<p>Im a senior from Tennessee and im trying to make my decision on where to attend college next year. I have pretty much narrowed down my choices to UA and University of Tennessee. I have been accepted to the college of engineering at both schools. My stats are ACT 28 (29 superscore for UT) and SAT 1940 (1280 critical reading + math) and a weighted GPA of 4.1. UT would be much cheaper, as I get the HOPE scholarship (4000 a year) and I would also get whatever scholarship there are for my 29 superscore. However, I visited UA and loved it. I would get the UA scholar scholarship (3500 a year) and the Engineering scholarship for a 28 (1500 year). I would really love to go to UA to start over, because many of my classmates will be attending UT. Also UT’s campus doesnt compare at all. However, I am having a great amount of trouble deciding whether it would be worth it to go out of state as I will have to pay for my college. My brother went to Johns Hopkins and didnt get any money and is almost finished paying off his loans 8 years later but he said he wouldnt trade it for anything. Also, if I do honors college at UA will I have to participate in any honors college activities or extracurriculars? I am pretty social and plan on joining a fraternity and being really involved with that. How do most people pay for fraternity fees? I heard they are very expensive at UA. Could I take out a loan for them? And I am also kind of afraid of the hazing at UA. I read about one kid who was beat to death this past year, and my friends sister who attends UA always tells stories of pledges who have to go to the hospital with broken bones. Should I be worried?</p>
<p>A lot of those tales about severe hazing are urban rumors. That said, a few pledges did report hazing this year, and the university cracked down on those fraternities rapidly and severely. If more pledges did this, there would be no ridiculous hazing.
Quite a few Honors College students also belong to fraternities and sororities. It can be done.
As a Tennessee native, I longed to go to UTK (we called it UT back then). Then I discovered the thing called out of state tuition.
If you are footing your own bill, I would strongly encourage you to assume as few loans as possible. Some degrees aren’t worth the extra expense. Don’t mortgage your future by taking on crushing loans. If you qualify for Honors College, you may qualify for enough scholarships to bring that cost down.
While I feel UA is the better school, it depends on your course of study and what’s best for you. You must decide what’s right for you.</p>
<p>You do not have to participate in honors college activities.</p>
<p>you can’t borrow to pay for frat dues. You can only borrow up to COA, however, if you choose a cheaper dorm, I don’t know how that all works.</p>
<p>That said, you shouldn’t borrow a lot for college. Your brother may have gone to school when Sallie Mae didn’t require co-signers…now it does…so borrowing a lot may not be possible anyway.</p>
<p>How much will your parents pay each year?</p>
<p>If you’re thinking of borrowing most of the costs, that is a bad idea.</p>
<p>For us, we are leaving it up to the financials. As long as S is getting a solid education at a top 100 school - Money will be the deciding factor. (Yes I know UTK was 101 - but close enough) I don’t want him coming out of school and facing a Master’s program already massively in debt. He needs to save his loans for Grad school. Plus any of his Best program $$ not spend for undergrad, can be used to pay for grad school.</p>
<p>Now for my non-financial thoughts on UA vs. UTK. S definitely prefers UA over UTK. As a UTK Alumni, I want him to go to UTK, but I do agree UA does have more to offer him. Better dorms and a better honors program. In addition, UA has been very generous with the scholarships. S qualifies for the full out-of-state tuition. UTK has only offered him the Volunteer scholarship of $6K. Between these two schools - with the current offer and TNLottery - the COA at UA is only about $1,000 more than UTK. So unless he is offered a large scholarship somewhere else, we will be going to UA. So Roll Tide - Except the 3rd Saturday in October</p>
<p>What branch of engineering are you interested in?</p>
<p>My S is also a TN native and is loving his time at UA so far. He is a freshman Chem-E and Biology double major. He also was down to UA and UTK this time last year. He went to Governors School at UTK and really enjoyed it. He liked both schools. The problem was, UTK offered him a pittance in scholarship money. UA offered him the Presidential Scholarship (NMF), and an engineering scholarship. It was a no-brainer. The money won out. With that said, do what makes the most sense for your family financially. Don’t put yourself in a position to be paying off student loans forever. Weigh your monetary options and go from there. </p>
<p>DS is in the band, and not interested in a fraternity, so I can’t really speak toward those expenses. </p>
<p>Good luck in your decision-making process!</p>
<p>I understand that UA will cost significantly more as I just missed the presidential scholarship. However, maybe im just being naive, but it seems to me that you guys are over-exaggerating the financial burden. My brother didnt seems to have any trouble paying off his private education on a teachers salary, so why would it be that hard with an engineer’s salary?</p>
<p>My brother didnt seems to have any trouble paying off his private education on a teachers salary, so why would it be that hard with an engineer’s salary?</p>
<p>If your brother went to JHU, then he likely got some financial aid and/or your parents paid some. It’s unlikely that he borrowed most of the costs. Ask him how much he borrowed in total. Ask him how much his monthly LOAN payments were. </p>
<p>And, who co-signed his loans. Also, when he paid off his loans, was he living at home or was he paying rent somewhere? </p>
<p>What is your FAFSA EFC? </p>
<p>Who will co-sign your loans?</p>
<p>He lived in a house with a few friends. My dad cosigned his loans, and he will be cosigning mine also.
FAFSA EFC says 21960, but I dont know if that is split up between my twin sister who will be attending college next year also, and my year older sister.</p>
<p>Cosigning loans is usually a bad idea. Too many things can happen i.e… the student doesn’t graduate, the student doesn’t get a job, the student becomes disabled, the student doesn’t pay the loans and the parent is stuck.
Sorry, I am not saying that you won’t pay, it is just too difficult for many parents to take on this financial burden at a time in their life when they need to be funding their retirement. That is not to say that parents shouldn’t help their students if they can, but asking them to sign loans for one or even two students is a big financial risk.</p>
<p>I seem to remember many posters on CC having the advice of not borrowing more than you expect to make in your first year of work. m2ck usually recommends only borrowing up to the maximum amount for Stafford loans and not taking out any private or PLUS loans.</p>
<p>EFC is per student.</p>
<p>You need to get a rough estimate of the additional cost of UA vs. UTK, keeping in mind that tuition and housing costs increase every year. </p>
<p>To minimize your debt, see what you can do to graduate in 3 or 3.5 years. Taking summer courses at a community college in your home state could save you a lot of money in the long run.</p>
<p>Reference to SeaTide’s comment to graduate in 3 to 3.5 years: would UA’s Early College be a good idea in that scenario? Application deadline is February 8th if OP is interested.</p>
<p>mattcTN- DS is a UA freshman also from TN. For us the difference in aid was very close between UA and UTK, with UTK giving just about 1k more. DS decision to attend UA was based on visits to both campuses. During his visit, DS was encouraged by UA professors to pursue his dream of dual majoring in ECE and Physics while the adviser he saw at UTK was very negative and discouraging about double majoring. UA definitively made DS feel more welcomed and wanted. I think UTK takes students from TN with high stats somewhat for granted. I encourage you to visit both universities before making a decision and to speak with your parents about financial issues.</p>
<p>We are also from Tennessee, and DD is a freshman Chem E- Chemistry double major at UA. We had decided early on that she would not have any student loan debt, and her choice was between UT and UA. Since she qualified for the President’s scholarship plus the engineering one as well, the cost between them was basically the same.</p>
<p>My advice would be to go where you will have the least amount of debt. DD was unhappy with having to go to UA at first- she really wanted Geoegia Tech. She got admitted there but no scholarship. Now, she loves UA and is glad she’s there. You will feel the same about UTK. Lots of kids from here where I live in West TN go every year and I only hear good things. It’s a great school. You will be much better off after graduation without debt. I know- hubby and I had student loans that took quite a while to pay off.</p>
<p>He lived in a house with a few friends. My dad cosigned his loans, and he will be cosigning mine also.
FAFSA EFC says 21960, but I dont know if that is split up between my twin sister who will be attending college next year also, and my year older sister.</p>
<p>How much did your brother borrow? How much were his monthly payments?</p>
<p>Do you know how much your parents will be contributing each year for YOUR college costs?</p>
<p>Edited to add…now I remember you. You’re the one with lots of siblings. :)</p>
<p>Your family’s EFC is $70k with one in college (your older sister), so your $22k EFC is yours alone when there are 3 in college.</p>
<p>your family income is quite high to have a $70k total EFC with a large family. That suggests an income of over $200k.</p>
<p>In October you said that you were going to ask your dad how much he’ll contribute. Did you do that?</p>
<p>I’ll ask him soon. For now I just want to focus on the ACT/SATs.</p>
<p>I think UT definitely takes the higher achieving in-state students for granted! My DD chose Alabama because they genuinely seemed to want her. Talk about southern hospitality! UT didn’t even seem to try to recruit her. Meanwhile, Alabama offers her a UA Scholar scholarship and admittance to the Honors College. While the Hope scholarship and the Volunteer scholarship she was offered would make UT more affordable, the fact that they didn’t seem to care if chose UT or not turned her off. (And to be fair, she wanted to be somewhere different than her sister.) I’m very disappointed in UT’s perceived indifference, bit very happy that she chose Alabama - I was a cat’s whisker away from choosing it myself 30 years ago.</p>
<p>^^^ I could almost have written that post myself, except I have boys! My older son has had a good experience at UT and it proved to be a good fit for him. But I was shocked that UT did not try harder to recruit my younger son, given that he had much higher high school achievement than his brother. UA courted him and made him feel valued. </p>
<p>That said, the financial piece of the picture is huge. Excellent scholarship $ at UA was a major draw. I think a decision like this comes down to balancing your level of debt tolerance and your desires. You will have to figure out what you are willing to take on/give up in order to reach your goals.</p>
<p>^^^And I could have written that one! D1 had no desire to go anywhere besides UT - and it’s just as well. She’s smart as a whip, but wouldn’t have qualified for the scholarships like D2 did, so the financial burden wouldn’t be doable. She’s happy there, and not too far from finishing so there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for her. I actually expressed my concern to someone in the admissions office at UT that she hadn’t heard more from anyone related to the university than she had (if I recall, that was sometime last fall and I had called about something else). She got an email from the area recruiter that afternoon. Just. That. One. E-mail. Well, Vols, you missed a good one. Your loss. </p>
<p>We’re fortunate that we can make up the difference and send her to Alabama. Roll Tide!</p>
<p>And since we’ll have one at both schools, I think I’m getting the (dreaded) house divided license plate for Mother’s Day. I love my children. I’ll put it on my car with a smile.</p>
<p>As a TN resident, I couldn’t agree more with the above posters. There is NO effort into recruiting the best & brightest in TN, or as far as I can tell ANY students from TN. The NMF scholarship was discontinued in 2009, and most of the scholarship money offered is actually through the HOPE lottery scholarship, not UTK itself. By far, the lowest amount of money offered to D1 was UTK; D2 didn’t even apply. </p>
<p>I’m wondering how their applications #'s & acceptance rate look this year, as this was the first year they were on the Common App.</p>