<p>A couple of suggestions – one, suggest that your parents run the Net Price Calculator at a few different types of schools to see what the Estimated Family Contribution turns out to be. That can give you a sense of whether than amount is feasible for your family or not. If it is not, it tells you that you need to identify schools that will give you substantial merit money, not need-based aid. With your high stats, you could find some interesting schools willing to give you merit money to come. </p>
<p>Second, if you really liked Cornell, investigate some schools that are similar but down the scale in terms of admissions selectivity. I haven’t been to either, so I don’t know if it is a fair comparison, but if you like Cornell, then perhaps Syracuse might be interesting (ok, other than both of them being in upstate NY, I admit don’t know how similar they are). Or think about what it was that you responded to favorably at Cornell – was it a specific program? The location? </p>
<p>In state at UW is nothing to sneeze at – it really has phenomenal programs – though I appreciate that students could want to go somewhere else. My son is at OOS at UW, and his friend group comes from WI, Chicago, MN, and east and west coasts, so you are not doomed to seeing only people from your high school.</p>
<p>Good luck to you. </p>
<p>@Midwestmomofboys I have suggested we run the numbers several times, but they seem hesitant. I don’t know if it has to do putting personal details on the internet ( despite the fact it’s anonymous 
) but they don’t seem too excited to do so. </p>
<p>What intrigued me about Cornell was the relative remoteness of a school with such high ranking academics. It was surrounded by at least 20 miles of nothing but farmland and mountains. Hard to match that haha. It’s also about the only ivy I’m looking at due to this. </p>
<p>I’m not worried about seeing people from my high school at college. I feel like I am referencing him a lot, but my brother is rooming with 2 people from Virginia, one from Missouri and one from our high school this year at Madison. I feel if I go there I am confident I will meet other people from around the country.</p>
<p>@Metz987 said:
I’ve found that the “Find the Best” site offers a useful tool for initial comparisons between schools. Here is the comparison between ND and UW Madison: <a href=“http://colleges.findthebest.com/compare/1402-4651/University-of-Notre-Dame-ND-vs-University-of-Wisconsin-Madison-UW”>http://colleges.findthebest.com/compare/1402-4651/University-of-Notre-Dame-ND-vs-University-of-Wisconsin-Madison-UW</a></p>
<p>A few things quickly jump out:
- Larger endowment overall and much larger endowment per student for ND – more resources for students
- Acceptance rate (23% at ND vs 68% at UW)
- Size: UW is very large, with roughly 3 times as many undergrads as ND
- Test scores somewhat higher at ND
- Net price for someone in your parents income bracket (you guessed $120K): even after financial aid, you’ll pay twice as much for ND.
- Student-faculty ratio (10:1 vs 22:1) means smaller classes and more personal attention at ND
- ND has more men (56%), UW more women (53%). Most schools have more women today – ND is unusual.
- Almost all students at ND graduate (96% in 6 yrs & 90% within 4 yrs); for UW it’s 83% and only 48% within 4 yrs (perhaps because they can afford to stay longer).</p>
<p>Beyond all the above (and perhaps more importantly), the schools have much different characters: public vs. private with a Roman Catholic affiliation. ND is 83% Catholic (<a href=“http://admissions.nd.edu/hs-counselors/notre-dame-by-the-numbers/”>http://admissions.nd.edu/hs-counselors/notre-dame-by-the-numbers/</a>). You don’t need to be Catholic to go there, but it probably helps :-)</p>
<p>@DavidSonDaughter Thanks for taking all the time to write that.</p>
<p>A few things I noticed. The first thing was when I visited Notre Dame, it seemed much bigger than mid sized school. It’s campus was incredible, with cool architecture and even a lake to go on. It seemed like a real community, something Madison rather lacked with its split campus (Lakeshore and the Southeast part).</p>
<p>I also am Catholic with a heavy church involvement ( part of a leadership team, 3 mission trips, 200+ service hours at a chapel in downtown Milwaukee). This is also why ND seemed like a better community/tight knit group than other schools. </p>
<p>Lastly, I’m not too worried about graduation rates. I’m a very focused student and I’m sure that if I am on course for a degree in 4 years I won’t be there any longer than that. As I said earlier, if I choose a degree that requires graduate school, I will choose a less expensive option and then hopefully do grad school somewhere like ND.</p>
<p>@DavidSonDaughter:</p>
<p>Student-faculty ratio is actually fairly misleading. The reason is because UW-Madison offers a ton more majors than ND, so upper-level classes in your major in a lot of departments at both schools would actually be fairly small (definitely outside of the few popular ones).</p>
<p>Lower-level/intro classes at UW-Madison would almost certainly be bigger, but with 8K+ undergrads, ND would have a good number of large lecture classes as well (it’s definitely not a LAC), and IMO, once you get past 75 or so, there’s not a difference between a 150-student lecture class and a 500-student lecture class.</p>