I was accepted to all four, and received a pretty large scholarship from both UMiami and Syracuse, and I would pay out of state tuition for both Madison and UCSB. I want to study political science, and am interested in going to law school after undergrad.
Since Law school is in the future and you have to pay close to $67K/ year to attend UCSB, I would cross that school off your list. UCSB has many strong programs but for Political science not worth the OOS price tag. Save your money for Law school.
Poli Sci is a popular major everywhere; any college will have a fine academic program. There will be zero advantage to pay OOS rates for law school acceptance. (LS is nearly all about undergrad GPA+LSAT.). LS is also rather expensive so save some money where you can.
Visit the two privates and choose which one you like best.
UW at about $57,000 OOS is about $10000 less expensive than UCSB, so unless you like UCSB a lot more, I would simply remove it. Madison is a great town and school, and most have a blast there. Poli Sci is very strong, as are a plethora of other pursuits. If you changed your mind, you’d be switching to another strong program.
What’s the annual COA for Miami and Syracuse?
What is your net cost for each school? Agree that with law school in the future I would choose between your less expensive options.
In the end, you have mid-size Miami in expensive and dense Coral Gables and lots of sun - and mid size Syracuse in not overly dense Syracuse and cold winters.
UCSB is on the larger side and is in beautiful Goleta, adjacent to cool Santa Barbara - and Wisconsin is large and will be frigid in winter - but a cool city. It’s also the state capital - which may or may not help.
For poli sci, most any school will be fine. For pre law, any school will be fine.
So where do you fit from affordabilty, comfort, desire, weather, etc.
PS - if you want football, lose UCSB.
I’d go to the combo of cheapest but happiest meaning if you hate cold - don’t pick Wisc or SU regardless of the cost.
Good luck.
if you compute (tuition, fees, room, board) - (scholarships, grants) = what are the results for UM, Syracuse, and UW?
Do not subtract any loan.
Madison, Miami, and Syracuse all end up being the same price. Syracuse gave me the option to apply for another $15,000 scholarship, but it’s third on my list and would only be cheaper assuming I got this (pretty seemingly competitive) additional merit.
Wow, that’s excellent (for you)!
Let’s look at Madison and Miami then.
Madison is the State Capital of a major swing state (ever heard of Ben Wickler?), Miami is the capital of South Florida (obvs you know R.DeSantis).
Weather: hot&humid half the year but beach nearby and pleasant Winter v. clear blue skies most of the time but cold enough to burn in the Winter.
Large, public powerhouse university that admits the best from the state (good socio-economical diversity) v. private school with a lot of wealthy students but a lot of ethnic diversity (27% Hispanic, 5% Asian, 10% Black, 49% White)
Average class size (7% classes are very large at Miami, 21% at UWisconsin).
Miami will likely have more pull in the South and Madison throughout the Midwest (although it’s also nationally-known).
DO apply to Syracuse’s scholarship, after all adding it to your list if you earn it would be an embarassment of riches but still be worth considering.
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