I am currently choosing between Mount Holyoke, Rice, and Wellesley.
Mount Holyoke has awarded me the Trustees Scholarship, which is full tuition for four years. As a result, it should cost about 16k to attend each year, or 64k for four years. I’ve been to Mount Holyoke three times, and really did not like it the first two times (one of those was the admitted students weekend). On my most recent trip, I liked it more, but still was not in love with the school. I was hoping to go to a school in a more metropolitan area that was larger, and had a bit more of the “name brand recognition factor” (I do recognize I need to get over this prestige thing). I am interested in studying political science, and possibly economics as a second major. One thing that I like about Mount Holyoke and the Trustee’s scholarship is that the alumnae network is strong, and the scholarship gives networking opportunities with the trustees of the schools. However, I am not sure of the strength of MHC’s alumnae network in comparison with Wellesley and Rice. Furthermore, I simply never “vibed” with the school, and am just not very excited about it at all.
Rice University was one of my top choice schools when I was applying to colleges, and when I visited over Owl Days, I completely fell in love with the school. I’m interesting in living outside of New England (I’m from MA), and I really liked Houston. I also feel like Houston would give me many internship and work opportunities during the school year that I would not be able to get at a rural school like MHC. I also love Rice’s campus, and every student I met at Rice I could easily see myself becoming friends with (something I did not feel at MHC). Rice also has managerial studies in their school of social sciences, which I could double major in with political science. Management is interesting to me, and I’d rather study managerial studies than econ, but Mount Holyoke and Wellesley do not offer this. In addition, the Baker Institute could provide me with more political internships and such. Basically Rice feels like a perfect fit for me, but costs about 50k a year.
Wellesley also costs about 50k a year. I appreciate Wellesley’s proximity to Boston, but that it still has a really liked the rural wild feeling campus. Wellesley’s political science professors have also graduated from top ranked political science graduate programs, and Wellesley has a very strong political network, and being a Seven Sister and all women’s college, the network is very strong and supportive of its graduates. I also like that Wellesley has lifelong career advising. Wellesley felt like a really good fit like Rice, but in a different way; where Rice felt like a place where I would grow socially and have the “best four years of my life”, Wellesley felt like it would be a great academic fit - students felt very focused in their studies, and the classes seemed to be challenging but not overwhelming (not that Rice did not feel like a good academic fit). I think that Wellesley may be able to take me the farthest career wise, and I like the pre-professional feel of the college (although Rice is a very strong name in Texas and overall has very good name recognition in the country as well).
If I were to go to MHC, I would not go into debt and I would have college funds left over that could be dedicated to graduate school, or wherever I end up going later in my life. If I go to Rice or Wellesley, they would eat up all of my college funds, my personal savings, and I’d have to take out some loans - around 30k over the four years most likely, although it could be a little more/less. I recognize that graduating debt free would allow me to go into graduate school directly from college if I don’t get enough scholarship money from grad school (especially since I’m considering a MBA right now, although I’ve only started thinking about graduate school recently since it’s never been an expectation for me to receive a graduate degree, and a lot could change over my four years of college), and I could get a low paying job in a political career without having to worry about paying back loans, whereas if I went to Rice/Wellesley, I’d have to take out loans on top of loans. However, I just don’t love MHC like I love Rice and Wellesley, and I wonder if Rice or Wellesley could take me farther career wise. But is Rice or Wellesley worth that 130k price difference? I’d love people’s opinions/personal experiences! I guess I’m having trouble putting this much money into perspective. Thanks!
