I’m between two choices: Johns Hopkins and Brown. At JHU, my family would have to pay around $5000/yr total. At Brown, my family would have to pay around $9000/yr total. With outside scholarships, I could get Brown’s cost down to closer to $6000/yr, but that isn’t guaranteed. However, after having visited and toured both schools, I find that I feel Brown is by far the best fit for me, as I didn’t enjoy the atmosphere at Hopkins and I think the stress that the majority of students there deal so well with would exacerbate my anxiety issues.
Would going to Brown be a mistake? I know that the debt I accrue will undoubtedly still end up being well below the national average, but I’m still not sure what I plan on doing with my life and how much money I’ll be making. Any thoughts/advice on how I should go about making this decision?
To begin, the username is awesome. I think if you like Brown that much, it should be ok. If you get it down to 6,000 I would definitely pick brown. Overall, if you don’t get it down, talk to your family and see what they think.
Can your family afford the additional costs? A different of $16,000 all up over the course of four years is negligible compared to the full cost of these schools, and I would definitely say go to Brown if your family can afford it and you prefer that school.
Also, I wouldn’t assume that all of the students at Hopkins deal very well with the stress of the environment. I’ve observed undergrads in other stressful undergrad environments and not all of them deal with it well - they’re all different.