<p>Hi, I've been accepted to the U of C (early decision a couple of months ago), Northwestern, and the UW Madison. Chicago is about 25k a year after scholarships and aid, NU is about 18, and the UW is about 9k (wiscy valedictorian scholarship). Is Chicago really worth an extra 64k over four years? Will my post-graduate options really be that much better? I'm a little worried about being understimulated at Madison though, and would enjoy a little more cerebal atmosphere...oh, and how about the difference between chicago and northwestern? chicago seems a lot more refined and intellectual i think, with Nu having a more preppy atmosphere. I've visited all three, and really like the architecture at U of C, though I admit I am little intimidated by it, especially because I come from a tiny wisconsin school and have never had to work hard in school (all my classes were very easy, even my 5 APs).</p>
<p>You have three excellent choices, but as you know they are all quite different. If money is important, then go with the school that gives you the best deal, because you can get a great education at all three. If money is not the major issue, then look at fit. Obviously a State college is quite large and you will probably not get as much individual attention. My child attends Chicago and loves it. She turned down a substantial scholarship in the honors program at our State University because Chicago was a better fit for her and we were willing to make the sacrifice. She finds iChicago stimulating without being overwhelming. In fact, this quarter she complains that she really doesn't have that much homework and is busy finding other ways to fill her time. She gets a lot of personal attention and there are all kinds of activities to partake of. There tends to be less emphasis on frat life and high powered sports at Chicago, but they both do exist. Intramural sports and an athletic league with schools like Washington U, U of Rochester, etc. exists.You should spend a few days at each school and see how you feel.</p>
<p>UW is definitely one of the states schools where being a scholarship / honors student can be very attractive. As far as graduate school admissions go, being a 3.8+ student there wont hold you back from very much at all, as faculty and admissions offices tend to view it as amongst the best of the non-heavy hitter publics (that is, setting aside Berkeley, Michigan and Virginia). </p>
<p>Personally, I lived on State Street in Madison and took two courses there - expository writing and collegiate geometry - as my family needed to temporarily relocate to the area for one semester and the high school options were pretty poor. While the standard animal house stereotype fits a substantial portion of the student body, I nevertheless found a degree of kinship even as a 15 year old amongst the brighter students, who tend to be close-knit. I also liked the compact nature of the campus and the student friendly environment in terms of dining and shopping. Additionally, the array of course options are exceptionally solid, especially if you find the need to move on to graduate level studies before formally getting your BA/BS (e.g. it would be very easy as a bright UG to blow though the UG history curriculum by your sophomore year). </p>
<p>So I would say the biggest question you have to ask yourself is, can you stay motivated enough to be a sterling A student when you are in an environment where so many people are just focused on graduating? Upon reflection, you may find that you would rather be THE big fish in a small pond, being doted on by your professors, wining writing contests and plum internships, than duking it out at UChicago or NU. </p>
<p>If money is not a huge issue though, I would choose NU in a snap as I dont see anyway of justifying a 28 K difference over four years. You could take that money and use it towards having multiple unpaid internships, or set is aside as cushion cash in case you take a lower paying job for a year or two before starting graduate school. There is no shortage of cerebral outlets both inside and outside of the classroom at Northwestern if you associate yourself with the right people and organizations.</p>
<p>36K is enough to be in debt after 4 yrs so I say Wisconsin. By the way Wisconsin-Madison is a great and vastly underrated institution in my opinion. The scholars there are top notch. If you win the lottery or have wealthy parents, then I say Chicago, but Wisconsin is pretty awesome.</p>
<p>Money is an issue in our family. Nonetheless, our D passed up a full ride at Michigan State four years ago for UofC. We are now about $120,000 poorer (D won some merit aid her 2nd year, otherwise it would be 150 K poorer), but it was the best decision she ever made. She did things at UofC and won scholarships I'm sure she never would have won at MSU. FYI, I am a MSU alum, but rejecting my alma mater did not hurt too much.</p>
<p>Honors options at Madison are in a whole different league than MSU. I think that has to be considered.</p>
<p>UCA.</p>
<p>there you go again. What do you know about honors options at MSU? What do you know about living/learning options like Lyman Briggs?</p>
<p>Please support your assertions, rather than engage in a general dis of a fine institution.</p>
<p>Wisconsin / UCLA / Illinois amongst others (i.e. most of the original public ivies) versus the remainder of state schools </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Talented college students can work through the undergraduate offerings quickly at a lot of public institutions. If you jump up to graduate level as a third or fourth year in most subjects at Wisconsin (and a lot of students do at these places), you are going to get a much better experience as its doctoral programs are quite strong. </p></li>
<li><p>This same logic leads to better access to faculty members from whom to draw recommendation letters, even if one sticks to solely to undergraduate numbered offerings chosen wisely. </p></li>
<li><p>Graduate admissions committees are elitist institutions. The equivalent GPA from Wisconsin is going to carry greater weight than one from MSU for the more popular subjects. Not all subjects, but certainly so for top medical, law, business and heavily applied to doctoral fields. This has to be born out markedly in the peer reputation score as reported by US News (I dont have an account myself to check). </p></li>
<li><p>You are going to be around more students with common academic / professional aspirations at Wisconsin that MSU. UMich inherently picks off most - although not all - of the instate talent from Michigan at large. Madison in contrast also draws in talented out of state students in away that MSU does not. From a raw population perspective, Wisconsin has 39% from afar to MSUs 11%. There is no denying that the offerings in Madison have a certain academic gravitas amongst high school students and parents in the Midwest, leading more of them to swallow the tuition difference to ship off their high performing children. </p></li>
<li><p>Any student who goes to a state school with big ambitions is necessarily going to spend a fair amount of time with students who are not thinking as big (except when it comes to keg purchases). Consequently, there is something to be said for looking at the strength of the general student body. MSUs 23 27 point band for ACT is markedly lower from the 26 30 spread at Wisconsin. Its advisable not be an oasis in a desert after all. </p></li>
<li><p>I am not implying at all that you cannot be successful at MSU, or for that matter many schools of the same nature Florida State, UIC, UMass etcetera. Nevertheless, I think the case for small group of public ivies, as overused and often twisted the term may be, is a strong one grounded in relevant facts.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>UCA,</p>
<p>Heavy on rhetoric, totally lacking in data, except for the red herring of the % out of state students.</p>
<p>Evidently you are so clueless about public universities that you have no idea that the % out of state is almost always controlled by the state legislature, not by market forces? So, to conclude that the percent OOS is some indication of quality is BOGUS.</p>
<p>Curiously, your statement that "Graduate admissions committees are elitist institutions." is no doubt true in your current stomping ground, Cambridge, MA. Indeed, that town is probably the most elitist in the country. But to generalize from such an experience just shows a sad degree of ignorance. </p>
<p>You are welcome to hold your opinions. I just hope other folks recongize them for what they are, and for the elitist perspective you hold.</p>
<p>The most laughable part of your post is to think that one can generalize about individual opportunity from institutions as large as MSU and Wisconsin. Surely you have enough knowledge of data analysis to see the flaw in that? Perhaps not.</p>
<p>Not that I want to get caught up in this, but I feel the need to defend MSU's honors college. As an honors student, you're instantly waived all prerequisites- got your eye on a 400-level philosophy course or that graduate seminar in World War II foreign policy your freshman year? There's nothing stopping you from signing up. The Lyman Briggs tag-line is definitely a helper in getting research positions, and it's worth noting that its ACT cut-off is somewhere around 30 (the exact number escapes me at the moment) and it's actually its own residential college within MSU. Cool stuff.</p>
<p>So don't be bashin' on the Spartans.</p>
<p>uchicagoalum, you're entitled to your opinion, but I think your obvious low opinion of Michigan State is skewed by assumptions and marshaled, incorrect ‘stats.’ You say Wisconsin enrolls 39% vs. 11% "from afar". If UW has 39% from out of state (which I doubt) I'm sure this includes grad students. Last I checked, MSU had about 15% OOS undergrads in its most recent class (I'll double check and report later). Also, 'from afar' must be a loose term for UW because a huge number of UW OOS's migrate just over the border to Madison from the gigantic Chicago metro area which is more distant, geographically, and not as tightly socially linked to central Michigan (which is separated by the NW corner of Indiana) where East Lansing is, as opposed to south/central Wisconsin, where Madison is located. MSU does draw heavily from Chicago, but again it is further away than Madison – Chicagoland seems to rank with UW and UM, both as an incubator for pre-MSU frosh as well as a destination city for MSU alums. That MSU draws so heavily form greater Chicago, as does U.Mich, would tend to put a lie to your ‘MSU’s just an average state school, premise. MSU must share a medium-sized state, in Michigan, with the University of Michigan, as you note, and that means many top in-state HS students are drawn off to U-M, but much less than you assume – MSU, historically, has gotten a significant chunk of those kids. But uchicagoalum, you totally discount the fact that UW has no other in-state university, public or private, in which it must compete for top students as does MSU viz U-M (a huge school, also), and only must compete, prestige-wise, with tiny Beloit College and Lawrence U. (in fact another small LAC).</p>
<p>I’ll admit, prestige-wise, generally, MSU is a half step behind U-M or UW (and here, many are judging based on graduate schools), but most in-the-know academics scoff at the USN&WR ‘peer ratings’ you put so much stock in as they’re survey’s of top university administrators who are influenced by grad-school ‘halo’ effects and word-of-mouth assumptions from administrators who usually have no direct knowledge of all but a tiny fraction of the schools they are rating (and yet, as of the last time I looked, account for 25% of USN&WR’s “rating” of undergrad programs). Uchicagoalum scoffs at MSU’s Honors College, versus UW’s more limited Leters & Science honors program, obviously without much knowledge – it’s one of the oldest and generally rated as one of the top such honors programs in the nation. On top of this, newmassdad is dead on in noting such undergrad, small LAC like gems at MSU as the residential colleges: James Madison, Lyman Briggs and the new Residential College in Arts & Humanities (RCAH); Madison and Briggs (Madison, especially), have for decades been singled out by academics nationally as one of the superior programs of its type. UW has, I think, one residential-based program that is relatively new and not well known. MSU, more than most large research U’s, skewed towards quality undergrad programs—a natural factor, as the State of Michigan’s big time grad and professional schools have been centered in Ann Arbor. It’s a tribute to MSU that, in the face of such a strong, in state neighbor, as U-M, MSU has the sturdy academic program and rep as it does – you’d be hard pressed to name any state that has as strong a 1-2 punch from two independent publics as U-M and MSU.</p>
<p>Uchicagoalum, you lump MSU in with Florida State and UMass where, historically and currently, MSU is stronger than both places; most any academic worth their salt would agree… and if by UIC you means Univ of Illinois, Chicago, your comparison is flat out silly – I’m assuming some sort of absurd MSU put-down on your part.</p>
<p>"you’d be hard pressed to name any state that has as strong a 1-2 punch from two independent publics as U-M and MSU."</p>
<p>Virginia. UVa and William & Mary! </p>
<p>Not to argue with you about anything positive said about MSU's honors programs --the residential colleges you mentioned are excellent.</p>
<p>True, srparent; I guess don't reaaaaaallly count Wm & Mary as a true, traditional public university. Historically, it was a private LAC until after the Civil War -- and the Commonwealth of Virginia has, more or less preserved W&M in its original form; keepig it small with very few grad programs. MSU and U-M have been public colleges from the start.</p>