My graduate has been accepted to a few of IVYs and Stanford but based on EFC calculator will receive no financial contribution from these schools. Also accepted at UIUC and USC with full tuition scholarship. We want the best education but finding it hard to pass up a full tuition scholarship. Any thoughts appreciated.
You should have financial aid offers already. Did you run NPC calculators last fall to check on needs based aid from Ivy’s/Stanford? Full tuition is a nice offer.
Does your child have a major in mind?
USC is a good school. UIUC is very good for some majors.
OP,
my DS was in the same situation a few years back. Got into Chicago, Dartmouth, Brown as well as some great LAC’s.
He chose USC , graduated with honors and was one of only 10 students who received Discovery Scholars 10K awards for grad school.
He just received his PhD from CalTech, the most prestigious grad U in the world, also at no cost.
His intention all along was to go to CT for grad school, and USC helped make that happen.
He never regretted going to USC. He found his “peeps” in the small Honors Science and Humanities classes, was able to do funded research all 4 years, and he wants to go back to be a professor.
You graduate will be treated like Gold at USC.
And there is Nothing like being able to wear shorts and sandles all year long, lol!
What major?
Lots of students who can’t easily afford Stanford, etc. end up at their home-state Us, or at places that give them big merit scholarships every single year. Don’t feel bad about this. If UIUC and/or USC work better for your family, send your kid there and don’t look back. Students with the capabilities to do well at Stanford, etc. can find their peer group wherever they land.
Economics.
Agree. We are lucky to be able to pay for college but still trying to be practical. Wondering if in the real world having a Harvard or Stanford degree is going to help him land a job.
Congratulations, you must be very proud!
USC business school is a top school just don’t know if a degree from Harvard or Stanford will open up more opportunities for him.
On the West Coast either a USC or Stanford degree will be equally helpful.
I say that because the Trojan Family Alumni net work is very strong in the west.
Harvard is Harvard, and a degree there is known everywhere.
But neither a Stanford or Harvard degree is worth $300000 more than a degree from USC.
If he is going to major in Economics then save the $$ for an MBA, or a MS in Economics.
Both will cost you a LOT.
For econ, I think USC and their network would beat UIUC so I would eliminate Illinois.
So it comes down to whether full-tuition scholarship at USC beats out being full-pay at Stanford/Harvard.
He can definitely get a job coming out of USC. That’s a pretty low bar. But Stanford and Harvard are still more target schools for some industries than USC. So it really depends on what he is aiming for, how much being full-pay would hurt, etc.
No financial assistance offered based on EFC calculator. He plans to major in CS or economics.
USC isn’t a good school. It’s a spectacular school. It is subjectively not as prestigious as Stanford or the Ivies. For free it is like hitting a 300k scratch ticket. Don’t throw the ticket out and pay 300k more to find another ticket.
Also, that money, invested for 40 years with (fairly conservative) 5% real returns, will be about $2M by the time he retires.
So it really comes down to whether you have money to burn or not. If you have, say, 8 figure liquid net worth and he will inherit millions anyway, then sure, the quarter million or so difference in cost probably shouldn’t matter much to you.
Firstly, congrats to your child for gaining asmission to so many excellent universities.
As to OP’s Q, that’s easy: USC with that MAJOR scholie by a mile. We only had a 12.9% acceptance rate this year. Many SCions with amazing stats were denied. USC is a fantastic school, and in every major.
Also as a small factoid. USC is #4 in the number of billionaires that have graduated from the school out of all schools in US.
That’s what I call real prestige.
I got my grad degree at USC and used to work at Stanford. I personally would pay about $10K-$15K per year extra to go to Stanford over USC. If I’m getting $50K a year more from USC, it’s an easy decision.
Even for the same price tag, there’s some compelling reasons to pick USC over Cornell, Dartmouth, and perhaps, also Brown.
USC with full-tuition scholarship. Easy choice.
OP’s question is whether Stanford or Harvard would confer an advantage over USC or a top public ivy such as UIUC in terms of post graduation job prospects. I believe the answer is maybe in very few scenarios such as for investment banking and consulting and by firms such as Goldman Sachs and McKinsey which target a few schools for recruiting. A
nd maybe one can argue that Stanford’s proximity to Silicon Valley’s ecosystem would confer some advantage for graduates interested in tech start-ups. Yes, high tech firms recruit all over the country, but the informal ways to connect with venture capitalists, founders, etc. is undeniably richer in Silicon Valley.
Also, in some rare situations where the employer is a foreign country-backed (particularly China) organization looking for employees with internationally prestigious education credentials, Harvard and Stanford would offer an advantage by virtue of their reputation internationally.
These are all very rare situations.
For the majority of career fields, no there would not be meaningful difference.
I am interested to hear your reasons why USC over Harvard, Stanford or Duke. TY.