclassman me and my friends spent a lot of our time off-campus doing various things around the city. With more money, you also have more co-curricular opportunities, like studying abroad or doing a fancy summer program.

I’m curious why you prefer Tech? Genuinely. UGA seems like a better fit for what you want to study than Tech does, although you could get the fundamentals of all those fields through the minors at Tech. At Tech, though, you could use the ARCHE to take PPE courses at nearby universities like Emory (and since you’ll have a car, you can get there easily!)

I am glad that you are being smart about the debt. As others mentioned, maybe you will go to Penn for graduate school? Columbia was my dream college in high school, and I could not afford it. I ended up going there for graduate school. I got to go to Columbia and I incurred very little debt :smiley:

Yes. That is why I specifically said $75,000 base, as you quoted in your post. In fact, the UVa brochure you sent me says exactly that: both the median and the average annual base salary is $72,000. I deliberately and specifically left out additional compensation. A signing bonus is a one-time payment that is also taxed. And annual bonuses are not stable, guaranteed amounts; they are dependent on the performance of the company and of the individual banker. I get a bonus every year in my industry and it varies; you can’t rely on that money to consistently pay off debts, as I learned myself.

I had a longer post written out, but for the sake of shortening it let’s just say that even a new i-banker making $75,000 base, a $15,000 bonus that she puts all towards the loan after taxes, and an average annual bonus of $20,000 is still going to be taking home only around $3,000 a month after taxes and her loan repayment. That’s a paltry sum to live on in a city like New York or Boston - some years I had more than that as a graduate student in New York. If she puts her year-end bonus towards the loans every year, then maybe she pays it down a bit faster - maybe 5-7 years - but then you are disrupting investments, buying a house, saving for a wedding, saving in general, and retirement funding.

It’s not a good choice.

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Good Luck @keepyajessin, There is more than one way to achieve your goals. Remember no school makes you, you make the school!