<p>Would you turn down the Ivy League for a less prestigious school? </p>
<p>I will be a future college athlete and am looking at Princeton, Brown, University of Virginia, Stanford and University of California-Berkeley. </p>
<p>The problem is Brown and Princeton cannot offer scholarships and my parents make too much money for us to receive aid. At Cal and UVA, I will receive a full ride. Stanford a substantial scholarship.</p>
<p>A full-ride at Berkeley is hard to beat.</p>
<p>cal regents recipients turn down cal for Stanford all the time based on cross-admit rates. Personally for me, If Stanford was a little bit more expensive(or hell, even a hell of a lot more), I’d go to Stanford. You need to weigh whether the financial differential (impact on your family…doesn’t sound like it would since your parents make more money to qualify for aid) vs. college experience (if you would enjoy Stanford) is more important.</p>
<p>If you are interested in architecture, I suggest considering Cornell as an option.</p>
<p>Lots of students turn down Ivy admissions every single year for any number of reasons. If there is a better match out there for you, don’t feel guilty about it, and don’t look back.</p>
<p>Have you already been accepted to Harvard and Yale in September? Or by “turned down” do you mean you’ve decided not to apply?</p>
<p>Blah, a lot of kids have turned down Cal for Stanford because of prestige and costs. I bet not a lot of kids would do if the cost would substantially favor Cal specially for engineering, CS and physical sciences.</p>
<p>Go to Stanford.
You will get the “wow” you seek from others.
Your family can drive over to see you play.
You can have your artsy education or anything major you choose.
Go to Ivy grad school.
It’s all good.</p>
<p>By “turned down” do you mean that you were being recruited by their coaches and told them that you would not be applying? The coaches do not necessarily guarantee admissions. This happened with my nephew (won state in Ohio for track). Until you apply and are admitted, you haven’t actually turned anything down. The coaches can really smooze you, so be careful to trust everything they tell you. They do have the ability to actually “choose” athletes, but they have have been known to make promises that fall through (they know that many of you will choose to attend other schools and have to plan for that by recruiting more athletes than they really need). I’m just letting you know that until you get that acceptance letter from Yale and Harvard, you haven’t turned them down. My nephew took his offer to U of Chicago over Northwestern in the end. If you really have a clear # 1 choice, then you wil still need to apply aggressively just as everyone else. Make it clear to the coach and admissions that they are your number one choice, so that they expect you to take their offer, or apply ED on top of your athletic recruiting. Good luck.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/</a></p>
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<p>Stanford is a lot more generous with financial aid for most ranges of family income, so most cross-admitted students will find Stanford to have a lower net cost. The OP is an exception.</p>
<p>If I was in your shoes and a serious athlete, I’d choose Stanford. That said, lots of students who get named Jefferson Scholars with full-rides pick UVA over Harvard and Yale and feel great about it. Whatever your choice, just remember that your “worst-case” scenario (whatever that is) appears to be spectacular!</p>
<p>*I will be a future college athlete and am looking at Princeton, Brown, University of Virginia, Stanford and University of California-Berkeley.</p>
<p>At Cal and UVA, I will receive a full ride. Stanford a substantial scholarship.*</p>
<p>Forget about the ones who don’t offer money.</p>
<p>What’s Stanford offering? (BTW…have you told Stanford that UVA nd Cal are offering free rides…if not, you should.</p>
<p>As I understand it Architects need to know quite a bit of math and probably physics (moment arms, etc).</p>
<p>UVA!</p>
<p>And, all of the schools you mentioned are very prestigious.</p>
<p>Sounds like you want a prestigious and selective school that awards athletic scholarships. This eliminates the Ivies (NCAA Division I but no scholarships), most liberal arts colleges (Division III, no scholarships) and many top-ranked Division III universities (e.g. MIT, Chicago, Emory, WUSTL).</p>
<p>So what does that leave? From the current US News “National University” Top 20 rankings:</p>
<h1>5 Stanford</h1>
<h1>10 Duke</h1>
<h1>12 Northwestern</h1>
<h1>17 Rice</h1>
<h1>17 Vanderbilt</h1>
<h1>19 Notre Dame</h1>
<p>If Stanford is too close, then Duke or Northwestern seem like the most logical alternatives, rather than UVa or Cal. If your sport happens to be lacrosse, then #13 Johns Hopkins would be another top pick (all other JHU sports are DIII).</p>
<p>Stanford also has division I athletic scholarships which are not offered by Ivies and so it can make a huge difference if you are a recruited athlete who can play at Stanford level and your parents make too much money for financial aid.</p>
<p>As an athlete, why would anyone want to go an Ivy compared to the PAC12 competition or being on national TV on a regular basis (not sure which sport we are talking about here).</p>
<p>OTOH, it would be hard for an athlete on athletic scholarship manage the hours needed in architecture.</p>
<p>*-I do not know what I want to major in, but I have a natural talent for drawing and used to consider going to art school. (I despise math and science. I will most likely go the Liberal Arts Route or possibly architecture.) *</p>
<p>oh…misses this…architecture requires math and physics. </p>
<p>As for art schools…they will charge full freight. Why not go to one of the offered schools that has a strong art dept?</p>
<p>What is your sport? I’m wondering why it’s full ride at Cal but not at Berkeley.</p>
<p>^^ Um, Cal IS Berkeley!</p>
<p>mom2collegekids knows that Cal is Berkeley. Probably just a quick typo. mom2collegekids is a CC legend and a huge contibutor of useful info on the CC board … especially where the tide is rollin’.</p>
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<p>Because except for Stanford and maybe UC Berkeley and UCLA, the academics are much much better?</p>