@mikemac hit the nail on the head in post #14. I’d like to add that while I agree that “finance and consulting jobs have traditionally been a ladder into a top MBA program”, it should be noted that an MBA is expensive and time consuming and isn’t really needed to do well in the business/finance/consulting world.
One recent Ivy grad I know took a boutique consulting job out of undergrad and from there went directly to a hedge fund; no need to put in the investment banking 70 hour work weeks, no need for an MBA.
It isn’t fair, but this path would have been unavailable to a graduate of a “normal” school.
@shaybay123 I don’t really think Dartmouth is firmly considered by most to be top 10 college , def top 15 though, and it doesn’t make much difference anyway really.
But anyway I would for sure choose Dartmouth over UW if the extra cost will not really strain your family financially. Especially for your intended major and career it could potentially make a significant difference in terms of quality of education, access, networking etc.
That said if Dartmouth is going to be a substantially strain to your family, UW is the way to go. It is a great school with many opportunities, esp. for honors students. Remember college is mostly what you make of it.
If your plans are to go into finance and you’re going to be trying to get into top East Coast firms upon graduation, then go to Dartmouth. If you do well, you’ll eventually be earning enough to give the $100K back (with compound interest :)) to your parents if they need it. If your plans are more nebulous and you’re not sure that the hard-charging/cut-throat world of finance is for you, then maybe consider UW. You won’t get better education at Dartmouth but rather make better connections.
Also, if it’s your dream school, remember that you only get to go to (undergrad) college once. As a parent, I would want my kid to go to their dream school if I could possibly afford it.
I vote UW. Honestly, it’s not worth it to put that strain on your parents. As a current undergraduate student, I’ve seen how financial stress affects other students’ academic performance, and I don’t recommend putting that kind of stress on yourself. Plus, being part of your school’s honors college should give you more opportunities to participate in selective programs that’ll make you a more competitive applicant when it comes to internships, fellowships, and MBAs. You’re gonna have to work harder at UW than you would at Dartmouth, but it’ll be worth it, imo, if you can graduate debt-free and still get a good paying job later.
A lot of people hold this fiction that the whole world is a meritocracy. It’s not. There are corners where it is fairer; to give one example med schools look at standardized tests and factors under any student’s control like experience, research, the impression they made on faculty. But much of the world is not. Top employers selectively recruit from favored schools, a lot of internships are never publicized but instead go to kids from the handful of schools that filled those positions in the past, people already in positions of management reach out to their alma-mater to fill slots. I’m not arguing that every kid from Dartmouth is better than any kid from the Honors program at UW; in fact I believe just the opposite. But it is wishful thinking to believe they have the same opportunities.
“The difference will be about 80k-100k for my undergraduate education.”
How is this extra money going to be paid? Are you getting loans?
Speaking as the proud parent of a Dartmouth grad, I second all the advantages to Dartmouth that others have posted. But $80K - $100K in debt is no way to start off your life as a working adult.
If your parents can readily pay to send you to Dartmouth, go to Dartmouth. But if you or they are going to have to borrow a lot of money, UW is the way to go, IMO.
Unless your parents are wealthy enough that Dartmouth is not a significant financial strain - and it doesn’t sound like that’s the case - I’d choose UW.
It is true that many elite/top universities open doors that other universities and colleges do not. However, I think people’s considerations of what those top universities are is pretty narrow. The University of Washington is ranked amongst the top 50ish universities in the country, and is ranked consistently as one of the top 25 universities in the world by a variety of publications. It is, quite literally, a world-class university. There are tons of resources at UW. Foster is a top business school as well, with a robust recruiting calendar from companies all over the world.
Am I saying it’s exactly the same as Dartmouth’s resources and reputation? No. Dartmouth is an Ivy, and for better or worse it does have that cache amongst elite employers, particularly in the Northeast. The resources at Dartmouth, the recruiting environment, the connections with alumni and your fellow undergrads - they’re probably better. I’ve seen the recruiting machines and alumni networking at an Ivy (I went to Columbia for grad school). They are in another orbit compared to your average college, and even compared to the very best public universities.
The question really is - are they $80-100K worth of “better”? Eh. I can’t find the reference - I’ll continue to look - but there was a study conducted some time ago that followed and compared Dartmouth graduates with students who got into Dartmouth but went somewhere less prestigious for a variety of reasons. (Or maybe the study was done by Dartmouth professors for a variety of elite schools, but I think it was the former.) They found that there was no difference in salary between the Dartmouth and non-Dartmouth graduates. The key seemed to be ambition, intelligence and drive - the kids who were smart enough to get into Dartmouth seemed to be smart enough and ambitious enough to do well anywhere. Again, I’m not saying that the connections and recruiting and all that are worth nothing (and apparently, if you are low-income or a student of color, they’re worth a whole lot more).
Can you get an excellent finance job from UW? Of course. (Are you more likely to get an elite finance job at a top hedge fund or whatnot from Dartmouth? Absolutely. The question is whether or not that matters to you.) Do well-known finance companies recruit on campus at UW? Yes. Can you get into a top MBA program with an undergrad degree from UW? Yes!
I dunno, this is a hard choice. I think I would still go with UW. And if more than around $30K of that will be loans that you, personally, have to borrow - then I definitely would go with UW.
A little bit late here. I was also admitted to Dartmouth ED recently and I also had UW as my super awesome second choice. I would go to UW for financial reasons if I were you. Foster is great and I’m already crying over the fact I have to leave my friends, my family, my boyfriend (yeah, stupid, I know) and my favorite restaurants (Veggie Grill, Araya’s etc). Don’t get me wrong, I love the 21’s and I know I’ll make good friends. I love all the little restaurants in Hanover and the connections will be incredibly valuable. But are they “100k and uprooting your whole life” valuable? That’s up to you, but they wouldn’t be for me.
Also note that the schools that participated in the survey were: Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Columbia University, Duke University, Emory University, Georgetown University, Kenyon College, Miami University of Ohio, Morehouse College, Northwestern University, Oberlin College, Penn State University, Princeton University, Smith College, Stanford University, Swarthmore College, Tufts University, Tulane University, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University, Washington University, Wellesley College, Wesleyan University, Williams College, Xavier University, and Yale University.
All of these are quality institutions, and it is not clear that the observations would be true for school significantly below this band. Causality issues aside, the result of Dale and Krueger study is why all of my kids are applying to Harvard. :-*
That’s also true and a good point about the comparisons - it’s not clear that the same conclusions would hold for schools significantly below that, and I’m willing to bet that they don’t. My answer would be different if OP were choosing between Dartmouth and, say, Central Washington U. But in most cases I’ve seen it come up on CC, it’s usually someone comparing a great private or flagship public with an Ivy equivalent
I also do want to highlight something from the article Zinhead posted that was relevant to something I alluded to in my earlier post:
You can probably use your imagination to figure out why that might be, but this may be a different calculus for a low-income student. Of course, a low-income student would also likely have pretty good financial aid from one of these elite schools.
