I’m having an incredibly difficult time deciding where I want to attend.
I was accepted to all three schools, but they are all pretty different cost-wise.
I will be a chemistry major, premed, and would like to continue playing violin in a college orchestra. Grinnell and Gustavus are each about 4 hours away from me, and Hamilton is… really far. I would really like to get out of my comfort zone for college, though, so this is actually an advantage.
Hamilton is my favorite; I absolutely love it and I would be absolutely ecstatic to attend.
I really liked Grinnell, and I know I would be happy there, but it feels a little too close to home.
I liked Gustavus, and I think that I would be able to be happy there, but I would really love to be at a place that has a more intellectual vibe (like Grinnell and Hamilton).
The big difference, like I said before, is cost. Gustavus is $15k less than Grinnell, and Grinnell is $6k less than Hamilton.
I can afford to attend all of them, but it would be a pretty big stretch for Hamilton.
Please help!!
@Hapworth should be able to help you. With this decision.
What would you and your family need to do to make the financial stretches work for Grinnell and Hamilton? 15k is a big jump, but 21k is even more. That is like buying a new small car every year.
What would your family do with 60k to 84k if it doesn’t have to go to your college education?
OP,
As @happymomof1 states, we sort of need more details, if you are comfortable doing so. Saying that Grinnell is 15K per year more than GA means 60K over four years, yet you also say, “I can afford to attend all of them.” When you say “I,” I assume you mean your family. So which is it? Is cost an issue or is it not? Is the cost of, say, Grinnell absolutely doable but it would be nice to spend less if possible? There’s a big difference between absolutely doable and “we can eke it out, but we’ll definitely take a serious hit in doing so.”
Grinnell, even if it’s closer than you would like, would be ideal. It is strong in humanities and STEM, but its science resources are ridiculously top notch (anything bio-related especially). Hamilton is also a terrific school.
The good news is that you do like GA, which I always think of as the lesser-known sibling of St. Olaf. Luther C. would also be a similar school. Plus, four hours away is plenty far. Trust me. I too had wanderlust, wanting to get far, far away. I ended up attending an LAC in-state that was three hours away. I still felt like I was away at college, and it was far enough that I wasn’t tempted to go home on weekends (and I didn’t want to!).
The smart choice, if cost is a very real issue, is to go to GA. You’ll love it. You might also be the big fish in the small pond, which can only help you survive the weeding-out process of pre-med, as you’ll stand out. Yeah, Grinnell and Hamilton are higher ranked in that silly and meaningless US News thingie, and, thus, they’re perceived to be more elite. You’ll be fine at GA if that’s where you go. FWIW, I attended an LAC that’s pretty much in the same area as Gustavus on the silly and meaningless US News list. I’m still in love with my alma mater more than twenty years on.
One measure of a college’s “intellectual vibe” is its PhD production rate. GA falls between Grinnell and Hamilton in PhD production in chemistry over the last 20 years.
115 Carleton College
81 Franklin & Marshall
80 College of Wooster
75 College of the Holy Cross
74 St. Olaf College
66 Hope College
65 Grinnell College
55 Kalamazoo College / Macalester College
50 Bowdoin College / Wellesley College
49 Gustavus Adolphus College / University of Minnesota, Morris
48 Haverford College
47 Juniata College
46 Colby College
45 Albion College / Wabash College
43 Davidson College
42 Gettysburg College
40 Fort Lewis College
40 Illinois Wesleyan University / Whitman College
39 Lafayette College
38 Swarthmore College / Ursinus College / Wittenberg University
37 Hamilton College
Its overall PhD production rate over the last 20 years is very similar to Hamilton’s.
1622 Carleton College
1530 Swarthmore College
1259 Wellesley College
1107 St. Olaf College
1077 Amherst College
1039 Grinnell College
1010 Pomona College
933 Barnard College
902 Macalester College
820 Haverford College
737 Bowdoin College
700 United States Military Academy
668 Spelman College
665 United States Air Force Academy
640 Davidson College
636 Colby College
626 Kenyon College
624 College of the Holy Cross
623 Bates College / Franklin & Marshall College
616 College of Wooster
595 Hope College
582 Gustavus Adolphus College
563 Whitman College
560 Lafayette College
551 Kalamazoo College
531 Hamilton College
Source: NSF WebCASPAR
@Hapworth it would be difficult, and some sacrifices would have to be made on all sides, but it would be possible. I just didn’t get the same “vibe” at GA as I did at the other two; students seemed a lot more focused on things outside of school like athletics and music which is definitely not a bad thing but I’m the type of person who loves to talk about what I’m working on in class/with research. I wouldn’t mind going there, and I think I could have a good experience, but another thing that I love about both Hamilton and Grinnell is their open curriculum but GA doesn’t have that. If money was no object, I’d be waffling between Grinnell and Hamilton, but unfortunately it is. I know that there are a lot of people who do amazing things coming out of GA but it didn’t seem like the overall culture was to be super invested in academics and I don’t think I would do as well in that environment. Positive peer pressure is definitely something that helps me.
Would appear that grinell would strike a good balance for you. A school you’re stoked to attend but s little bit more reasonable economically.
The OP appears to have established that, if costs were set aside, Hamilton would be her first-choice school. So how to analyze costs? Initially, Hamilton would be the most expensive choice. However, upon completion of their degrees, Hamilton grads earn 19% more than GA grads and 21% more than Grinnell grads. These figures represent substantial differences. With this in mind, it would be prudent to note that the initially less expensive options might prove to be more costly when considered over time for a typical student. How this data applies to a student with medical school ambitions might be less clear. Nonetheless, the data pertain to the financial aspects of this decision, which seem to be the OP’s essential remaining consideration. Along a similar line of reasoning, Forbes included Hamilton in “10 Expensive Colleges Worth Every Penny”:
The above thought experiment aside, I’ll say that while I respect Grinnell, the school does not seem fully to compare curricularly to Hamilton. Notably, Grinnell lacks a geosciences major, which I regard as a key component within the natural sciences.
Wishing you the best of luck with your decision @lacscn!
@merc81 changed my answer. Yeah go for it and kick butt at Hamilton
@merc81 ,
I take issue with such analysis. Not only is counting money that one does not have yet (future earnings, which are so very dependent on a variety of factors) dangerous, but the issue is COA now, not potential earnings ten years down the line. Plus, the expiration date on a college’s name/starting salary bump upon graduation is pretty brief. I do not doubt that–to use an obvious example–Ivy grads get some big doors to open and much larger starting salaries than Gustavus grads or Grinnell grads out of the gate. But graduates of other colleges do catch up. I don’t remember the study offhand, but basic observation and common sense serve as evidence. If the world worked as you described it, we would have a caste system, where people who earn a very lot would mostly have gone to elite colleges. People who earn quite a lot would mostly have attended colleges perceived as one notch down. And so on.
Yet this is not how things work (there are some exceptions, like top law firms that really do recruit from top schools). In fact, it would be fun if people here on CC would mention where they went to school and where their work colleagues went to school. Ivy grads work alongside flagship grads, modest LAC grads, and grads of “directionals.” Thus, this notion that Hamilton will put the OP on a lifelong path of earnings 20% above what he/she would make if he/she attends Gustavus is absurd. Five years out of college, where one went to school is a footnote. And this is when things even out. The Stanford grad has no advantage over the UC Santa Cruz grad who has busted her tail, gained valuable work experience and skills, while the Stanford grad, no slouch, simply hasn’t accomplished the same.
@lacscn ,
That said, if you are honest that if everyone makes sacrifices and pitches in (I assume this would include things like you working during breaks to earn money toward tuition), and if doing so truly allows you to attend the college of your choice without significantly affecting your finances or your family’s (would you have to take on any debt, BTW?), then, sure, go for it.
@Hapworth : The OP’s situation quite specifically relates to finances. My reply stayed within a financial realm for these specific schools for this specific scenario. For that, data was needed, and that’s what I offered. Could your opinion even be swayed at differentials (of any data) of, say, 50 or 100%? Must all colleges always be equal in their capacity to educate and further the lives of their students? If so, that would seem to represent an ideology, but not an honest inquiry.
To repeat (sigh). The OP needs to make a decision on current COA and the family’s current ability to pay, not imagined future earnings. This is basic stuff. If the OP can contribute (now and during the next few years, not using projections for the decade–or more–after graduation), and if the family truly can also contribute and possibly cut back, perhaps both schools are in play. That makes me happy, helping the OP in the here and now.
this worries me. if it would be a big stretch for your family, i don’t think it’s worth it, especially if you’d be paying $24K less overall to go to grinnell and more than triple that to go to gustavus.
have you tried appealing your financial aid from hamilton?
oh, also, if it’s like this:
order of preference: hamilton > grinnell > gustavus
least expensive: gustavus > grinnell > hamilton
i do think grinnell is a happy medium, especially if you know you’d be happy there and hamilton is too expensive after you appeal (or if you have already tried).
Hamilton draws more pre-professionals, sends fewer on to Ph.D. programs and human-services careers than Grinnell; hence its higher initial earnings. There is no reason to think its graduates outearn Grinnell graduates if one controls for profession and geography. Also, Grinnell offers courses in geology and geochemistry and offers research opportunities in geosciences despite no major. OP could study geosciences as a major at Hamilton, but did not mention wanting to do so. The schools have very different vibes. OP prefers Hamilton but would get a top education at either.
Love your screen name.
If you are thinking about going to med school, saving money for that would be key.
Agree totally with @MatzoBall’s post #14. You can’t compare starting salaries across schools without factoring in geography and profession. Hamilton has a fair number of grads going into finance relative to the other schools which definitely skews things in a way that is irrelevant to the OP’s areas of interest.
This is a tough decision, and, ultimately, it comes down to your family’s finances and how much the difference matters. None of us can really answer that. But please be reassured that no matter where you go, you will find intellectual peers to bounce ideas off of–there just may be fewer at one school than another. So many students are in a similar situation of finances vs. intellectual fit when it comes to college choice. So if you go to GA, you will meet other students who were accepted at Grinnell or Carleton (or Hamilton) but who couldn’t afford to attend. And you’ll meet other friends who made GA a first choice–and you never know which conversations and interactions will help you grow the most. Trust that you will make the most of whichever college you choose.
Another parent, adding that the description of Hamilton as a “stretch” makes me nervous, and would be enough to take it off my list. Grinnell is amazing school, and 4 hours from home is plenty far enough, plus Grinnell has a diverse student body, geographically, ethnically, racially, economically, so your experience would be broadening. The real decision would be GA vs. Grinnell, and that is a harder decision. If you can sit down with your family to really work through the financial ramifications, what each school would mean in terms of the family, your summer earnings expectations (of course, Grinnell has a wonderful summer research funding program, so you could live on campus, conduct research, and get paid . . … ). Congrats on great options, and good luck!
The opportunity to pursue an academic and personal adventure in an entirely different region of the country, coupled with your expressed affinity, leads me to recommend you choose Hamilton.