We recently visited Pitt. Undergrads have incredible opportunities for research there. It is very common to have two minors, double major, or get a certificate in another department. If you wanted to participate in research in an overlap area of psychology and neuroscience, I feel confident you could find something. There are interesting opportunities with small grants, fellowships, something called “Maymester”…
Pitt is a somewhat smaller pond, which means you could be a bigger fish.
Congratulations on Pitt! Sounds like you got a great scholarship! I know a lot of students who love it and it has a 93% freshman retention rate, which means students are happy. Unhappy kids don’t stay.
Remember what my son said way back in post #4. Will you be $50k a year happier at Michigan? Or will you be happier knowing you won’t have crippling debt to pay off for decades? Not trying to be Debbie Downer, but that’s reality.
Here are some numbers to put things into perspective.
Let’s say that in order to attend Michigan, you need to end up taking out $50,000/yr of student/parent loans for 4 yr of college. So at the end of 4 yr, that’s $200,000 you’d owe.
You could buy a house in many parts of the US with that money.
How much would your monthly loan payment be? that will depend on a couple of things.
Scenario #1:
6% interest rate
monthly payments stretched over 10 years.
monthly payment = $2220.41/month (according to a student loan repayment calculator that I found on Bankrate.com).
That’s more than my mortgage payment.
Scenario #2:
Ok, so that amount made you choke a bit, right? What if we made the payments over 20 years, what would the monthly payment be? Same interest rate.
$1432.86/month
THAT is why you should go to Pitt instead of Michigan.
Let’s say that later on, you decide that you want to go to grad school. Great! Except if you attended Michigan for undergrad, now you’ll have grad school student debt + your undergrad (depending on the funding options for grad school, largely based on what type of grad school program you go to).
So the question is: Is it worth $1400-$2200/month for 10-20 years of your life just so you can have bragging rights of attending Michigan?
That’s something that only you and your parents can figure out. If it were my kid, I’d say, “Heck no” to Michigan.
I tell my kids, all top stats(4.0+, 1590/1600), NMSF, etc that this (the scholarships/full rides) is your prize, your reward. You earned these scholarships from working so hard and doing so well. Your hard work has paid off and now enjoy it! You’ve earned the gift of free college and no debt! It would be crazy to throw that away.
Mine are all going to a state safety school and didn’t even bother applying to more prestigious ones. But I told them the above as their friends were all hearing back from more expensive, more ‘prestigious’ schools. I honestly think the prestige and honor lies in the scholarships earned, and not the fact that a family can pay large sums/go into debt.
Our D went to her safety school because it offered her the option to do her sport and pursue engineering. Many D1 schools make it difficult to balance an athletic schedule with academics. She was top 5% in her high school and was accepted to a couple of top 10 programs. Her safety offered a fantastic academic scholarship so she was able to save the balance of her college savings account.
She has been working for the last few years in aerospace and just found out she was accepted to a top 10 phd program for the fall. They offered a very competitive package so hopefully she will come out of grad school with little debt. Many good reasons not to pay for the name.
100% ditto, no brainer! I will add my first 2 started their careers with no debt, at just under 6 figures, in parts of the country where the cost of living and taxes are very low. Definitely something to think about.
Just some unsolicited advice. If at all possible, go to Pitt’s accepted students day first. If you can see yourself happy there, do not even attend Michigan’s. No need to make the decision any harder.
Same here, our OOS applicant with very high stats/great ECs, etc. - deferred. We all really love Wisconsin and were disappointed. Hoping to hear good news in March.
My brother in law went to Bing, then got into the PhD program for Chem at Berkeley, and now is literally working to cure cancer. So, def. can go places from there!
@1dadinNC I have the same experience with my D23, I have watched her reasoning and decision-making, as well as discernment during the essay and application process, develop her into quite a strong young adult. It’s definitely been a rite of passage!
Great post and responses! I would add for clarity that - isn’t a “safety school” related to the % accepted along with the # of students that the school can accept for the incoming class! So a safety at 67% at a large school with 20,000 kids total is completely different than a safety at 67% where the school total is 1500 kids. When you say “safety” it is always considered 80% and above?
“Safety” usually means 95%+ chance of acceptance for the applicant; others use the similar term “likely” , or use a slightly lower 75%+ chance of acceptance as a cutoff for “safety”. It is different for each kid, but it means in general the kid’s backup school. Neither of mine had safety/likelies with over 60% acceptance rates, but they each had 2-3 schools that were safeties for their academic record from their school (ie, essentially every applicant with their record had been accepted to the school based on the HS’s specific data).
Neither of them truly loved their safeties–it was more “I like these schools well enough and they fit many of the things I am looking for and will get me a great education even though I like the match&reach schools on my list more.” It is wonderful to truly LOVE a safety, but I do not think that is necessary.
At my kids’ school, the counselors don’t have a “safety” category. They use a “likely” category which is defined as “the school accepts at least 60% of applicants and the student has stats in the top 50% of applicants.” However, we also included one 80%+ school on my son’s list because we felt we needed a true “safety” (and he was able to find one that he really loved… the jury is still out, but in the end he may choose it over the matches and reaches where he has already been admitted).
