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<p>I have made this argument here and elsewhere many times. It is possible to get a quality, even a competitive education from a state university without incurring the high costs of a top 10 university that can’t (or won’t) give any scholarship money or financial aid. Standards may not even be lower – keep in mind that these schools have professors who went to top 10 schools (or collaborate with professors at top 10 schools), so they know how to make classes difficult, if they want to, and there will also be sharp students at these schools who are looking to get quality educations at more affordable prices.</p>
<p>When I said worse standarts I mean the quality of students would probably be worse not the quality of education. My fault on that one. For example I live in NC. I think most would agree that the average student who went to Georgia Tech for Engineering would be smarter than the average student who went to NC State for engineering. However while you could argue more for Georgia Tech giving you the better education, is it really worth it if you don’t make it all the way. Yah you have the connections with GT but NC State has some fine connections with IBM and other solid companies. This is a question that has seriously affected my college decision and while I’m not attending NC State I am doing something close to the same while I am also getting a free education as well as benefits that will give me security after college as well as experiences that can only help me along. In the end I have asked myself if I thought it was worth it and I couldn’t say yes. I give props to those of you who can but there was just not enough financial as well as personal security to attending Purdue where I would graduate with a lot of debt or Georgia Tech if I were to get in where I would also graduate with debt. I think that’s the question everybody who is in that situation has to ask. Is it really worth it? Do I really want to roll the dice on the future just so I can have the top 10 school on my resume and a better chance of interviewing for a job in Silicon Valley where I am 1 of 100 similar graduates going for 5 open positions?</p>
<p>Well, I’m going to my state’s flagship which is a top 10, but I suppose you could have asked why not go to a lesser ranked school (and I’ll pretend that the lesser ranked school would have been cheaper, which it wouldn’t have been) and had a higher class rank. The reason I choose to go to my state flagship is because the recruiting is better, and that outweighs the increased difficulty. And to be honest, I feel that the increase in difficulty couldn’t be too huge between UMich and MI-Tech, which are the two schools I’m looking at for this example. </p>
<p>Personally, I’m not that worried about not graduating, and I feel that anyone Michigan admitted, could graduate (atleast in Engineering) if they put in the effort. I came in at test scores around the 20th percentile, somewhat more favorable HS GPA (around the median, probably an about average schedule), and ended my first semester with a GPA around 80-85th percentile. Instead of weeding out, I see some “encouragement” out. I don’t see how anyone here could be trying their best and fail out of college, but I can see some putting a reasonable, though underwhelming effort in, getting Cs, and deciding that they’re probably better off doing less work and getting a better GPA in liberal arts.</p>
<p>having an instate top 10…priceless. but for everything else there’s mastercard</p>
<p>in my opinion any one can do it, just some lack work ethic.</p>
<p>^ Well that’s silly… not everybody can do it. I mean, not literally everybody. If everybody did it, we’d run out of ice cream pretty quick.</p>
<p>I dunno, I agree…I think an equivalent statement is that hard work ethic is the primary requirement to obtain an engineering degree…as opposed to other things that are out of your control (business connections, money, fame, physical traits, money)</p>
<p>only he said it in fewer words</p>
<p>yea, what i meant is you are accepted by a top engineering school, you certainly can earn yourself a degree. You have to be willing to work thats all.</p>