I think we may have jumped the shark here a little bit. I value all opinions based on the content. I will question but will not claim that mine are any better than any other. We should all let our words do our talking.
@bluebayou Thatâs interesting about Davisâs Regents. I think UCSDâs was a one-time $500 if I remember correctly. At the time, Davis was probably considered higher up the food chain than UCSD which was still fairly new. Makes sense I guess because our son was offered Regents by Davis a few years ago and with all the extra amounts they tacked on to the base $7500 it would have come close to full tuition, far better than the other UCs.
Iâve enjoyed reading this thread and appreciate the emotion and experience involved. Itâs Friday night. Time to fire up my green egg and do some grilling for our soon to arrive guests. One or two of them are wine snobs which is good for me because they bring their own stash. I have the cigars⊠Enjoy your evening everyone.
Looking forward tot he Final Four tomorrow!
This family has some means, so if they can comfortably afford Stanford (and, in time, whatever school their daughter chooses), fine.
That said, there is a myth out there that Stanford or Harvard offers unparalleled undergraduate educations, and this simply isnât true. Itâs not as if a WF student would be overwhelmed at Stanford, while a Stanford student would find the academics at WF remedial. Iâd recommend everyone read Frank Bruniâs book âWhere You Go Is Not Who Youâll Be.â Bruni, a writer for the NY Times, turned down admission to Yale to attend UNC-Chapel Hill. One of the biggest myths out there is that there is some huge difference in quality of undergraduate education (undergrad!) between more or less similar universities.
So, yes, the issue is really whether the Stanford name is worth it. Again, we are talking about undergrad here. Undergrad! Stanfordâs main reason for existence is not to take familiesâ 18-year-olds and provide them with four years of rigorous, mentored education and opportunities for personal growth. Stanford exists to create research and scholarship. It also exists to educate and mentor graduate students. Last of all, because there are so many bright minds around Palo Alto, yes, it is willing to âtake inâ the OPâs son, knowing full well that the Stanford name will have pull. An earlier poster mentioned that WF is buying the OPâs son. Thatâs true. But itâs also true that Stanford hopes to convince the OP to spend 300K instead of zilch (actually, less than zilch, since the OPâs son would be receiving a handsome stipend at WF).
I am not denying that prestige has value, but as the somewhat well-known Krueger and Dale study shows, for students who are admitted to elite schools but choose to attend a school elsewhere, there is zero difference in earnings over the long run. The student who turns down Penn for Penn State will be just fine, as will the OPâs child if he chooses, potentially, to attend Wake Forest over Stanford. The exception that Krueger and Dale found is for the student who has minority status. People of color, for instance, do benefit from the chance to attend an Ivy or Ivy equivalent.
Normally, the choice here would be a no-brainer: WF. Only the OP can decide if the 300K price tag is worth the name recognition. If the family can afford it (without affecting the daughterâs college choice down the road), great! If not, OP, you have your answer. Oh, and itâs not as if WF is some podunk school that no one has ever heard of.
@hello_you: OP: We faced a similar decision about a decade ago. The deciding factor was that the studentâs major was known. The decision was made on that basis.
Most âtroublingâ about your situation is that your original post states: âUnknown major yet.â
If your son remains undecided about his major, then consider the WFU Stamps Scholarship. Invest the $200,000 so your daughterâs education is fully funded and/or for graduate school for your son.
Of course, he needs to fit in with the culture at WFU. Decades ago, I studied at Wake Forest as a visiting student. And I have acquaintances who attended or their children attended WFU. When I was there we had to take our own alcohol into any bar or club in a brown bag & buy mixers. Winston-Salem was among the most segregated cities in the countryâwhich was a bit dangerous for a long distance runner like myself. I love North Carolinaâespecially the Outer Banks which are a bit over 6 hours drive from WFU, but well worth the drive. Access to the Smoky Mountains & the Blue Ridge Parkway (Virginia) make for interesting trips. Charlotte is a nice city.
If your son was determined to study engineering or computer science, then my advice would be different based on the lifelong contacts he would make at Stanford & on the basis of, as you wrote, âunparalleled opportunitiesâ. But without a plan in mind, the WFU Stamps Scholarship is too valuable to pass up. Use the money for graduate schoolâif neededâand for making elite graduate school contacts & enjoying elite graduate school opportunities.
So I guess I live closer to Stanford than Sushiritto and my experience of who got admitted to Stanford in my kidsâ class (a somewhat average HS for Silicon Valley with a large URM population) was that they were great kids, but absolutely not the smartest in the class. All the NMFs went to UCs and the Stanford kids werenât in the top 10 in the class. Instead the kids going to Stanford all had hooks of one kind of another.
I see the influence of Stanford all around us, quite a few of our neighbors are Stanford grads. They are smart people. But the vast majority donât have outsize influence in SV, they are regular people, doing similar jobs to someone from a UC or other college.
@Hapworth: You wrote: ââŠthere is a myth out there that Stanford or Harvard offer unparalleled undergraduate educationsâŠâ. I think that you misunderstandâespecially in OPâs case. It is not âunparalleled undergraduate educationsâ, but, rather, âunparalleled opportunitiesâ for their undergraduates.
When it comes to undergraduate education I do think that there are distinctions between all schools. The value of the differences may be up to debate but I think that their presence just makes sense. If you look at some of the basic components that make up an undergraduate education some colleges are just better situated to deliver. Faculty, depth and breadth of curriculum, class availability, and undergraduate research opportunities are all key to a great undergrad education, and in those dimensions not all schools are equal.
I have forgotten which poster is deciding between Stanford & the University Of Mississippi. but PM me because I have some familiarity & direct contact with the program that you mentioned. @HoustonKen
@Publisher - itâs @HoustonKen
@Hoggirl Thank you !
Here are my two cents as a student in the Bay Area. Stanford does have many undergrad research opportunities. Thereâs also a really strong community - people will randomly find each other 7 years after graduation and bond over being at âThe Farmâ.
That being said, contrary to popular belief, hiring managers and recruiters in SV and PA donât really care where you graduate from. They care whether you did work at your school and whether you have awards/projects/research. Sure, saying you go to Stanford might push you right into the interview phase, but so will going to Wake Forest if you have a good resume and GPA. (And you can trust me on this because my father works at one of these big-time SV companies and is on the recruitment board).
If, however, your son wants to study CS or engineering, Iâd go to Stanford. There are a lot more networking opportunities and a high retention rate.
One more thing, though. Bay Area living cost is much higher than you think. Earning a $100k salary here is considered far less than earning a $100k salary in somewhere like Montana. One year at Stanford will set your son back around $71k.
Hope that helps!
Where did OP end up going? We were in the same situation and decided to take a gap year instead. lol By the way, to me, going to letâs say WF or UVA on an impressive scholarship is more impressive (to me at least) than going to HYPSM. But thatâs just the way I think. Also, getting merit money scholarship because you are a National Merit Finalist is not that all impressive to me, although ok impressive. I donât even know why they give out merit money for just being NMF. I am not saying this because I am bitter or jealous because my kid was a NMF and was offered merit money. I think to get a full ride scholarship, a student needs to show a definite talent in some area or an evidence of demonstrated contribution or great potential.
I donât think anyone but your family can make this decision. Based on information you provided it seems that you can afford Stanford. When our family was facing similar decision few years back we chose full paying options vs free ride. Three years later I donât believe DD would have even a fraction of those opportunities her school presented. Also by interning every winter and summer break and sometimes during school year she earned good chunk of what we are paying for her school.
âThree years later I donât believe DD would have even a fraction of those opportunities her school presented.â
We presume they wouldnât have gotten better opportunities because of confirmation bias. We WANT to know that is the case. The reality is that students at lots of schools get opportunities. And students at the âtopâ schools often donât. NASA gave 32 scholarships in Oregon alone this year, half of which went to community college students. I know a student personally who attends the school that @Ballerina016 has a student at. Heâs taking a year leave, disillusioned, working in a private lab, trying to decide his next step in life. No school comes with guarantees.
What is true is that the money youâll spend has opportunity cost. If you were to invest the $300,000 more that itâll cost for a full pay program over a free program, at 7% over 40 years, youâll have over $4M. Thatâs how much BETTER the full pay program will have to be to break even.
Now, thatâs not to say that you should always choose the cheapest option. On a pure financial basis though, no full pay school pays as an investment compared to free, not even Stanford, even if the full pay school comes with more opportunity.
Or the market could tank and you could loose all that money⊠
@Rivet2000, if the market tanked for over 40 years, weâd have more concerns than where we went to college. Remember, even if you invested the day before any previous crash, including 1929, you made money, LOTS of money, by simply holding on. We are comparing a free degree with $300,000 in the bank to a $300,000 degree with no money in the bank (or in some worse cases, debt), not degree versus no degree.
I knew I should have labeled that humor
@Rivet2000, Oops. Sorry. 
I have seen that exact same reply proffered with dead seriousness. :neutral:
On campus recruiting is so much less important than it was even 3 years ago. With hundreds of companies, and pretty much all of Wall St, opting for the AI recruiting programs, it is no wonder that elite companies like JP Morgan have completely ceased all on campus recruiting. More will follow next year. The world is indeed getting flat in many ways.