<p>beastman – you posted while I was composing. Great post.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input beastman and dbwes. It really helps to keep things in perspective. dbwes your feedback on the PT program has been helpful. I agree with the side by side comparisons. Doing that with my D might help shed some light on things and make her decision easier.</p>
<p>Let me elaborate a bit.</p>
<p>My S attended a highly ranked all boys prep school that was an HPYMS feeder. His class of 82 had over 35 students attend Ivies, Stanford or MIT alone. He was one of 7 accepted to Yale (his was SCEA) which was his dream school. At the same time his school nominated him for the Morehead Scholarship at UNC and he was fortunate enough to be named a winner. </p>
<p>His list of schools was Amherst, Dartmouth, Pomona, Princeton, Stanford, Wash U, Yale and UNC because of the Morehead nomination. As I mentioned earlier, he was accepted to Yale SCEA at which time he withdrew his apps from Amherst, Dartmouth and Pomona because he had classmates applying there and he knew he would not attend so why hurt their chances. Yale’s offer of FA initially was ZERO which they later amended to be about 18K a year. We hoped that we could use FA offers from Princeton to negotiate with Yale if necessary. Wash U offered him a name scholarship and over $20K per year and Princeton came with a more generous offer than Yale.</p>
<p>In the end HE decided that he wanted to accept the Morehead. I have to be honest when I say that one of the hardest things I have ever had to do was tell him to not make it about the money…we were looking at approximately $200K for Yale versus NOTHING at UNC. The Morehead included tuition, room, board, books, his laptop and a stipend for living expenses PLUS four fully paid summer “experiential learning” sessions.</p>
<p>He decided that graduating debt free, especially with med school in his future, was a good place to be.</p>
<p>He loved every minute of his time at UNC, and never regretted his decision to turn down Yale. He spent his first (“outdoor leadership”) summer learning to sail off the cost of Maine, his second (“service”) summer working in a small fishing village in Senegal about 90km south of Dakar, his "travel study " summer was in Montmartre living as a Parisian while taking short trips throughout Europe studying the influence of American Jazz on the music scene in Europe , and he spent his “research” summer doing research at a top 10 Medical facility. </p>
<p>He is now a second year med student at a top ten medical school and unlike the majority of his peers he is not piling debt on top of more debt.</p>
<p>It was initially very hard for me (and EAmom) to “get over” not being able to put the Yale sticker in our car windows but when we saw how happy our son was and how he was thriving and in all honesty was happier than we had ever seen him we were able to put our egos aside and enjoy the ride.</p>
<p>He had and has an amazing group of very talented friends who have also gone on to great things from UNC. Several Rhodes and Truman Scholars, Harvard med, Duke and Yale Law, among many others. </p>
<p>Great kids will thrive wherever they are…there are plenty of kids treading water at more “elite” schools…the good/great kids at the other schools tend to walk on water.</p>
<p>brutus</p>
<p>The economic climate has changed many things. The widespread pracrice of employers paying for graduate education is being reduced in many cases because the graduate education is becoming a prerequisite for the employment. Many top law schools are taking less than 1/3 of their classes directly out of UG and want at least 2-3 years of real world work experience BEFORE offering admission. I am NOT saying that one should make a decison for purely financial reasons. What I am saying is that if it is going to put extreme financial hardship on a family to go into 200K plus debt, cause them to take a second mortgage etc, then it doesn’t make sense to do so. </p>
<p>I have classmates, friends and fraternity brothers from MU that have gone on to fabulous careers and who have achieved high levels of success and wealth with their MU degrees. Like many other things, the results of an undergraduate experience will be based on what someone puts into it.</p>
<p>Very well, put eadad. May I add that even though Marquette has never been considered an “elite” school, even in my smallish circle of friends there are quite a few who have gone on to have graduate school classmates and work colleagues from Ivy League and other top tier schools. They include-
-A vice president at NBC-Universal
-The founder of an international relief agency (who did his graduate work in Biomedical Engineering at Stanford)
-Two Partners at Accenture
-A Fulbright Scholar that went on to be a foreign service officer
-Two attorneys that attended Harvard Law School</p>
<p>As the CFO of a division of one of the largest international service companies in the world, I feel like the “loser” among my MU friends!</p>
<p>My own husband, an MU grad, went on to the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and held his own with classmates that did their undergrads at Stanford, Harvard, etc. </p>
<p>I can say with confidence that a bright, dedicated student will not be hindered in any way by choosing Marquette over a school with a more prestigious reputation.</p>
<p>Thanks for everyone’s comments. Interesting examples, discussion and opinions and I respect them all. I am happy that things have worked out so well. As I have said before, I have never met anyone who has said a bad thing about MU or the education. I think my son is receiving a top notch, first rate education at MU and because of his scholarships it is extremely affordable to his family. For that I am grateful.
Based on my experience in business over the last 25 years, I would still say that his best bet for landing a great job out of the box (in business) and making a strong income to pay off loans would be best served at the highest tier he could get into. I don’t see MU having the market appeal outside of big metro areas of Milwaukee and Chicago. Since the job market is so strained, it seems to me that you would want to have the best curb appeal one can get. But this is my opinion and I know everyone else disagrees.<br>
I am in a different situation as I own my own small business and have never taken a pay check. I don’t go on vacation and I don’t plan on retiring. Any savings that we have collected over the years has paid our household expenses and placed in tuition funds. If my kids are successful, they understand they will help out their parents if necessary. That is the way they were brought up. Thanks for your insight. God bless all.</p>
<p>I just spoke with an admissions counselor today who told me she just found out the Ignatius Awards would be increased this year. She said they would top now range from $10,000-$13,000. I was thrilled to hear this news. I guess we have about a month until we are notified of the awards. She said we will be notified about the acceptance decisions within a few weeks, and then the awards a few weeks after that.</p>
<p>That is FANTASTIC NEWS!!! Thanks, nkl!</p>
<p>Great news, wish it would have happened last year!!</p>