<p>Also I believe that I have the most saved up out of my siblings, and I also believe that the money will probably stop flowing into my account once I actually get into college. Aghh the more I think about it, the more I feel like UTK is my most viable option!</p>
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<p>That was a big concern of mine. You don’t have enough to fund 4 years at a pricey school, and your parents will be funding your younger siblings funds from now on so that they, too, can have equivalent funding.</p>
<p>Seriously, as a Communications major, spending huge amounts of money or (worse) borrowing money isn’t that wise of a choice. </p>
<p>Class sizes for flagships can be rather typical…the 100/200 level classes (especially those that are Core/GenEd lecture) tend to be large. The 300/400 level classes tend to be much smaller. Honors classes tend to be smaller.</p>
<p>USNews has the breakdown of class-sizes…</p>
<p>UVA
less than 20 students - 52%
20 - 49 students - 32%
more than 50 students - 16%</p>
<p>UT
less than 20 students - 32%
20 - 49 students - 60%
more than 50 students - 8% <= Look at that…a smaller % than UVA.</p>
<p>The differences don’t seem to justify spending that much more money. You mention the 300 student class size at UT…well, that’s not the norm there. And UVA has a lot more of those large classes than UT does.</p>
<p>Let me tell you this. My older son is in a PhD program at a small pricey elite private. For fun, he takes one undergrad class each semester…like Italian or Spanish or whatever. Well, even though this school is a small private, those undergrad classes are LARGE.</p>
<p>Ask the Communications department about class size. Big lecture classes are only workable for certain majors. It could be that there are no giant classes at all in that department.</p>
<p>I am somewhat in the same boat as you. I am waiting to here from USC, U. Miami, ect, but i am already into UMD. I should start off by clarifying that financially, my family IS capable of sending me to any school i want. However, what they are WILLING to spend is different. UMD is 40,000 a year compared to 60,000 at the others. My parents are willing to send me to UMD and offered me benefits to go there (spring break, vacations, graduation present, ect) partially because they want to keep me close to home in addition to the cheaper prices, but they said no promises at the more expensive schools and said that if i go there, i am getting NOTHING!!! Because i am planning to go to a good grad school, like you, I am leaning towards the cheaper UMD. I am told that if you go to grad school, getting a job is based on your grad school name and not your undergrad anyway so maybe that helps. </p>
<p>I guess what i am trying to say w/ my story, is that since you want to go to grad school, i think you should attend the cheaper undergrad (if you actually like it there). In the end, i imagine that is what i am going to do. Good luck!</p>
<p>First some good news: By some miracle, I received a letter from UTK today saying that I’ve been admitted into the Honors Program which is giving me a little extra scholarship money too. This is making my decision a little more difficult now. haha</p>
<p>I wasn’t saying all of the classes had 300 or so. I was just using that number to make my point that the classes are generally larger in size than at UVA.
Now that I’ve gotten into Honors though, I’ll probably be taking a lot more of these smaller classes in the event that I go there.
And again, I have not nailed down my major to Communications. I am just saying that’s one idea, and I am not even leaning very heavily towards it.</p>
<p>stalmadge5194,
I’ll be that if you are accepted at any of your other, more “prestigious” colleges, UTK might sweeten the pot even more. It wont hurt to wait until then to decide.
But you would be really foolish, imho, to go into more debt than you can afford for a college education, particularly if you are considering a major that has no certainty of a ready job once you graduate.</p>
<p>if u think u can escape from your dream school with manageable debt then why not. u never want to be 5- 10 years down the road asking your self what could have been. but obviously if ur gonna be extremely set back from the costs of a dream school then reconsider and make utk your dream school. discover whats great about it and be excited about a great experience that wont kill the bank.</p>