<p>I have a full tuition offer from a top 50 school. I have also applied to a couple of Ivy league schools. I do not anticipate getting very much aid from the Ivies ( guess Ivy will cost $40 - $50,000 a year). With loans, my family could pay the Ivy tuition but it would be tough. </p>
<p>I know there are not right or wrong answers, just looking for opinions. Do I go for the Ivy League education or take the scholorship?</p>
<p>Thanks </p>
<p>Take the scholarship.</p>
<p>Interesting question and I have no real answer. My opinion would be to avoid the loans and take the full tuition. Does your child (or you, if you are the student) like the full tuition school? If so, than that decision becomes much, much easier.</p>
<p>Our child has a full tuition offer from a similarly ranked school, but is still waiting to hear from Georgetown, Notre Dame and a couple of Ivy league schools. If she gets into any of these, we are expecting little to no money. We could swing it, but our child will need to take out loans and work for all spending money, books, etc. in all likelihood. With the full tuition offer, no loans would be needed and while she would still work, she would have more flexibility about when and how much. </p>
<p>She will do an overnight visit at the full tuition school before the RD results come in. If she loves it, then she will likely go there regardless of the other results. If she does not, and gets into one of her top choices, she will have a tough decision to make…her first real adult decision.</p>
<p>Our advice has been that it is her choice, but that the full tuition at a very good school is a better deal than coming out with loans at a ‘great’ school. There is always graduate school for the ‘dream’ school. Still, we would not ‘block’ her from taking the Ivy option if that offer comes through.</p>
<p>There are some “it depends” based on how the strengths of each school match to your interests and goals, but it would have to be a pretty extreme case to make a school that stretches you and your family finances to the limit to be the better choice when you have a $25,000-$35,000 per year cheaper option that you apparently can afford easily.</p>
<p>You should not expect others to be able to help you much if you make it a choice between two generic schools, rather than naming the specific schools, your interests and goals, and their net prices.</p>
<p>This is a very polarizing question, but there is research to cut through some of the subjectivity. It has been clearly shown that students who are qualified to matriculate at an Ivy are no better off in their long term success whether they go to an Ivy or a State School. Most thrive, a few don’t, in either environment. It’s really about the individual.</p>
<p>With that said, I’d be very careful about debt, especially in the context of chosen major and long term earning potential. I like the calculator at Mapping Your Future because it not only shows the monthly payment, but how much you’d have to make to service that debt. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Officiating, we are in the same boat as you. Princeton or Brown are his top choices, but he has a scholarship to his third choice. We are not going to block him from attending an Ivy (assuming he gets in and that it is not $60,000 a year!) but full tuition to a really good school is tough to pass up. Now we just sit back and wait till the end of March to see if he gets into the other schools.</p>
<p>Again, there are no right or wrong answers, just looking for other folks opinions as I am sure there are other folks wrestling with similar issues. </p>
<p>Keep in mind, you can always go to the Ivy Leagues for Grad School. </p>
<p>Take the scholarship, leave the cannoli. </p>
<p>@MidWestBlues Remember that Princeton & others have eliminated loans from financial aid awards. Please wait until receiving any acceptances and financial aid letters to decide!</p>
<p>@midwestblues, DS was accepted to an Ivy and will attend paying full freight. That said, if his attending required loans, or adversely affected retirement accounts, he would have had to apply to schools that gave substantial scholarships. Loans are anchors. The schools, as good as they might be, are not sufficiently better than the “top 50” full ride. </p>
<p>When you say “with loans”, did you mean the federal loans ($5,500) or did you mean more?
Most ivies have very generous financial aid packages for families who make up to 180k so I wouldn’t worry in quite those terms yet, I would wait for the financial offer.
However, if you meant loans that you’d co-sign in addition to the federal loans, I’d say in a heartbeat, take the full-tuition offer.</p>
<p>In my opinion, many of the other “top 50” schools (especially LACs or public engineering programs) are at least as good the Ivies in academic quality for many undergraduates. Yes, it depends on specific schools, majors, your personality, etc. However, if you look closely at, say, pre-med courses at some of the Ivies, you’re getting pretty much same big lecture classes and TA-led discussion sections you’d get at your in-state public flagship for half the price. </p>
<p>Probably the best things going for the Ivies are excellent need-based aid (if you qualify) and their many exceptional, interesting students from all over the country. </p>
<p>Most people who have addressed this question this year are going to argue for the full tuition scholarship. If you will attend professional school or a 2-yr masters program they will say you should take the tuition money. But an ivy might come up with enough money to make it possible that it would cost you no more than the room and board you might pay at the full tuition school. So you will have to wait til march 27 to see what’s what. Have you run the net price calculators at the ivies? They often produce accurate estimates of what the Ivies will ask you to pay. That’s one thing you can do between now and ivy admission day, march 27th. A second question: has the full tuition school offered any other attractions to the students who win full tuition: freshman year abroad, priority housing or lovely housing, priority registration, honors programs, etc.? </p>
<p>The scholarship includes admission to the honors college in addition to honors housing. My son wants a applied math major. The net price calculator at Princeton suggests our cost would be $40000 a year. Scholarship school is $15000. We will wait until all notifications and financial awards are in before making final decisions. I appreciate everyone’s opinions and perspectives. </p>
<p>What is your career goal?</p>
<p>“I have a full tuition offer from a top 50 school. I have also applied to a couple of Ivy league schools. I do not anticipate getting very much aid from the Ivies ( guess Ivy will cost $40 - $50,000 a year). With loans, my family could pay the Ivy tuition but it would be tough.”</p>
<p>Wait…is Midwestblues the student or the parent? there are confusing posts. The first post sounds like a student. The later posts sound like a parent.</p>
<p>Princeton would have very generous aid, so would H and Y. The other ivies will expect you to pay more.</p>
<p>What school is the “top 50 scholarship school”?</p>
<p>Sorry for the confusion, my son and I share a sign on. I would prefer not to name the school</p>
<p>It does look like you should have a $23,000/year (list price) in-state public school with an excellent reputation for math, in addition to whatever “top 50 full tuition scholarship school” you are referring to (probably about $15,000/year after the scholarship).</p>
<p>Well I think it depends which college you want more. The scholarship would probably be better for you financially but the Ivy might be better for your future, depending how you use it. Take which ever college you want more (cause you all know, there is one college you secretly want into more so than the others), but you might be better off doing the full tuition.</p>
<p>It also can depend on what your son majors in. For example, if your son is wanting to major in Education, there isn’t much of a change in his ultimate career salary or possibilities from one to the other…That said, sometime in the last 10 years I have felt like the costs of Ivies has gotten high enough that the tuition is no longer something you can simply ‘ignore because its an Ivy’. It is too real and way too much of anchor for many people.</p>
<p>That said, I would always wait to see what the award from the Ivy is. They have a pretty good tradition of awarding enough to make it a pretty even choice in some cases. </p>