<p>So... long story short this is a case of peer envy.
Basically, an amazing classmate of mine is going to HYPSM. I, on the other hand, will go to a significantly less ranked school...
Now, to put it into perspective-
We're internatonals, so we both are the only ones to go to the US this year.
I got accepted into some top 20 liberal arts colleges but can't afford them even after FA. Also, I was told that I was among the top students at the more selective of these colleges, which makes me think that I underestimated my chances.
Either way, my only option now is this low ranked school, where I have a full ride.</p>
<p>And it makes me feel very inadequate.
I feel like I messed up the whole process- and seriously wish I could re do it. Or take a gap year.
Basically I need advice on what I should and can do.
Transferring seems impossible for intls and I don't want to disrupt my undergrad education anyway.</p>
<p>You have a full ride to a US college?
You can’t afford any of the other schools that accepted you?
Just what do you think would change the next time around?
College is what you make it … go, be amazing, do amazing things, and don’t look back.</p>
<p>Do you know how LUCKY you are to have a full-ride to an American college? </p>
<p>Congrats!!!</p>
<p>There is a thread on CC where int’ls have lamented that they can’t afford to go to any of the colleges that they got accepted to. You were smart to apply to a safety that would offer you big bucks. </p>
<p>You didn’t “mess up.” You could do it all over again and end up with nothing. You could apply to every ivy next year and still not get in. </p>
<p>Have you tried to negotiate on the financial aid? Contact your top choice and let them know 1) that they are your first choice and 2) the difference between their offer and the one you received. What may be an unbreachable financial gap for your parents may not be a lot of money for them. And you lose nothing by asking.</p>
<p>I see what the Op means by “messed up”. The OP has read U.S. News ratings, or a similar magazine that sells its opinion of ratings, and mistakenly believed its opinion is abosolute gospel as if it came from the Bible(an example).
There are many successful people that attended Harvard, perhaps the most well-known name in the college business; yet there are many who are not successful.
But also, more successful people attended a school other than Harvard than attended Harvard.
Yes, you messed up when you believed those rankings, and forgot they were merely a sales tool of a company that sells their opinion. But it is not too late to be corrected. Go to a school and do your very best. Be proud of having done your very best. You will succeed that way. And have less debt too!</p>
<p>Once you get to the university you will be attending, you will be in the company of other people attending that university, not your former high school classmates, and the whole issue will fade away.</p>
<p>Yes, I know how lucky I am… The thing is that the amount I have to pay might have been worth it if I got into a more highly ranked school.
That said, I did experience first hand how random the selection could be for quite a few people.</p>
<p>without knowing the specific schools, its hard to say anything intelligent.</p>
<p>is the full ride school a new ivy/public ivy or similar? Is it a third or fourth campus of a state U? Not judge either of those situations, but its hard to say ANYTHING in the abstract.</p>
<p>Going into major debt for an undergraduate degree is not wise. You got a free ride - go and enjoy it. Yoy will not have to face your HYPMS friend once the school year starts.</p>
<p>But what do you have to pay if you have a full-ride as you stated? </p>
<p>Without some details, hard to offer opinions. What school (or type of school) did you get into and what are the options in your home country? Likely you are grossly overrating this ranking business. I think sometimes the emphasis on rank is far greater for internationals because they only get a select bit of information from the popular media, and many do not even hear about other schools. (everyone has heard of Harvard but not x, y, z).</p>
<p>It is next to impossible for international students to get full rides to U.S. colleges – including 4th tier ones – unless the international students have stats that are about the equivalent of what U.S. applicants need to get into the top U.S. colleges.</p>
<p>To get into top U.S. colleges, international applicants have to be much better than are the majority of successful U.S. applicants to those colleges, which accept as few as one in seven applicants.</p>
<p>Therefore, you aren’t a failure. You have to have very impressive stats to have gotten the offer that you got. However, if you truly feel that college is beneath you, turn the offer down. I’m sure that some other outstanding international student will accept it gratefully.</p>
<p>Realize that if you turn it down in order to apply again next year to more competitive colleges, you’re likely to get rejected again by those colleges, which are very difficult to gain acceptance to. I have seen other students try that tack here, and none has been accepted to the colleges that originally rejected them.</p>
<p>This shows how effective marketing is at students, encouraging them to spend a lot of money at an expensive school even though the benefits are unknown.</p>
<p>The same logic applies to premium gasoline. A lot of people will buy premium gasoline because they feel their car will perform better. (I’m not including cars that require premium gasoline in this discussion.) Do they? No. Does it improve fuel mileage or performance? No. But the gas stations sell premium gas because there are enough suckers out there to keep buying it.</p>
<p>You know, reading some people, you’d think there is never ANY difference in the quality of a college education. </p>
<p>Anecdote - When I was six and twenty, I dated a young woman who had recently completed a masters degree in counseling. Prior to that she had gotten a theater degree from an almost Ivy League university. While attempting to land a full time counseling job, she got a job teaching at the local community college. You know what she taught? Yup, History of Western Civilization. Well, I mean she did know english lit, pretty well, and music. I mean not like someone with a PhD in English, but at least she knew SOMETHING. Didn’t really know much history, but she was able to wing it. Not with any depth though - I knew her well enough to know that though she was bright, she was hardly an intellectual. </p>
<p>What that comm coll was offering was NOT a quality liberal arts education. Which is not to say that there aren’t other comm colleges that are better. Or that that comm college didn’t have areas where it was stronger. But my friend wouldn’t have been considered qualified to be a teaching asst in western civ at the college she attended, much less be the teacher/lecturer.</p>
<p>Hmmm…sounds like some of the TAs I saw teaching at the tippy top school I was a faculty member at. </p>
<p>I don’t think you’ll find one saying that all 4000 4-year colleges are the same. Sure Party State at Southwest Campus is not Harvard. But you will find plenty of people on here and most insiders the industry, point out that the differences between most of the schools talked about on CC are not nearly as dissimilar as the magazines want you to believe.</p>
<p>Ummm- ok. I’ll clarify things.
It’s a top 60 public university, state flagship, quite well known in my country, very good at research.
And no, I was not rejected by those colleges, I didn’t apply. Hence the wondering if I would have got in</p>
<p>the tippy top school I got my BA from, the TAs could run rings around my friend. That was an unusual school I suppose. Again, my friend was teaching what was mainly a history course, and she was not even an undergrad history major. Nor had she spent her free time since college studying history. If it had been music or theater, I would rank her as 70% of an Ivy League TA. In Western Civ, she was like 20% of one. And of course, she was not a TA at the Comm College. She was the teacher. </p>
<p>I would not suggest that there is a big diff, overall, in faculty quality among the Ivies, new ivies, public Ivies and LACS that are most discussed around here, and my sense is that such difference as there is offset by lesser use of TA’s at the LACs and new Ivies. That is one reason we are okay with our DD going to a new Ivy. I think the important differences at this level are more a matter of the student bodies, and the atmosphere. </p>
<p>How much thats worth in $$ has to be dependent on the family’s financial situation, the nature of the young person, etc, etc. </p>
<p>All I am saying is that to answer OP at all seriously, we need to know where he got his free ride. To just say that the difference between his school and HYPMS is insignificant, without knowing if his school is, say, Tufts, or is, say, University of Central Florida, strikes me as silly.</p>
<p>@switters- thank you, i think that is what I might need!
PS- I think I sound like a spoiled brat. I’m sorry. I’m truly glad to have the opportunity and will indeed go to the US. Just slightly disappointed at the moment.</p>