<p>I'm a HS senior who wants to go into consulting/banking after college. Ideally I want to attend Northwestern because of their stellar reputation/placement in business, but my parents want me to attend WashU, as one of them works there and I'd get a full ride. If I went to another college, WashU would cover roughly half of their tuition.</p>
<p>To be honest though, I know WashU's Olin school is a step below NW, and name counts a lot in the fields I want to go into. There's also the fact of staying in the same city for another four years. Still, the full ride is tempting. So the question is, a full ride to WashU/Olin (I'm pretty sure I could get in ED) with possibly worse job prospects vs. a half full-ride to Northwestern?</p>
<p>Don’t debate decisions until you actually have the offers in hand. I understand that you’re “pretty sure” you would get a full ride, but “pretty sure” isn’t an award letter.</p>
<p>TrinSF, I am not pretty sure, I am 100 PERCENT sure. It’s a rule that if one of your parents works at WashU, your child would get free tuition at WashU, or WashU would pay half of their tuition if you go to another school. In fact, I’m 150% sure.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t call NU a step up from WashU. I understand you’d probably like to get out of SL, but that’s another issue.</p>
<p>It comes down to what your family can afford. You should have equal opportunities in business from both. Now if you had said Wharton, HYPS, DDC–I’d say there would be a difference in opportunities.</p>
<p>You are not getting a “full- ride”, you are getting free tuition (a full ride would entail tuition, room, board, books and a stipend). </p>
<p>I think a happy medium is to have your parents pay for you to live on campus. Even though you are in the same town, you will probably have a different experience living on campus because you will meet a lot of people who are not from st. louis.</p>
<p>Even with half tuition, your parents may have to pay out a large chunk of money for tuition, room, board, books, fee, transportation cost for you to attend Northwestern (some where in the neighborhood of 30k). I agree with Hmom that there is not an appreciable difference between the schools to justify paying an additional 25-30K/ yr for you to attend.</p>
<p>I also agree with static75, try it for one year, if you don’t like it and your parents can work the finances, transfer.</p>
<p>If you’re interested in banking and consulting then you’ll top out very quickly. The top firms will hire you for 2-3 years and then they’ll want you to go get your MBA. Where you get your MBA will be far more important than where you went to undergrad.</p>
<p>Washington University is an absolutely great school – as a matter of fact, Wash U and Northwestern are dead even in the U.S. News rankings (both at #12). I’d say they have similar academic reputations. A full ride to WUSTL is no small thing! I’d take that any day.</p>
<p>I also took a full-ride over a “better” school, although honestly the disparity was WAY different than yours (I went to the #75 ranked LAC with a full ride over the #18 ranked national university, which would’ve cost me over $30,000 a year to attend out of pocket). I’m getting my PhD at Columbia. Do you think anyone’s going to care where I went to undergrad? It’ll be a quirky fact.</p>
<p>WashU in St. Louis? Are you serious? Why would you even be trying to decide over that? Its one of the best schools in this country! Its academics are VERY high. Who cares if its “a step below Northwestern” (its really not much of a difference), if you decide between debt and no debt, then always pick the no debt.</p>
<p>I would suggest seeing if you can apply to any scholarships there - if you can get a few with minimal debt, then I would say its up to you.</p>
<p>But ATM, WashU is definitely where you want to be.</p>
<p>As someone who passed over the free tuition benefit for a “better” school…I would recommend you take the free tuition. I now have $40k in unnecessary student loan debt because I was stupid, a mistake I will not make with my kids. My eldest heads off to college in 2 years and the only schools she can choose from are ones that offer her full rides or ones that have contractual agreements to provide free tuition (we’re very LOW income, despite the fact I work at a 4 year private LAC, so we would get full Pell, etc).</p>
<p>At the undergrad level…a school is just a school. Save the big names and loan debt for your Master’s.</p>
Seems like when you’re a HS senior, you’re omniscient. I can’t compete with that.</p>