<p>The difference in this case is $1,002 a month minimum every month for 10 years. Or, put it another way, there goes the mortgage payment. (Last time I looked, "prestige" didn't come with a roof.)</p>
<p>But how many of these people who said that it was the "highlight of my life, and I met all of my closest friends there, and i loved every minute of it, and I would never, ever change a thing and I don't regret one second of it" felt that they were selling themselves short and had the chance to go to a university that is more prestgious and would offer a better intellectual atmosphere?</p>
<p>Also, a lot of those people who say that are probably bitter that they didn't get into their top choices, but they don't want to sound bitter.</p>
<p>
[quote]
we started dropping need-based loans for low/middle-income families, or that's what finaid.cornell.edu webpage is telling me. so you will graduate debt-free
[/quote]
First of all, the OP already said his family didn't qualify for need-based aid (therefore they must be high-income). Regardless, there seems to be a fairly common misconception on these boards that if a college doesn't give a person loans in their financial aid award, they won't have to take out any loans at all. For upper middle class families, what usually happens is that the family doesn't qualify for financial aid or barely qualifies for financial aid, and has about a sizable (in this case, $20,000) gap between what they can pay and what the school thinks they can pay. Technically, the school has met the person's full demonstrated need because methodologies like FAFSA use an extremely outdated formula. </p>
<p>Anyway, OP, it really depends on what you want to do after college. If you want to go into a line of work where it's nearly impossible to get recruited out of a school like UMD, CMU might have been the better option. These same fields usually tend to be the ones that pay the best, so the debt would probably be manageable. On the other hand, if you want to go straight to graduate school, you should go to the school where you will not graduate with any debt since graduate schools don't discriminate against schools with lower admissions standards. No one will care where you went for undergraduate once you go to graduate school by the way.</p>
<p>You could try contacting CMU to see if they will still take you. If they won't, you'll simply have to make the most out of UMD and possibly try transferring after freshman year. If they will, you could also try to squeeze some more money out of your parents by asking if they will tap into their home equity.</p>
<p>igellar/ totally missed part when he said that he wasn't qualified for fin-aid. ppl kept mentioning 80,000 debt, and i thought if he has to graduate w/ that much debt, his family must be low-income. my mistake.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This has to be one of the best posts I've seen in a long time and is certainly worth rereading for the OP.</p>
<p>And this:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Plus, the prestige could come in handy sometime, and you'll feel confident and good about yourself.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Is a blatant lie. Once you're out of your undergrad, nobody will care where you went to school unless they went there too. In that case, UMD might be an even better bet since I'm sure they've got a good sized alumni network. I've met two people outside of Pittsburgh that went to CMU, but I've met many times that many that went to Penn State, UIUC, Michigan, Ohio State, and other large publics. And, even then, a good many thought I was talking about Central Michigan University when I said CMU, so prestige is quite difficult to gauge.</p>
<p>just go to mellon.</p>
<p>remember, a college experience is PRICELESS.</p>
<p>You seem to really like Mellon and you seem like a smart person who wants to be surrounded by other smart people wo you can interact with.</p>
<p>Don't sell yourself short.</p>
<p>Money is NOT everything.</p>
<p>I would gladly give 500,000 dollars if it meant having a great college experience.</p>
<p>colelge if supposed to e the best 4 years of your life.</p>
<p>high school was ok, but you had to take all these required courses you don't care about.</p>
<p>adulthood is nice, but it's just not the same.</p>
<p>go to the college you want to go to most, and that appears to be mellon.</p>
<p>How many years out of college are you, jmanco?</p>
<p>negative 6.</p>
<p>i'm gonna be a senior.</p>
<p>Alright, just thought the original poster should be aware of that when weighting the advice they've been receiving in this thread. You know, a CMU alumni vs. a high school senior.</p>
<p>Your choice: Go to UMCP and make the most of it or try to get elsewhere by transferring (or maybe going back to CMU, though isn't it too late for that option?). I think to maintain your sanity, you should move forward at UMCP assuming you are going to transfer. Do what it takes to be able to transfer -- get really good grades and otherwise be involved. DON'T tell your peers at UMCP you are going to transfer. There is a thread here -- or several -- about how miserable people made themselves by doing so. People wouldn't be their friends, etc.</p>
<p>After a semester or a year if you still want to transfer, then you will have had the right approach. Chances are, though, you'll realize you are happy where you are. And meanwhile, you will have been really focused on doing well and being a good student. You can't lose.</p>
<p>And now for a little lecturing: the world will throw at you many instances in which people are better than you or have more than you. Your happiness will come from building your own life and not comparing yourself to others.</p>
<p>From my standpoint, you would have been idiotic to choose Carnegie Mellon. The best way to make sure that you realize this is to pursue something you really want and like that makes you realize how much you would have given up by going to CMU and going into hock. If you do well at UMCP and end up staying there having done really well, you'll have a lot of good graduate schools to choose from assuming that's a direction you might want to go, for instance. Trust me, at that point you will be ecstatic if you aren't looking forward to being in grad school with tens of thousands in debt already racked up.</p>
<p>
[quote]
negative 6.</p>
<p>i'm gonna be a senior.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Someone who has never worked to support himself or who has worked little as the majority of high school seniors have is much more likely to adopt a "go to the college of your choice at all cost" position.</p>
<p>I still think she should go to Mellon</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>jmanco49: One strong principle of happiness is to accept what's past and move on with a plan to remedy anything that may ill. So far as I know, it's too late to go to Mellon, no? So, let's move on.</p>
<p>i say she just take a year off and apply for HYPMS and pray that she gets into at least one of them.</p>
<p>that will make all of us happy.</p>
<p>I think she shouldve gone to Mellon.</p>
<p>I think that she should go to the school she's admitted to and not get into debt.</p>
<p>It doesn't really matter where you went to undergrad.</p>
<p>If you go a community college and then harvard law school, the big h is all thta's gonna matter</p>
<p>My borther and sister-in-law both transferred to BU after 1st years elsewhere. They met at BU, had plenty of friends at BU,and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. So if you decide to change, I wouldn't worry about not fitting in.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I went to school about 1/2 hour from home. I "got away" going to a graduate program a few states away. Loved the program, loved the experience. You, too can "get away" in graduate school. Just concentrate on doing well whether you decide to stay or go.</p>
<p>Shoulda woulda couldhaves are very common during the summer between the end of high school and the start of college. Actually, shoulda woulda couldhaves are common whenever people make a major decision, whether its deciding who to marry, buying a new car, or changing jobs.</p>
<p>Here are some of the reasons the shoulda-would-couldhaves crop up. For some people, all of the reasons might apply. For others, there may be one main reason. It's important to figure out for YOURSELF which ones apply to you before you can put the shoulda-woulda-couldhaves to rest.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Fear of the unknown. Any major decision is a leap of faith. You don't yet know how things are going to work out, so it's easy to get balled up with fear and start thinking that ANOTHER choice would have been better.</p></li>
<li><p>Insecurity, especially about your ability to make decisions. Some people have a lot of trouble trusting themselves. They just can't believe that they are capable of making such an important decision. So they find themselves mirred in self-doubt after they've already made the decision, unable to move on to the next phase.</p></li>
<li><p>Too much input from people who don't matter. It's tempting to ask people to confirm that you made the right decision. But, where problems crop up is when you start asking the WRONG people to confirm you made the right decision. Who are the wrong people? Anyone who doesn't have to foot the bill, who doesn't know you well, who may not have your best interests at heart, and --- especially --- anyone who is a stranger on an anonymous internet forum. Sometimes the more you ask people to confirm you made the right decision, the less sure of the decision you will be, because everyone is very happy to give you THEIR opinions and some of those may not confirm your choice. </p></li>
<li><p>You're just the type of person who delights in torturing themselves with "What if?" questions and doubts. Some people need to keep the drama going.</p></li>
<li><p>Important NEW information has arisen that you didn't have available at the time you made your decision. You find out that your fiance never told you he'd been married three times before, or you discover that the house you're about to buy was built on a landfill. Or, perhaps, that there is a way to swing the bill for that more expensive school that you weren't aware of before.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So, here's my advice: if you give it some thought, and you decide that you're having shoulda-coulda-wouldhave doubts because of 1,2, 3, or 4 ....well, give yourself some time to start believing that you made the right decision. It helps to start acting AS IF you believe you made the right choice -- in other words, go visit UMD again, buy an extra UMD tee shirt and start wearing it, instead of asking people what they think, tell them how HAPPY and EXCITED you are, and start school in the fall with a positive outlook. It may also help to talk with someone - a teacher, a counselor, a parent, who knows you well and can help reassure you that everything will be OK. Because it will. Really, what's the worst that can happen here --- you'll transfer at the end of next year. That's really a very minor thing in the scheme of life.</p>
<p>If, on the other hand, one of your shoulda-coulda-wouldas is due to #5 and you just found out some SIGNIFICANT new information that you didn't have at the time you made your decision that would have led to a different choice, then get on the stick, see if you can change course, and don't look back. </p>
<p>Good luck -- and remember, there is nothing LIFE THREATENING here. So, try your best not to drive yourself crazy with self-doubt. Make this a FUN summer, not one spent worrying. It is going to be OK.</p>
<p>importance of winning college admissions game> importance of life</p>
<p>Life is a game: what matters is how you play it.</p>
<p>I don't know of any bank that will give the OP $80k in loans at 8.5% with payment deferred, so think this is all probably a non-issue, no different than if rejected by CMU.</p>