Some very important advice needed from CC ppl before decision making!

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hey ppl!</p>

<p>I was not sure if I needed to post this online and ask for advice, but well, what do you know lol</p>

<p>I have some decisions to make soon, and I thought to seek valuable advice from you CC ppl for some help! =]</p>

<p>So here's my story --></p>

<p>During my senior year at high school, I didn't know what I wanted to take up as a major. I hadn’t even done any standardized tests that year as I wasn't planning on studying abroad. But as the year progressed, I realized I wanted to become a doctor, but it was too late to apply to any medical colleges, and I had to be over 18 years old to join. So I planned to take a gap year. </p>

<p>During my gap year, I slowly drifted away from the idea of studying medicine and became highly interested in engineering, chemical engineering to be specific. I soon started researching about it and found myself in love the major. I applied to a couple of schools and got accepted to 2 and got waitlisted at 3. Schools were not top 30 as my scores weren't really that impressive, neither were my gap year activities. But since I did pretty well in high-school and got a 3.8 GPA, I got into my first choice college which was Northeastern University. I felt like it was the best match for me, and my sister is a college student in Boston as well, so that made it better. </p>

<p>I applied for several scholarships (government scholarships) for Northeastern University and got accepted at two. The first one offered me a full tuition pay and a monthly salary of 2,200$. The only charges on me were the housing and meal plan.
Second one however is offering me full tuition pay and a monthly salary of 3000$, but are asking me to take a gap semester and reapply to top schools, as they don't accept NEU. This meant that I drop a semester and apply for spring'10 and most probably repeat my SATs and TOEFL as I'm expected to get into a top school (at least top 50). </p>

<p>However, during the time scholarships are offered (June-August), I came across one that is just for nuclear engineering. I applied and got in. Their deal is that whoever gets accepted will be sent to GTech (Georgia Institute of Technology) for some SAT or ACT preparation courses, register for exams, get good scores, and apply to some top colleges which offer nuclear engineering programs. Examples include (UWisc, GTech, Texas A&M, and Penn State).
The offer also includes a 5000$ per month allowance and extra stuff as well like free airline tickets and housing. The only problem that bugs me in this offer is, that I am already a gap year student and if I don’t get into the colleges they expect me to get into, I would have nowhere to go. As all the colleges mentioned have outstanding students each year, it is VERY competitive to get in. There is never a guarantee. Also, no scholarship departments accept you after 2 years of graduation from high-school (I cannot afford going on my own). I currently deferred my enrollment to NEU to the spring'10 semester. </p>

<p>My question is, which scholarship should I take? What’s the best way to go on? And is it worth taking the risk that is present in the nuclear program?</p>

<p>If anyone wants any further details that I forgot to mention, you can just post it! Any advice and opinions are appreciated =]</p>

<p>Thank you for reading!</p>

2

<p>Northeastern University is a great university and you’ll definitely get a good job if you succeed there because of co-op, I would take the Northeastern scholarship</p>

3

<p>one question–does your northeastern scholarship cover 5 years, since the majority of students at that school take at least 5 years to graduate because of the co-op requirements? </p>

<p>If it covers 5 years of study, I would probably recommend taking the guaranteed scholarship to northeastern since it appears you like the school, have reasons to be in Boston and you would not be forced to take additional tests and reapply to college</p>

4

<p>when I got a scholarship from Northeastern, it covered eight semesters that you attend classes which is basically 5 years since you work for 1 year (and you don’t take classes during then)</p>

5

<p>“Northeastern University is a great university and you’ll definitely get a good job if you succeed there because of co-op, I would take the Northeastern scholarship”</p>

<p>Its a government scholarship from my country, so i’ll definately have to work for them for 5 years if I choose NEU.</p>

6

<p>Yes…it does cover 5 years =]</p>

7

<p>It is quite difficult to make a decision since I’m quite interested in Nuclear engineering as well. Its scholarship offerings are better, and I’ll get a job in the nuclear government department as soon as I graduate. It’ll most probably even pay more as this is the first batch of students going for nuclear engineering for our country.</p>

<p>The only problem is that i’ll start taking preparation courses this year in late december or january, then re-apply to colleges for a nuclear engineering major. If I get in, its all good, if I don’t, I’m screwed BIG time.</p>

<p>My family has been advicing me to go with the nuclear program as it looks quite promising. And since I’m taking scholarships from the country, I won’t really have an option to work at any other place except the government itself for the amount of years I’ve studied.</p>

<p>I personally love NEU, as I definately feel like its a much safer and sensible choice to make right now before wasting anymore time. But I have this feeling that I would regret taking this decision later… this feeling is scaring me.</p>

8

<p>If it means anything to you NU is in the Boston Consortium with Harvard, Tufts, BU and most importantly for you MIT which has the foremost nuclear engineering programs. You can take classes there as an NU student or do your co ops there if you can get them to hire you. Also there are lots of kids sponsored by their countries that go to school at NU. The upcoming class was almost 10% international and I know the sponsorship thing is common for kids coming from Egypt, Saudi. Morocco</p>