I was admitted to both schools, rensselaer with a leadership award for 37k a year and 8.5k a year of loans, making EFC a little under 21k a year. At carnegie mellon i received a 25k a year grant, and with loans EFC is 33k. I’m interested in studying chemical engineering with a double major in biomedical engineering. After visiting the schools, I preferred CMU but still liked RPI. I know CMU offers better academics, is more highly ranked, and I like the location and atmosphere of the campus better. I would really prefer to go to CMU, but don’t know if it’s worth taking out 12k more in loans each year, probably 20k total. I would feel so at home at CMU, but is it worth all this debt? How good of a school is rensselaer? Im looking to go to graduate school afterwards, so I’m trying to weigh that in as well. I appealed my financial aid with CMU to see if they would give me any more but they turned me down. I’m having a really hard time deciding. Then there’s baylor, which would only cost me 10k a year total, so I could save up for grad school and be the top of my class, however I’m unsure of the academics.
Please help lend me some insight!
Save the money for grad school. IMO CMU is not worth that extra in loans. Baylor is good but I think RPI is a nice compromise. It has the STEM program/tech aspect plus it is semi-affordable.