Is it worth it to pay for an elite college when offered Merit $$$ elsewhere?

<p>thanks poetgrl and emersongarcia! you’re both probably right and that would make my parents happier too if they were able to save the money. one more question if you don’t mind, what do you think is the better choice between suny binghamton (instate tuition) and vermont? some additional factors affecting my decision are that i only got into bing for spring 2014 and i know so many people going there. vermont may be a fresher start but I’m worried (very superficially, i know) about the name</p>

<p>also the tuition comes out to about the same so thats not a factor</p>

<p>Vermont is fine. It’s actually known around Chicago to be fine. I don’t know much about the SUNY’s except Geneso, which I like.</p>

<p>Bing seems less attractive visually to me. But I could be completely wrong</p>

<p>Do you have to keep a GPA to keep the money from Vermont? How high is the GPA?</p>

<p>The only reason to worry about spring admits is not knowing people, so that wouldn’t be an issue for you, which is nice.</p>

<p>You have some nice choices, unsuresenior. Vermont is really pretty.</p>

<p>This decision may come down to the location.</p>

<p>Your email addy got blocked. Put spaces between the characters.</p>

<p>Ive heard before that bings campus is unattractive </p>

<p>The GPA requirement is only a 3.0 which i bet id be able to keep up.</p>

<p>for me knowing people is actually a con. I want to be able to make new friends and am worried it might be more difficult or weird to do starting at a school for the second semester</p>

<p>thanks @MD Mom!</p>

<p>I’m thinking the same, and i really liked vermont when i visited</p>

<p>my only concern is (lack of) prestige because as shallow as it sounds the majority of my friends are going to pretty impressive private schools</p>

<p>Yeah, I don’t think I’d get hung up on “prestige” It’s a beautiful school and it’s in a gorgeous place.</p>

<p>You’ll probably get all sorts of opportunities you wouldn’t otherwise get. Remember that somebody has to be in the bottom of the class even at the prestige schools. Do you know what you want to study?</p>

<p>Is the 3.0 averaged over the first year, or is it each semester?</p>

<p>That would be my only concern.</p>

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<p>ASU may have relatively low minimum standards due to being one of three huge state universities in its state, but it also collects some of the top students in the state (i.e. it collects students from the entire range of four-year-college-bound students in Arizona). Some of them eventually go on to top PhD programs in their majors.</p>

<p>i think its each semester.</p>

<p>you are so right @poetgrl, to be honest my concern is that my friends know it as a hippie/stoner school and I don’t want it to look like i’m going just for the partying</p>

<p>Oh forget it. Who cares what they think?</p>

<p>If they are your real friends then they will support you wherever you go. If they think you are only going there for the partying? Then either you are, or they don’t know you. ;)</p>

<p>Either way, who cares what they think? It’s your life. I’d rather be at Vermont than Northeastern, and at my age, I know enough to go skiing when there’s a chance and I still have the knees for it.</p>

<p>Either way, check on the GPA. That can be tough on a semester basis, if you are doing any weeder classes like orgo. So, if you have that situation, you will want to schedule yourself an easy A to balance out what orgo can do to your gpa. If it’s over the course of the whole year, same thing.</p>

<p>thanks so much! you have really been extremely helpful, and I feel a lot better about choosing it over the other two :)</p>

<p>Well, good! Good luck to you.</p>

<p>For undergrad, it’s really all the same unless you go to Liberty or Pepperdine or some unheard of place in the middle of Mexico. Graduate school is where you want to make it show.</p>

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<p>finalchild, I appreciate the question and your candor. My answer is no, I don’t flinch. I feel sorry for people like celesteroberts and TheGFG who live in communities in which people are judgey and smug and competitive about their kids (and probably many other things). There’s some of that where I live (not surprisingly, concentrated among the East Coast transplants and a few other groups) but it only grates on my nerves when I attend high school functions and a few strident people monopolize conversations about course selection, college prep, financial aid and so on as if no one else is in the room.</p>

<p>Why is this easier for me than others? I don’t know–maybe because I am secure in who I am and where I came from. Many, many people in my family have attended elite universities. There is a bust of my great-great-great-grandfather in Annenberg Hall at Harvard (he gave the dedication speech when it opened as Memorial Hall). My great-grandfather was Yale Class of 1900. My kids’ father and I both attended an elite university. Great. It doesn’t make us different from or better than other people. We have both learned over years of real-world experience that it just doesn’t matter. The people we admire and respect went to…you name it: Florida State. UW-Eau Claire. Princeton. Slippery Rock. St. John’s. Haverford. Aurora. SUNY-Buffalo. Flight school. Beauty school. No school. Really, does it matter?</p>

<p>For my own kids, it’s all about what works for who they are. Kid 1 is at a small LAC that few here have heard of. It is perfect for him as he explores his interests. We are 99% sure he will end up in a PhD program once he figures it all out. Kid 2 wants a big state school (it won’t be a “prestigious” one) and sees a path for herself career-wise. We are 99% sure she will be the one supporting us in our dotage. It really isn’t that hard IF you are happy with your life and confident about your kids and what they can do. (As an aside, I could have predicted my kids would be who they are now by preschool…I bet many people could say the same.)</p>

<p>Maybe it’s also easier for you because you of family socio-economics. Parents who are successful, affluent, and well-connected can afford to be a bit less concerned about the prestige of their children’s colleges, since there’s an economic safety net of some kind for them. One type of net could be enough resources to cover or subsidize their kid’s living expenses (and loan payments) for a year after graduation until he finds a decent job. Or it could be connections. I would suspect you, your husband, and/or other family members know plenty of other successful people of influence with whom your child could network. While D has spent hours upon hours sending out cover letters and resumes into the great void, she has college friends who have yet to conduct a summer job search. Their parents can make a call or two and voila–their kid’s got a internship or job. A friend of hers from an wealthy NY suburb said his grandfather put in a call to the partner of a private equity firm and now he’s got an internship there. The student is well-qualified of course, but I’d imagine so were many other people. Reed Jobs is in the same class as D. Do you think he’d have any trouble getting a good job if he attended San Francisco State instead of Stanford? Would Joe Schmo be as lucky though?</p>

<p>I can see why you would assume that based on what I wrote. But we are not affluent or well-connected, and our success lies in doing what we love rather than being well-compensated. Yet we are happy and have happy kids who see the world as full of opportunities…even though they haven’t had things handed to them the way many of their friends have.</p>

<p>I am a huge fan of Northeastern and their co-op program. Nonetheless I can’t justify the extra cost. Sounds like VT would be a good option for you.</p>

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<p>While UNAM may not be very well known outside of Mexico, it is apparently well known enough within Mexico to attract 300,000 students. It isn’t like Liberty or Pepperdine at all.</p>

<p>sally, I have sincerely appreciated your posts on various threads. I especially appreciated your thoughts about LSP at NYU. However, your last post here I think proves the point. You do care. You take the time to cite the family history with Harvard and Yale. Are you suggesting your kids would have turned down Harvard and Yale, or are you saying you are being an accepting and supportive parent of where they are at? You are on this site a lot. I doubt you have no “skin in the game” as they say. Believe me, if Wooster was the best school my kid got in, I would be singing the praises of Wooster to hell and back and I would sound like a Loren Pope disciple. That’s what parents do. Maybe that’s what we’re supposed to do. We champion what is accessible to us and make that sound like what was the clear preference all along. And I do think Wooster, Ursinus, Hendrix, etc are great schools. I think kids get great educations there. And I love to recommend those schools to OTHER people’s kids. Just sayin’.</p>