@privatebanker So helpful! Thank you!!
@1stTimeThruMom so different. He grew up going to the Clemson Campus as it is 30 minutes from home. (Unfortunately, he is not swayed by this fact. Lol! Being away from home doesn’t bother him a bit. He has lived at a residential high school nearly 3 hours from home his junior and senior year, so he rather independent.) He has visited Yale and it was always his top choice.
I think you are the decision maker here, not him. He already decided.
If I were you I would urge him to go to Yale.
@coolweather. Can you lend the OP 60,000. May not seem like a big deal to you but you don’t know their personal situation.
@privatebanker I answered the OP’s question: “What would you do?”
I understand the OP is at the borderline of the financial decision. When the OP let her son apply to Yale she probably thought hard about this. Yale already provided a big amount of financial aid.
I’ve told the OP upthread. Yale if you can make it work financially is superb.
but Clemson honors college for the intended major - can be remarkably great too.
If it will endanger the family finances, no way.
I wouldn’t “urge” him to go to Yale, is all I am saying.
I would make it happen if possible.
But it won’t matter in cs ,if he’s a great computer scientist coming out of either school. It’s an industry where how you code etc if more important than the school name.
And Clemson has a wonderful network and can be a really great four years. It’s a great place too.
So my answer is a little more nuanced and less absolute.
Boola Boola, Eli Yale! Not my money, but that’s my vote.
As a cliche on CC goes, “any PhD program that is worth going and spending five years of your most productive years on should be completely free”.
If OP’s son enjoys Yale $60k difference is a small amount considering his future earning potential. Many kids at Yale make $20k a summer as interns. And better yet, if he declares advance standing at Yale he can graduate in three years, saving another $15k.
If he chooses Yale and later finds that the extra $15k a year is not worth it and he rather join some friends at Clemson, he can always transfer back to Clemson. But trying to do it the other around, it will be almost impossible.
Another possibility for paying the unmet need is working on campus part time jobs and summer jobs. I think it’s easier to have part time jobs and higher hourly rate at Yale because Yale has more money. Yale connection may help finding big summer internship jobs. That how my son get money when he was at MIT. He got more than 6K on on-campus jobs and more than 12K on summer internship each year.
@jzducol You beat me in typing.
Something to consider-Clemson has a 60% 4-year graduation rate. Yale’s is 88%. (source=each school’s 2018-19 Common Data Set). It might not end up applying to your child but it could be a factor.
Unless he got the Clemson National Scholars Scholarship, I’d really be hard pressed to select it over Yale.
I agree with @jzducol that the difference in price is manageable. My sons in CS at a regular non-ivy universities got summer internships starting after sophomore year (the usual time for a first internship) that paid between 17-20k for 12 weeks. Housing was either provided free or there was an additional stipend for it. Plane fare was also covered.
Btw campus recruiting was not an issue because the CS internships were listed online and interviews were done online as well.
Wow @BunnyBlue ! That’s great to know!
As a tech professional myself, if he’s going into computers, then it wouldn’t matter where he goes because tech jobs are in very high demand. The 60k would just be a big unnecessary liability that would limit his choices. There’s no benefit. Upon graduation, he’s going to get a market-rate salary based on his experience level, no more no less. The higher companies pay, the easier it is to attract an experienced professional. There’s no benefit for a company to pay more money for a Yale graduate, when they can hire someone who can already do the job.
As a Yale grad there will be much more opportunity outside of CS then at Clemson, if he decides to go that way (e.g. IB firms are always looking for CS grads to hire and Yale is where they would look first). At Clemson you would end up in the grinder as @coolguy40 alludes to.
Agree with @CU123. Summer internship opportunities that may lead to job offers later and at the very least will provide good experience and will look good on a resume (and probably pay very well) may be easier to get from Yale than from Clemson. My 2 engineer sons went to good schools, but the one at the top 20 school had fabulous and well paying summer internship fairly easily acquired through the school, whereas younger son, who went to a top 50 school, had to use connections to get his internships, which were not anywhere near as well paying. Both schools offered career fairs that were helpful as they graduated, but the availability of those high paying internships at well known companies was definitely a benefit at the top 20 school.
Actually, tech companies don’t look at Yale first. They generally look locally and regionally, because there’s less cost and risk recruiting for an entry level job that generally has a higher than average turnover. That’s true even with companies in Silicon Valley. It would be impractical and expensive, even for a major company, to constantly fly Yale graduates down to interview for entry level jobs.
I’m going to do a little mythbusting. The reason prestigious schools have higher than average salaries for computer jobs is because they’re on the east/west coast with a higher than average cost of living. A 100k starting salary in San Francisco is about the same as a 55k starting salary in Raleigh, NC. Either way you look at it, you’re getting an entry level job.
Many of the entry level job offers follow a successful summer internship. And many job interviews (at least the first several rounds) are done remotely, via facetime, etc.
I may surprise a few here with our result. After much deliberation, pros/cons, revisits, discussions with current and past students of both institutions, and soul searching our ds decided on Clemson. He is at peace, and so happy with his decision! It was nearer to his support network, offered great opportunity, and provided an avenue to grad school that made sense to him. He will attend the Honors College! Thank you for all the input. We benefitted greatly from this discussion and debate.