dpm765

i applied to villanova, fordham, boston u, boston college, and penn (as a reach) and got a pretty good package from fordham for being a national merit semifinalist. i am in the top 3% at a pretty competive high school, 1430 SAT, captain of xc and track, so i applied to some pretty good schools. at this point my top choice is villanova, but now i have a dilemma. i am a national merit finalist, and there are schools all over the place that offer a free ride. arizona st sent me something and i looked into them, it looks like their president is really trying to improve the school, they have a pretty good business school and a well regarded honors college which i would do. is it worth it to go down to arizona to have some fun in the sun while going for a 4.0 or staying with one of the higher reputation schools and end up with a lot more debt later? i plan to go to business school at some point, i dont want to screw up my chances to get into a good one by going to a school that isnt that great.

MomofWildChild

The ARizona State honors program has been discussed in a few threads. There are a few parents who are knowledgeable. Do a search to find them. I think it is one of the better honors colleges. Do you plan to run in college? It might be hard to get on the Villanova team.

collegehelp

Go to the better school. If you get into U Penn, go there. After that, Boston College. Parent PLUS loan interest rates are at a near-record low and you have from 10 to 30 years to repay. The advantages of better schools are real. If you are good enough to get into an honors college at a second-tier university, you probably should simply go to a better university. Second tier universities lure better students by offering lots of aid. It is to their advantage to have better students but not necessarily to your advantage. Of course, finances can be a deciding factor if other factors like academic quality are nearly equal. This is not the case with U Penn and Arizona.