Hi everyone, I’m a freshman at UW-Madison majoring in economics with a certificate in East Asian Studies. Last year, I was faced with the incredibly hard decision of choosing between UW-Madison (large public university where I was awarded a full tuition scholarship with a $400/semester book stipend) and Oberlin (awarded enough aid to graduate with around 25k worth of debt, 10k that I would be able to pay off during school to leave me with 15k after graduation). I chose Madison primarily based on financial reasons.
Now that I’m at Madison, however, I’m starting to reconsider. It feels like an extension of high school: I see at least one person from my high school every day, the same types of ‘cliques’ and student groups are here, large emphasis on partying/sororities/fraternities/football. I haven’t found any of the types of people that I would find at Oberlin; the quirky, intellectual, ‘hipster’ people. Also, to sound like a pretentious snob, I feel like anyone could get into Madison; I know people here who got in with a 22 on their ACT (I know, I know, I am the biggest snob ever). At Oberlin, a top 25 liberal arts school, I would feel like I was with a ‘smarter’ group of people. The only thing that got me through high school was knowing that I could go to a school far, far away from the people at my high school, but now I feel like I’ve fallen back on my promise to myself. I am very, VERY worried about money, as I plan on going to grad school to get a masters in international studies after college, which I know will cost $$, and I also hope to do internships which might not be paid. If it was your decision, would you transfer to Oberlin and take on that 15k (if they give me the same financial aid package; they flew me over for a multicultural overnight weekend visit and even extended my financial aid offer past the may 1st deadline when i was having second guesses), or would you stay at Madison and hope for the best?
P.S. I know I have been at school for a little over a month, and things will undoubtedly change over time. Please answer this question as if I was writing it in March and I still felt this way, when the transfer application is due
Your remaining debt after Oberlin would be less than what many borrow to buy a car. I’d regard the decision to transfer to Oberlin as a reasonable one if you feel in March as you do now.
(Btw, the assumption will be that you used ACT score examples as concise way to convey the level of your peer’s academic seriousness. The actual figures are not what is important.)
How many times do you think you can keep making this decision over and over. You already turned Oberlin down twice now, right? I’m afraid now that you matriculated there is very little chance you will get that offer again.
Your debt is really going to be 25k, and you are hoping to pay back some while in school. That isn’t a given. So with grad school plans that is more interest racking up. Did you calculate how much it could turn into? Now that isn’t a bad price for Oberlin but really it just seems to me you could be just as well one month into Oberlin and having adjustment problems and freaking out about your costs and debt and wishing you could go to UW. Not all options are perpetually available to you as you get older and have to start making choices. You made the best choice you could with the info you had.
My advice is to start hanging out with older students. There are tons of quirky interesting people in Madison (my dd was a grad student there and we are from SF so we know from interesting and quirky.) But you already knew going in that it was not going to be the atmosphere of a small LAC. Freshmen are going to be high school-y yes. Yes, it is well known that public schools admit a very wide variety of student profiles and some will rise to the top and some will fail. UW has enough people in the top to give you a run for your money. Oh horrors you see one person a day you know? BFD, get over it. Start doing all the fun stuff there is to do. When you get more entrenched in your dept you will have more commonality with academic peers.
For the goals you’ve stated, with the prospect of graduating $15K in debt, I’d probably have recommended Oberlin last Spring. However, as BrownParent stated, your debt really will be $25K, and you’ve already committed to at least a year at Madison (unless you drop out mid-year). At this point, in my opinion you should give Madison at least another month or so of concerted effort to develop new interests (friends, activities, courses, etc). Then reassess. If you still think it’s not working for you, go ahead and submit a transfer application (or two). Then reassess again if you get an acceptable transfer admission and aid offer.
A terminal master’s degree in IR (or a related field) won’t be cheap. If you work for a few years you might be able to get an employer to pay for a program of evening classes at a local university. For example, that arrangement may be available with the State department (or other employers) and universities in the Washington-Baltimore area (Georgetown, JHU, GW, AU). $15K of debt, or possibly as much as $25K of debt, may be manageable if you’re not taking on additional grad school costs.
Still, it’ll mean as much as ~$250/month in repayments for years to come, at a time in your life when you’ll really wish you had that extra cash. So I think Wisconsin was a good, sensible choice.
Surely you knew going into UW-Mad that where would be a wider distribution of academic ability and test scores than at Oberlin? Surely you also know that there are at least as many smart kids in the top quarter of the class that are at Oberlin. A a number of them will be ‘your people.’ You just need to work harder to find them than would have been the case at Oberlin. Is having to work a little harder to find your people worth $25k? Given your future plans, I would say so. But if you still haven’t found them by spring, you can apply to transfer. Just don’t expect to get the same financial aid package the second time around. If you are truly unhappy, it might still be worth it - but plan on applying to schools in addition to Oberlin.
Meanwhile, get to know the faculty and grad students in your depts. Figure out which faculty have research interests in areas that you are interested in and see about getting involved in that. Start researching the year or semester abroad opportunities for junior year - are there language or other requirements? Can you get a dept. grant to do research overseas that might cover some of the costs. Check out what it would take to get a Marshall, Fulbright or other scholarship when you graduate so you can get someone else to pay for your graduate degree and/or additional study abroad. Check out the housing off-campus next year if you want to get away from the frat/party/football scene on campus. But most of all - invest yourself in activities around campus where you can meet the kind of people you like. And remember that no one wants to hang out with someone who says they are planning to transfer - too much cognitive dissonance for those who are committed to stay, so keep this to yourself.
If you move to Oberlin, it will be as a transfer, not an incoming freshman, and the financial aid package may not be as attractive as it was last year. I’d expect to take on higher debt if you were to move now.
Where are the hipster hang outs in Madison? What do members of the various artistic clubs do? I go to a school with a huge amount of Greek life, rapid devotion to sports, and yet a few of my friends look like they were chosen by the New York Times to represent millenials ( basically they’re the type of people you described). I’d imagine the same is true of Madison.
First of all, I don’t think even the $25k debt is unreasonable if you will study something that will likely lead to a professional job.
However, you are in what is generally considered to be a good school with an academic smorgasbord for offerings. At a school with the size and reputation of Madison, your peers have to exist on campus. Anybody’s peers would. You need to find a way to find them. Maybe there is some intellectual club where like minded folks would gravitate to. Maybe try the fencing club and learn how to fence. Maybe find a social justice club
Are you in the lake shore dorms? Those are supposed to be a little quieter with more inward looking types.
I suggest you continue to try and find your crowd but if you can’t, I don’t see any thing wrong with transferring to Oberlin.
OP, you are having a case of buyer’s remorse. We all go through it at times. Did you go to college to get an education or to socialize? Who cares if you see others from your HS? You can choose to interact with them or not. If you are as academically gifted as your post makes it seem, you should be in the Honors College (or equivalent) at Madison. As a finance major, you should be able to do some analysis on the time value of money and the cost in real terms over your adult life.
In the real world, Oberlin means nothing. While I am not a UW fan (Go Gophers), it has a wide-ranging positive reputation across the country as an academically challenging school. Regardless of where you eventually decide to live, your UW degree will serve you well.
Don’t let your snobbery lead you into bad decisions. 25K is a lot of money for someone with essentially zero income. It will take years to make up the difference between being 25K in debt or debt-free. Since Oberlin is likely to earn you the same or, more likely, less money than a degree at UW, you would basically be harming yourself for superficial reasons. What if when you start your first ‘real’ job you discover someone from your HS works there too? Would you quit?
This ship has sailed. As others have pointed out, you will not likely get the same scholarship at Oberlin as a transfer even if you were to make that unwise decision. Seek out those who share your academic curiosity and think of the other students in the same way you think of anyone else in humanity.
If you go around thinking you’re smarter than everyone else you’re missing opportunities to learn because everybody knows something you don’t. How well people scored on standardized tests they took a year or two ago doesn’t matter; how serious they are about their studies now does.
This is foolish.
At 6.8%
25K 10 years $288/mo
25K 20 years $191/mo
If you plan to be a successful professional, you will likely make over $100K in 10 years. That’s probably about $5K-6K per month in cash money after taxes. Neither of these payment plans will change your life. Make yourself happy.
I would do your best, try to find your niche, and pursue the transfer. Your likelihood of getting back in to Oberlin AND getting attractive funding is going to improve if you get stellar grades at UW. Are there honors courses that you could take? And who knows, by the time you get to the Spring semester, UW may be home and you may no longer pine for Oberlin. Either way, you’ll have covered your bases. I would make some effort to explore Madison. It is a great small city and you won’t regret it, especially if you end up in Oberlin, OH, which is charming but small.
You are not so much a pretentious snob as you clueless at looking at the bigger picture.
The average UW student will likely be less intelligent than the average Oberlin student. But Oberlin admits roughly 750 students each year. UW-Madison admits roughly 7500 students each year. I am quite certain that the top 750 (top 10%) students of UW-Madison students can run circles around the 750 students at Oberlin when it comes to intellectual discussions.
Here’s why I know this is true. I attended a large mid-western State U for my undergrad rather than CalTech in my case. Like you, the deciding factor was that State U gave me a full ride scholarship plus spending money. I was part of the Honors program. My fellow Honors students at State U were generally brighter than the the grad students at the HYPSM where I received my graduate degree.
Two things I still remember about that Honors program today. First, most of us went to grad school at places like Stanford, Columbia, MIT, Cornell, etc. Second, the single brightest person I have ever known in my entire life was in my honors program at State U. He achieved a 4.0 GPA through his entire undergrad, which was unheard of at the time, while being president of two clubs and having lots of free time. He later attended MIT for grad school, started a business, made just shy of $10M before turning 30, bought a house overlooking the ocean in California and is now living a quieter but supremely contented life.
So if you can’t find the right intellectual group at UW-Madison, you are simply not looking hard enough.
I have a very different view on this. In short, it’s worth a LOT of money not to be miserable for 4 years of your life. College isn’t just a stepping stone to the rest of your life, it’s a fair chunk of your time spent here on earth. Finding the right school can make the difference between thriving and misery.
That said, you should look harder to find “your people” at UW. you are correct that those sorts of people are everywhere at Oberlin but, as someone else pointed out, there are FAR more students at UW and the kind of people you want to be around are there, you just have to find them.
If you are still unhappy in the spring then you can consider transferring. People are correct that your financial offer may not be as good as it was last time so transferring may not be an option.Your best bet is to try to make the best of what you have.
Thanks for the comments everyone. If money wasn’t an issue, I know I would have chosen Oberlin. Money is a big issue, and I just hope I made a good choice even though I feel like I don’t fit in here.
