Dream School vs. No Debt

[SDTB]

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@DMRenrel

It’s not as much a worry of an intellectual limit as of a social one. Forever and for always, I’ve gotten along well enough with most everyone, so long as I stay in the geek/intelligence closet, but the only people I’ve really been close with are extraordinary (I think all my best friends are actually smarter than me, but hey). Ivies, etc. It’s not even so much a worry that those people aren’t at GT as that I’ll have to really look for them, that the general social interactions won’t be with people that I relate to particularly well. In short, that it’ll be four more years of high school, whereas Caltech/MIT (having not visited, the only real difference to me at this point is weather and MIT offering the Nuke Engineering degree, and I’ve used them pretty interchangeably in the whole thread) would let me grow as a person. Of course, there is the possibility that GT would give me all the things I want out of Caltech and more, but I can’t know until it’s too late. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the $200,000 question.</p>

<p>And no, I have no interest in the financial industry.

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<p>Given your situation, I would suggest Caltech to you because GaTech seems too risky(the “what if?” complex); you should really figure it out when you visit because no one here can really give you a great answer. However, I am going to argue against you anyway - just for a sense of perspective.</p>

<p>For most people, social growth is just as important as intellectual growth. Most people need a combination of skills to succeed. Even in academia, networking is an important part of the game. The fact that you can only comfortably interact with one type of person isn’t a good thing. I would argue that your attitude should be to broaden your horizons instead of limit it; isn’t that an important part of your undergraduate career? I wouldn’t suggest that you already dismiss yourself that way.</p>