Hey guys, I’m just posting on this for a follow up. In early February, I got a likely letter to Whitman saying that they would fly me out to Washington for free. When I started getting decisions, I really anticipated my Tulane decision because I really liked the school. So here are my results:
Brown - Rejected
Claremont Mckenna - Waitlisted
Elon - Accepted w/ Presidents scholarship of 6k/year (38.8k/year in total)
Emory - Accepted with 10k/year (55k/year in total)
Oxford College of Emory University - Accepted with 5k/year (Idk how much per year but a lot)
Pitzer - Waitlisted
Pomona - Denied
Rice - Denied
Southern Methodist University - Accepted w/ Deans’ Scholarship of 22.5k/year + BBA Scholarship of 5k/year + auto acceptance into Cox Business School (38.7k/year in total)
Tulane - Denied (This denial really sucked)
UNC Chapel Hill (OOS) - Denied
Vanderbilt - Denied
WashU - Waitlisted
Whitman - Accepted with 12k/ year. They added 3k/year to max out my possible merit aid when I visited and spoke to my counselor. (48k/year in total)
University of Iowa (IS) - Accepted with 8.5k/year and entrance into business program. (14k/year in total)
So I went out and visited Whitman in Walla Walla, Washington, and I loved their students. They are so extraordinary. I’m really surprised their acceptance rate isn’t under 15%. The students gave me quite a bit of insight on my decision. However, Whitman didn’t have a business school and they still were north of 45k/year.
After visiting Whitman, I visited Iowa. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t anything special. I went into the tour with an open mind, but the students there weren’t the high achieving students that I constantly want to be surrounded with.
My dad started to become empathetic with my situation, and he revised his deal. He would pay for the first 100k, I would pay for the next 5 or 6k, and then he would match me dollar for dollar up to the next 25k.
About a week after the Whitman trip, I went on a road trip with my dad to SMU (Dallas) and Elon (North Carolina). These schools were the two remaining private schools that I was considering. Emory and the other ones were still too expensive. So I went to one of SMU’s accepted student days, and I felt much more comfortable with taking on student debt. The student have so many internships and the average student graduating from the Cox School of Business has a 60,000 salary right out of college. On top of that, 95%+ have a job lines up before Christmas break of senior year. The Dean of the business school spoke to us that day and he was great. Also, the school was very beautiful and well organized. After this, we went and visited Elon. I probably wouldn’t have visited Elon after SMU, but they didn’t send me my financial aid package so I didn’t know if it was 5k-10k cheaper than SMU or right around SMU’s costs. I liked Elon as well, but it just wasn’t anything compared to SMU (for what I look for in a college). So skip all the other boring parts and I committed to Southern Methodist University, and I’m super excited. I will be 28k-33k in debt, but I am confident I can pay it off quickly considering that I will be in Dallas with a school that the Dallas business community adores. 