<p>JC.
Pay pennies on the dollar of a university for the first 2 years and don’t look back at that 100K debt. I graduated from Troy (Fullerton; I thought you were closer to the area cause UCI, but reread you live in PS) last year and passed up USC (dream school) for that same reason. Get outside and have fun. </p>
<p>Also, 5k personal contribution from summer working AND during the year is pretty ridiculous. Working 15 hours a week is pretty weak brother, even for an Engineering major. If you’re willing to work a lot more in the summer, I bet you could stretch your PC to 10k+ (If you REALLY insist on HM…).</p>
<p>Ps
Engineering transfer is relatively competitive at the JC, but I bet you could get a spot at LA or maybe even B. Don’t settle for no, and don’t settle for unhappiness.</p>
<p>Ok here is the deal…he has no clue as to what he is going to do…thus undergraduate discovery. We can afford the Yale option (also he has been accepted to Princeton and Columbia). But passing up a completely free ride…plus more is a bit hard to swallow. Also U of M is close to home. My son is extremely driven. Almost perfect ACT’s, SAT’s, and grades, and is President of 2 major clubs plus an athlete (Football/Wrestling), and is a saxophone player with major state awards for exemplary work. He is an amazing kid- but still…it is hard to decide does the IVY connection give him a leg up? He would definitely be the kind of kid to take advantage of that if it was really there. What do you think? What would you do…a state school undergraduate program that is free…plus vs. Yale?</p>
<p>I’d like to circle back to the ED point. The casual attitude toward applying ED disturbs me, the OP efectively having simply unilaterally reduced it to an EA option. This is stated as a (by FA standards anyway), a high-income family which should have expected little to no FA. Hmmmm. And didnt the parents have to specifically sign-off that they had carefully considered the ED decision and its financial components? Hmmmmm.</p>
<p>And of all ironies ED for a program that prides itself on melding the humanities/ethics into its curriculum (despite HR’s grad rate into our war machine industry). Hmmmmmm. I do not think the OP belongs at HM, but for different reasons than most of the posts above.</p>
<p>There’s a huge difference between “they are able” and “they are willing”. It’s their money, and how much they’ll is their decision. It’s best that this were decided well prior to the application process. If the parents do not want to contribute the parents’ income and assets are a moot point.</p>
<p>@cluelessdad – I agree with your point about ED but what is done is done.</p>
<p>@Dad<em>of</em>3 – absolutely. Sometimes parents are mentally navigating the financing a college education while their kids are going through the application process. How much they are willing to pay might change as the choice between schools is more concrete.</p>
<p>@pollyw – if it was my kid I’d send him to Yale, but that is just me. You are the one who has to write the checks so the decision belongs to you and your son, and there is no right or wrong.</p>
<p>I work with a lot of engineers, and I never heard of anyone attending Harvey Mudd. Never even knew it was an engineering school until today. Granted, I’m in NY, so perhaps that may have something to do with not ever hearing about it.</p>
<p>This is going to sound facetious, but whenever I hear the name Harvey Mudd, I think of that character from Star Trek, Harry (Harcourt Fenton) Mudd. </p>
<p>And, how do you know you will make 80k when you graduate? How do you know you’ll immediately get a great job? </p>
<p>I’m not a California resident but I think that schools like UCLA and UCB place high importance on transfers from other UCs.</p>
<p>So… you could go to UCI and transfer to a school like UCLA/UCB. Since you’re an in-state resident, you’d be paying around $22k-30k/year for 2 years (since you’d transfer at the beginning of your junior year).</p>
<p>For those commenting based on a lack of reputation for HM in the general population, in the circles within which HM plays – the top end globally of engineering and hard sciences at the creative design/patent level – HM is as well known as MIT/CalTech, with both losing plenty of admittees to HM.</p>
<p>That’s not to say go to HM at any price, just that HM is as good as it gets as an engineering option.</p>
<p>There is also the wildcard of UC quality/expense over the next 4-5 years. California is in a world of hurt and there is a a ton of pain yet to come in the UC system.</p>
<p>$80k as a starting salary is pretty exceptional. If you have a very specialized skillset maybe. Here in Silicon Valley, most new grads in ME, EE, CSE start in the $60-70k range with a BS, slightly more for MS. I’d imagine we pay the highest salaries in the country.</p>
<p>In this economy new grads are having a really tough time. When I get approval to hire someone, I want an experienced Engineer. It doesn’t much matter that I’ll have to pay over $100k for for someone with experience. It’s very hard to add new headcount, so you have to get the most out of each hire you are allow to make. By the time approval is granted I’m so desperate that I have to have someone who can hit the ground running and needs very little training or hand holding.</p>
<p>BTW after a few years in the workforce no one cares what school you went to. Work experience trumps it by far. You need a degree, but it’s just the ticket to the party. Once your in, it’s importance fades quickly. I look to see that they have an engineering degree, make a mental check mark then dig into their work experience. An exception would be if you are in a very specialized area of knowledge, and a particular university is known to be one of the only institutions offering a degree in it.</p>
<p>I hire mostly ME’s, IE’s a few EE’s doing product development. It’s a little different if you are doing cutting edge research, then it’s usually PHD’s with some specialized knowledge. Most engineers are NOT doing research, they are doing development. Applying already understood technologies to new problems, to create products that will sell.</p>
<p>Simbot, if a GPA is not listed on the Resume, would you ask for it or would you assume that it was below a 3.0? Or is this not even an issue at all?</p>
<p>UCI is not a bad school. It has many highly-ranked departments and has a good reputation.</p>
<p>That much debt is ridiculous. I agree with others that applying ED was a disturbing choice, but you don’t need to destroy your future with debt.</p>
<p>Hey!
I’ve read several pages and to be told extremely amazed that nobody mentioned about private sponsors available to students. If you earn decent grades in a school like Harvey Mudd, I’m quite sure by your third year you’ll find several generous companies willing to pay for your education.</p>
<p>I really agree with this. I’m interviewing and hiring right now in a completely different industry than Simbot, but everything in that post resonates completely. I find I rely on a candidate’s established track record and the referrals I get from trusted associates more than anything else. I’ve been doing this many years and can’t remember giving someone an edge based on the name of the college on his or her resume. </p>
<p>I also believe in certain situations an elite school degree can actually work against a candidate. For example, for many employers in Florida, you can’t walk through the door with a better credential than UF or FSU (depending on the field). I suspect it’s that way in other areas around the country as well. So, when making these choices one might also consider where they plan to live and work after graduation. Often degrees from elite colleges travel no better than the regional favorites.</p>
<p>I was faced with the same situation when I got into a good private school in my area but the only way I would be able to attend was to accumulate $100k+ after just undergrad. The only schools I could afford were schools like Cleveladn State Univiersity which is like tier 3 or 4 and I wasn’t doing it. I’m at a community college now getting all my general requirements for the time being and I’m completely happy with my decision.</p>
<p>@FLVADAD, I don’t think I have ever seen a post of yours I’ve disagreed with. </p>
<p>In Ohio as well, there was a mistrust of employees with a degree fancier than Ohio State. Almost a “who do you think you are?” If you delivered and were humble, great. If not, and you were arrogant about where you went to school, you were gone. Even in Chicago where I have lived for the last 16 years, with Northwestern even present, I still have not seen where employers are overly impressed with Northwestern grads compared to DePaul, or UIC or UIUC, or Marquette. </p>
<p>$80,000 is an awful lot to spend on a college “experience” or ticket to an interview. And in some parts of the country, no one will care enough to grant the interview.</p>
<p>I am in the exact same situation; it’s good to know that I’m not alone. I’ve been accepted to my two top schools, U of Richmond and Emory, but without a penny of scholarship money. Financial aid is out, but my parents are in that category where they can swing maybe 30K, but not 50K. I have been offered a 20K scholarship to Furman, which is also a good private school in SC, but obviously not as prestigious as the others. The question is dream school for full price, lesser for half, or a public university like UF for even less. I suppose the positive to all of this is my realization that life is not always fair, and the future is definitely never certain.
Thanks to everyone’s posts on this topic, it’s helping a lot!</p>
<p>I have to agree with the majority… It’s not like you are in a random state with no good public schools, you are in CALIFORNIA ! I moved from PA to CA right before High school and I feel fortuante that I will be able to go community college -> UC (santa barbara is my fav. right now) and graduate with little or no debt. I plan on going to pharmacy schoool as well so I would be more willing to take on debt then. </p>
<p>The only way I would even consider that much debt for undergrad is if I were interested in something like art school where public school choices are limited, and where grades/sat’s would be a lot more important than your portfolio…</p>
<p>My d has the same problem.She received a full schlorship to a more selective school that she likes vs Harvard or Princeton with no financial aid except a 2500 one time award from NMSC.She plans on attending medical school after college.We have savings but it would take most of it to pay her tuition and I have two others in high school and an uncertain employment situation.She would leave college with 150k in debt and then have medical school to pay.We would help her more later on if we can depending on our ability to do so.Is it worth it to take on that much debt?</p>