<p>Hey everyone i'm doing this post for my friend because he doesn't have an account. He was accepted at Yale and Michigan in the early decision/action period and is having a hard time deciding due to financial reasons. He will have to pay full price for Yale(60k) and in-state for Michigan(~15k, he received some scholarship dont know the name) which if attends Yale will leave him with a extremely large student loan. He will most likely do something business related so it makes the decision ever harden considering how good Michigan's business school is. So, basically he wants to know where to go and if you could provide your reasoning behind it that would be extremely helpful.
Thanks!!</p>
<p>My son was also accepted to both Yale and Michigan. He has opted for Yale, but if it were a case of an “extremely large student loan,” it would not be a close call. Student loans are like anchors around your neck; they should be avoided if at all possible.</p>
<p>If he’s interested in business, it should be easy for him to understand. I say this as someone who will willingly pay full freight for my son because we’ve been lucky enough (and worked hard enough) to have saved the money to do so. Yale is (we hope) a wonderful place, but Michigan is not chopped liver, and the difference does not warrant a large student loan.</p>
<p>I’m a current Yale student, and although I really think Yale is great, I would recommend he attend Michigan instead. Yale is a fantastic experience and there are many unique opportunities, but I don’t think they’re worth taking out a quarter of a million dollars in student loans. Significant student loans could severely limit his choices later on, e.g. one of my friends was very passionate about working at an early stage startup, but he ended up going to Wall Street instead in order to be able to pay off his student loans. Moreover, if your friend wants to take classes on entrepreneurship, management, finance, etc. he won’t be able to take any of those in Yale College (technically undergrads can take classes at the School of Management, but it’s rough to be an 18-year-old freshman in a corporate finance class where all the other students are in their late 20s).</p>
<p>I don’t know very much about Michigan specifically, but I believe your friend could have a great experience anywhere if he’s proactive. Having seen how many of my friends have fared–people attending top schools, people accepted to top schools but who didn’t attend, and people who weren’t accepted to top schools at all–I really believe success in and after college depend almost entirely on the person and not on where he went to school. </p>
<p>One major caveat to everything I’ve written above is that, if your friend specifically wants to work on Wall Street or in management consulting, he should more strongly consider attending Yale. People from Ross do end up at Blackstone, McKinsey, etc. but finance and consulting almost certainly recruit more heavily at Yale, and it’s tough to break into these fields without attending an elite school.</p>
<p>Going to Yale is an investment risk that your friend needs to decide on. Though Yale can open more opportunities and connections than Ross, I don’t think it’s worth a quarter million of debt. Your friend can possibly get an MBA from Yale.</p>
<p>In reality, an MBA from Ross carries more weight than an MBA from Yale SOM…</p>
<p>I would suggest avoiding the student loan, but if your friend does want to go into business, Yale undergrads (even those who don’t major in economics) are very well recruited for consulting/banking/some PE/some hedge funds. </p>