<p>Help -
Our kid is a brainiac/athlete who is just now getting more social...and we visited all these schools over the course of the year. He was offered close to a full ride at Miami, and UF is nearly free since we are in-state. WashU is probably his favorite -- but Miami is a very close second. I think he likes the fact that they are medium-sized research schools w/big hospitals (pre-med?biomedical engineering?) located in large urban areas. </p>
<p>He never wanted Duke, and after visiting Tech decided it was not for him. UF is such a great in-state option -- and the kids all love it. He's accepted into the honors program, which has it's own dorm, advisors, etc. This is such a tough decision!!! Any input from the WashU folks? How can it possibly be worth three or four times more? Thanks.</p>
<p>Son was accepted to WashU, Rice, Emory, UVA, UNC-CH, W&M, Tulane and UF Honors. He has decided to go to UF honors for all the reasons you mention above. For in state students UF is awfully hard to pass up. His second choice was probably UNC but for OOS it is close to $30,000. Really hard to justify $30,000 to $40,000 when compared to nearly $0 at UF. Plus they just won the national championship :-)</p>
<p>It's proably not worth more money. I don't really think any school is actually worth $160,000, and, frankly, If faced with that choice I would probably have gone to a state school instead of WashU. As it happened, my state school (actually, both of them) was more expensive than WashU. </p>
<p>That said, there are definite advantages to going to a private school as opposed to a public one.</p>
<p>yeah but would you want to live in gainesville?
if your son is eligible for uf honors, then he would probably get miami's 75% scholarship, which, combined with bright futures and the fl grant, makes tuition pretty much free.
i'd rule out uf and make it between um and washu.</p>
<p>Garibaldi - exactly! He is in St. Louis this weekend for the WashU engineering dog and pony show. They probably have him convinced that only morons go to UMiami for biomed -- so he'll pay full freight to WashU. It'll be rough, and we are simply not convinced that any undergrad experience is worth $160,000 +. I guess he could RA, work/study, co-op, or some other creative measure.</p>