SO…
USC costs $12,000
Rice costs $30,0000
Georgetown and Duke about $60,000
Georgetown has the better program for you major. Eliminate Duke.
If your parents can afford Georgetown, go to Georgetown. Are you an only child? Your parents must have a pretty high income so maybe they can afford Georgetown. But maybe not. $240,000 is a huge number.
If not, then you need to decide between USC and RIce. It doesn’t sound as if your parents will pay for you to go to USC (even with the scholarship, your parents still control much of the decision because you can’t afford any of these schools without help.) So you may be on your way to Rice. As stated above, Rice and USC are comparable in many ways but very different schools in their campus cultures. Rice has happy students who go on to all kinds of professional programs. You will be fine.
These are all great options. Many college decisions come down to money and parental opinion.
I’ll look into USC’s sexual assault track record later. It is something to consider since so many universities are handly it poorly.
@txstella I am not an only child. I have a sister five years younger. Everything is relative. We are well off but not extremely wealthy (in my head the cutoff for middle class is 200k, and we are certainly below that). I suppose Georgetown wouldn’t wreck us but it would be a significant strain. I agree it will likely come down to my parents, but the prof wrote me back and gave me a great list of what kids are doing at USC and afterwards, many are doing govt things on the East Coast and going to the Wilson School at Princeton or Yale Law (he even mentioned one didn’t need to go to Georgetown! How’d he know haha). He did caution that these were the results of the brightest kids, and many IR kids who are average fall behind and do not shine as bright, but if I have smarts and ambition I could expect the same. I think I do It all depends on what the parentals think.
Good luck with your decision. I am a parent on the other end of this and will face similar angst next year when it comes time to eliminate very high cost schools. You have done an excellent job in this process and have two affordable options (for your family) at two very good universities.
did you show your mom and Dad my post about how I [used to] hate USC?
Too bad they are putting so much pressure on you.
We left DS alone the last week of April and let him make the decision.
USC was the right one for him and hopefully it will be the right one for you.
mpm
Not yet but I’m waiting for my mom to come home to act as a buffer! My dad basically has the same viewpoint. I didn’t get into stanford per se but I think my dad first heard of USC when I applied and got in which didn’t help. My mom was hesitant too at first but was sold after scholarship weekend. Maybe if my dad went lol. I think it’s just that reputation lags 10-20 years behind a school, but oh well. We shall see!
“My mom was hesitant too at first but was sold after scholarship weekend”
A VERY wise woman!
“I think it’s just that reputation lags 10-20 years behind a school,”
And a very wise child! Todays USC is nothing like the USC of old.
Do you know what USC is now known to be short for these days? “University of Stolen Colleagues” Because USC is “buying” top professors from universities all across the country to bring them to LA! And you get to be one of the lucky ones to benefit!
Tell this to you father- your sister will be applying to colleges in 5 short years. WHO KNOWS what an UG degree will cost by then? It could be $60,000 per year for tuition only! That’s over $300,000 with R&B !!
Is he REALLY going to be able to afford to pay that PLUS the cost of grad school for you??
Going to USC will allow him to be able to send BOTH of his kids to college and beyond.
Your Dad will finally see the light next year when he hears other parents complaining about how much college costs these days, and he can mention that you have a full tuition scholarship at a top 25 private U and it only costs him $12 K or so per year !
Jaws will drop!
Parents didn’t buy my USC sales pitch. Looks like I’m headed to Rice. It won’t be awful but still wish I could’ve picked my college. Hopefully I don’t melt in Houston?
Just caught up on your entire saga from afar and wish you well! I think your parents are also very interested in the connections you will make and where you will end up after college and this heavily influenced them pushing you away from USC. Probably didn’t want to lose you to southern California for life! Rice is a wonderful school. Smaller, more focus for you and on you, a quality education for sure. I have two at USC and come in between the two extremes on all the safety issues. My son’s apartment was robbed last year - between the four room mates they lost over 10K in stuff. My other son won’t go into the neighborhood around campus after 11pm at all and I think it’s sorta sad, but I think it is wise. I think it a shame one can’t stroll the neighborhood around campus or feel safe walking home from the library late at night to an off campus apartment unless they are with a bigger group of people. And yes, USC is not the only university with these issues, but many don’t have them to nearly this extent. What was mentioned in an earlier post is correct, students are targets and thugs come from other areas to rob them. People can ask an active student to show you the DPS reports any crime reported around USC that they all receive if you want an idea of what goes on. The DPS patrols stay heavy for several months after an bad incident (like the one last summer) then the coverage fades away as people’s memory fades about a bad event, or new unaware class moves in. Then cycle starts over. Hopefully they keep the patrols up this year for good.
I digress, good luck to you, I think you made a great choice!
While we would all like the choice to ultimately be yours to make, Rice is a fantastic school and I’m sure you will thrive there. At the end of the day, nobody is taking on UG debt, and you now have this to hold over your parents to pay for grad school, since they made you go to Rice!! Best of luck to you!
The saga continues… We got into a fight because I said it was really mean and crappy of them to give me an illusion of choice when in reality I was forced to pick something. Something snapped with them about college rankings and now my parents are sitting with my uncle in the next room discussing finances and school rankings. I still don’t have a say though. My mom said that Duke/Georgetown all but 67k$ would be covered – that much they don’t have. I am not sure if either school is worth the debt/unaccounted for funds although they keep telling me not to consider cost (what do you guys think?). They are very Asian like that. They think it is a very American thing to consider cost (I think it is just a wise thing). So I guess now I will give them the illusion of choice and eventually end up at Rice.
@DrGoogle Yes I saw! He didn’t get a degree though, but he was at the public policy school which I was interested in
Pepper, apparently after doing some googling, lots of previous Japan ministers went to USC. Maybe the tough area near USC prepared them for politics. Haha
@peppermintgum I think you will be very happy at Rice, it really is a fantastic school! My son was waitlisted there; you are very lucky to have been admitted and to be able to afford to go! Congratulations!
In the Japanese political culture and to some extent, those of other countries, the fact Abe and other Japanese politicians attended USC actually underscores that they weren’t the brightest bulbs of the bunch…especially considering the era they attended. And that’s fine if one’s aspirations is to be a politician.
Up until the last decade, the common notion was the smartest most intellectual people went into the highly competitive and prestigious civil service or joined a high profile conglomerate* as a managerial trainee. While one’s educational pedigree is more of an issue in elections, it’s mainly to minimize the chances they’ll elect blithering idiots.
Then again, considering we’re talking Shinzo Abe and moreso…the gaffe prone and controversial Deputy PM Taro Aso…I wouldn’t have cited Abe and Japanese politicians as a story to illustrate a positive case for USC. Especially considering Abe never got his grad degree…something many in Japan and other East Asian cultures would regard as a sign he couldn’t hack grad school at USC and thus, would be viewed as a blemish on his record.
Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, Hyundai, Samsung, etc.
Quite frankly, unless one’s comfortably well-off or a financial idiot, cost IS SOMETHING ONE MUST CONSIDER.
It was something I considered when I was applying to colleges as a HS senior and yes, I did turn down an admissions offer to an exorbitantly expensive college. I was fortunate that the college I ended up attending and graduating from was not only much better financially speaking, but also academically superior for my fields of interest.
And yes, I say that as someone from an Asian-American household. It’s also something my father factored in when he turned down admission to the top university in an East Asian country for the #2 college because the former only offered full-tuition whereas the #2 college offered free-tuition along with books, room & board, and a small stipend.
The area that Abe attended USC underscores the fact that college is what you make of them. For a country like Japan where degrees from a top university is considered an asset and these prime ministers didn’t go to one means a hell of a lot. Anyone I wish peppermint well at Rice. Both of my nieces in Houston went to Rice, I believe in the Texas it’s considered in the same league as Harvard.
It all depends on what the parentals think.