“The resources there are far and away beyond U of Michigan”
This assertion piqued my interest. What is your background, @Happytimes2001?
@Alexandre attended both UMich and Cornell and stated that he did not see a difference in resources between the two. Are you thus asserting that the resources at MIT are far and away beyond what is available at Cornell?
And what resources are you referring to?
BTW, when it comes to startup founders, from a Crunchbase spreadsheet I analyzed, yes, MIT and Stanford outpace UMich (though UMich isn’t too shabby, being in the top 10: https://news.crunchbase.com/news/top-schools-among-founders-raise-big-dollars/), but here’s the thing: roughly half or more of those MIT/Stanford alums who were startup founders were grad alums (including PhD’s and MBA’s). And PhD’s are fully fulled while 2 years of a Master’s/MBA is significantly cheaper than 4 years of undergrad at MIT at full-pay, which is why I said that if the OP excels as much in undergrad as he has in HS, he will still be able to get the opportunities afforded MIT/Stanford alums.
Did anyone say that though? In my case, I intended to suggest that full-pay may be advisable even in circumstances where a full scholarship has been offered elsewhere. However, I didn’t convert that to a decided opinion on the two schools in question.
Go to MIT if you can handle the work and willing to work hard. Location, Peer group are major factors. Having said that, you cannot go wrong if you decide to go to Michigan. Visit both places and honestly ask yourself.
“And to be fair, we’re not talking about full-rides just anywhere… but full-rides to top schools (say, top 50 on USNWR) outside the elite elite.”
Well, I was saying that all full-pay MIT admits could get full rides to some school. Agree that there are far fewer full-rides to top 50 schools. As said, less than 200 total at Near-Ivies/Ivy-equivalents. Throw in Vandy, WashU, JHU, and it’s still less than 300.
Other people are implying that. With your comment (especially with the follow-up), @merc81, I didn’t get the sense that you necessarily felt that way. But for example, I interpreted Happytimes2001’s comment to mean that a full-ride to a place like Michigan isn’t so special because “anyone at HYPSM could’ve gotten it and turned it down.” Their sentence directly after that seems to imply, to me at least, that the OP should disregard the award for that reason - because MIT is so far and away better than Michigan that the money ceases to matter.
However, I think all that is irrelevant anyway. Let’s assume for a second that every single student at MIT could’ve gotten a full ride to Michigan or an equivalent school and turned it down. So what? What bearing does that have on the OP’s choice? The OP’s choice, IMO, hinges on 1) whether Michigan will provide them with a high-quality education and get them to their career and educational goals - and whether they’ll have the kind of college experience there they are looking for - and 2) whether MIT’s offerings in those areas are worth an extra $250K + interest that they could spend on any number of other things (including, potentially, an MBA or other grad degree from MIT or an equivalent school).
Other undergrads’ decisions about where they wanted to go to college don’t really matter in this case, is my opinion.
I agree that opportunities at MIT are incredible, but I’d still pick the full-ride at UMich over full-pay at MIT and I think those full rides are harder to get than admission to HYPSM.
@nw2this: I agree. 200-300 full rides (not counting in-state students) at Ivy equivalents/near-Ivies total (depending on how you define them). Maybe stretching up to 400-500 if you become generous at defining what a near-Ivy is. About 7000 matriculants at HYPSM.
Most would not have the opportunity of a full-ride at a Near-Ivy/Ivy-equivalent. Many would have the opportunity of partial scholarships or even full-tuition scholarships from good (above the average flagship) schools or full-rides from average flagships or lower.
And if this is one of those special scholars programs at UMich, don’t discount the opportunities afforded by those either.
Full ride by merit at UMich is below 0.2% (near 0.1%) of admitted students, whereas the admission rate will be below 25% this year. So yes, it is much much more difficult than getting into HYPSM.
^@PurpleTitan why does it matter? We are talking about the prestige of the schools here----the perception of MIT vs UM in the eyes of lay people, not CC readers. Since we don’t know what OP is majoring we can only go by the general reputation of schools and how much it will help in OP’s career. Years from now employers will only know OP graduated from UM or MIT, not UM with full ride or MIT. And they will have no idea how selective UM full ride is even if you try to tell them. IMHO, money can always be replaced but college name can never be; once its lost its lost forever.
$280,000 is not easy to replace even for the upper middle and lower upper class (maybe the plutocrat class considers it to be pocket change, though). If the OP’s parents would have trouble funding their retirement if they spent that on the OP’s college, that should cause the OP to hesitate when there is a good full ride available.
If you are the kid who finally gets into a class where you are below the class average for the first time and that makes you happy that you have found your peeps.
If you have amazing focus/attention span.
You want to get involved in as much outside of class as possible.
Because more than a few of us on this thread have attended elite schools for undergrad and/or grad, are friends with or worked with MIT and/or UMich grads, have been on the interviewing end, understand various industries, and in general have a much better grasp as to how much prestige and opportunities at different schools matter in the real world (the hiring world in different industries) than most HS or college kids or lay people. We also understand how long we have to work to save up $260K after tax and what that type of money really means (roughly $2M by retirement, given conservative return assumptions). Also, employers will read resumes and know if he got one of those special named scholarships at UMich (he would certainly be free to state that he got the full ride to UMich and note how rare that is on is resume).
As you may have guessed, I actually consider that to be more impressive than a mere HYPSM degree.
Note that lay people don’t hire. Hiring managers hire.
@Much2learn: Actually, other than #4 and maybe #1, none of the other reasons are compelling arguments for MIT. You think a kid who is likely some prestigious named scholar and is one of the very few to get a full-ride at UMich won’t get research opportunities, opportunities in CS/Tech, and opportunities to get very involved outside of class at UMich?
@jzducol:
“IMHO, money can always be replaced but college name can never be; once its lost its lost forever.”
Right, because people die right after graduating from undergrad.
Have you ever heard of this thing called “grad school”?
And shocking as it may seem to you, there are actually people in this world who consider a full-ride recipient from an Ivy-equivalent or even Near-Ivy to be more impressive than one of many thousands of HYPSM grads coming in to the job market every year.
Actually, @Much2learn, you actually omitted the most compelling reason to maybe take MIT at full-pay over full-ride at UMich and that is cultural fit.
Even with #4, this kid will find peers among the top students at UMich. This isn’t some average public with only 5%-10% of the student population entering with over a 30 ACT (and almost no one with a >33 ACT).
But if a kid would be miserable at a gigantic sports-crazed B10 school and would love a geeky very STEM-oriented student body, then that’s a strong consideration. In this case, the OP seems to be leaning more towards UMich on the social aspects, however.
BTW, Larry Page went to UMich for undergrad. Sergey Brin went to UMD for undergrad (they both went to Stanford for grad). Going to giant publics highly-rated in CS (I believe both on full rides) didn’t exactly derail their respective lives.