Is Fairfield a bad school, especially when compared to College of the Holy Cross?

Paying for College
1

<p>PLEASE READ ALL OF THIS, IF YOU DON'T WANT TO, DON'T BOTHER HELPING ME</p>

<p>Life has been screwing me constantly, and here's another example to that list: I got into Fairfield and Holy Cross, but my mom can't afford Holy Cross's $50k a year tuition. However, Fairfield offered me a free ride and most of it is grants. In fact, they gave me $51k a year, and only $3,500 a year is loans and I have to pay for my meals.</p>

<p>Holy Cross is offering me $15k a year, but $10k of it is loans. So really, it's $45k a year at College of the Holy Cross, while $3.5k a year at Fairfield.</p>

<p>My ultimate plan in life is to be a wealthy anesthesiologist, which requires me to get into medical school, and if I want to get into a good medical school, I need a good school behind that. I'm not sure if Fairfield is in that area. I know Holy Cross has a great pre-med program that will guide me in the right path.</p>

<p>On top of this, my mom hasn't been in the best of health the past few years or so, and she had surgery done 2 years ago, but she isn't exactly recovering ideally and she needs to go into surgery again. In fact, she's in pain everyday and it guilts me when I can't do anything about it. With the economy being so tight right now, where can we get this money? That and, our car is behind on repairs and checkups, which cost a couple of thousands more to maintain. She's a single mother, and my dad abandoned the family like 10 years ago, and we haven't heard from him since. So it's just her taking the financial weight.</p>

<p>So pretty much, I'm being forced to go to a subpar school, just when my sights were on Princeton a couple of months back, and I got into College of the Holy Cross. What ****es me off the most about this whole ordeal is that I busted my ass off in school as early as I can remember to become an A+ student, take the hardest courses my school has to offer, commit to extracurriculars, sometimes pull all nighters to study, having my social life suffer in the process JUST TO GET INTO FAIRFIELD.</p>

<p>I wish someone told me my fate years ago before I wasted my life applying myself to get into the top schools, when I would be forced to get into Fairfield.</p>

<p>Now what? Is my life ruined? Or is there still a possibility to become an anesthesiologist?</p>

2

<p>Congratulations on your impressive acceptances. Fairfield is a wonderful college and a great school to prepare you for medical school. I know many, many Fairfield graduates and I am impressed with them all. My son applied there; it was one of his favorites. He got a $10K merit award. Several of his friends from his prep school go there and they absolutely love it there. </p>

<p>He also applied to HC and was accepted there as well, but he liked Fairfield a lot more and would have picked it over HC. He did not get any money from HC. A number of his friends go to HC and they are enjoying that school too. </p>

<p>In my opinion, you will find doing premed at Fairfield. Where HC has its strengths is in the Classics and other traditional liberal arts. It is a great school for those who want to go on to graduate schools. BUt a natural sciences major/premed would do fine with Fairfield.</p>

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<p>To quote OP
“Life has been screwing me constantly, and here’s another example to that list: I got into Fairfield . . . . . . Fairfield offered me a free ride and most of it is grants. In fact, they gave me $51k a year, and only $3,500 a year is loans and I have to pay for my meals.”</p>

<p>Excuse me - you need to get over yourself. There are thousands of kids that would give anything to be in your position. Oh and a friend of mine - a Medical Director of a Cancer Ctr, received his undergrad from Fairfield - a terrific school.</p>

4

<p>I’m sorry if it’s taken out of context, but my sights were on Princeton and Georgetown for as long as I can remember and I’m still getting used to the fact that I might be attending Fairfield, which is a step down. If Fairfield is such a great school, why doesn’t it appear on any top ranked lists that Holy Cross does?</p>

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<p>Because, rankings don’t mean everything.</p>

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<p>It appears on the regional list of schools granting Master’s degrees. I’m on the faculty there.</p>