My daughter got accepted at the University of Illinois and University of Michigan
Illinois LAS Chemistry
Michigan LSA Neuroscience
We are Illinois residents
We are out of state for Michigan
Illinois offered her pretty good financial aid package
Michigan offered her 25000 however we have to come up with the remainder she did apply for several LSA scholarships and the Chicago Michigan alumni chapter scholarship
She thinks Illinois is not as good as Michigan
Especially if grad or professional school is in the future, please avoid loans. Having a lot of loans(and it seems like you could have $100,000 or so over the four years at Michigan, right?) will not be good.
The rule of thumb about loans is the total should not exceed what your starting salary will be. In either of these fields, I doubt that she will earn $100,000 after her bachelors.
Michigan is a wonderful school. And I would say go for it….if you didn’t need to take loans to do so.
Illinois is also a great flagship research university. Congratulations on getting a great scholarship there.
Our daughter also got into these two schools and she wants to major in Chemistry. We just visited UIUC’s admitted Illini day event and it was really well done. I would suggest to do that and also visit Ann Arbor before deciding.
There’s your answer right there. Your daughter has admittances to two great flagship universities, one with a bit more “prestige” to its name, but both are very good universities. You would require loans to go to Michigan. You would not for Illinois. The difference in price between the two would be about $170k or more, which is not an insignificant amount.
I understand that many seniors have a desire to go out of state because it’s something new or different, and they want to spread their wings. If you are willing, suggest that with the savings of going to UIUC over Michigan that she could spend a year studying abroad, or have stipends from the family for summer internships, or a single room in the dorms after freshman year, or special extras like season sports or theater tickets.
At the Illini day she will meet with faculty from the Chem department in a smaller group session and can ask whatever she wants. When we went to Ann Arbor it was more general information. Both are great schools. Good luck to her as she decides. She will be fine in either place.
Curious as to why she applied to different majors at each school. Illinois doesn’t have neuroscience, but does have Brain and Cognitive Science. It should be straightforward to transfer majors within LSA/LAS at either school.
I am in the group that thinks UIUC for $1,300 per year is unbeatable. It’s an excellent school, no reason to take out loans to attend Michigan.
It’s not clear how much in loans you will need at Michigan, but will the parents qualify for as much as is needed over the 4 years? (student loan max is $27K over 4 years) If total loans are near $100K for Mich, that is going to require $1,000/month payments for 10 years, a typical neuro or chem major won’t be able to afford that.
At Michigan, a student doesn’t pick a major until the end of sophomore year. Changing majors after that is easy within LSA. And changing schools to CoE at Michigan isn’t that difficult either as long as a student has the grades and takes the right classes.
I’m a huge fan of Michigan, but UIUC for $1,300 per year is a “steal of a deal.”
I know many people who went to their state flagship school and once they figured out what they wanted to major in, transferred to another school if it had a better department. Example: a friend at UW-Madison realized he wanted to do aerospace engineering and easily transferred to Ann Arbor which has a fantastic department. But I know this can be hard, esp regarding friendships.
Another thing is, does she think she’ll pursue graduate work? Because all that matters really is the last school you went to. (I have a lot of science friends!). One went to Madison for physics, which is top 20, then leapt up to MIT, then Harvard. He is now on staff at a top 10 school. Another did organic chem at Madison, then jumped to Berkeley and now has a very lucrative career in industry. I believe that within the sciences, UW-Madison, UIUC, Ann Arbor and Berkeley are like sibling schools and transitioning between any of them is quite common.
I am biased…big UIUC fan. Know several who have majored/currently majoring in Chemistry and I hear it’s excellent. That’s a great deal they offered your daughter and I cannot imagine passing it up. When $ factors into the equation my thought is you go with the path of least debt. Your daughter will get an excellent education at an excellent school and come out debt free. Don’t get sucked into taking out loans. Really.