OOS with EFC of zero?

CFB53B
Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:08:28 +0000

If you plan to go to graduate school, I think doing well at UCF would be a better choice because grad school admissions don’t seem to care as much about undergrad prestige, especially professional schools.



I very strongly disagree with this statement, for two reasons. First, graduates schools do weigh the school attended. That’s not to say that you can’t get into a Caltech PhD program or Harvard Business from UCF, but the schools will expect more (i.e. you’ll need to be top 1% instead of top 10%) if you apply from a lower tier schools vs. an upper tier school.

You can see an example here: [Top Feeder Schools To Wharton’s MBA Program | Poets and Quants](Poets&Quants | Top Feeder Schools To Wharton's MBA Program) which lists the top feeders into Wharton MBA. All of the schools listed are very top schools.

The second reason I disagree is because, independent of what graduate schools think of undergraduate schools, betters schools have better research opportunities. You’ll be able to work with well known faculty, there tends to be more money available for research leading to more opportunities, and the research groups tend to publish in top tier journals. That’s not to say that you can’t find this at a non-top tier school, but it’s harder to come by.

That said, is it worth $100,000 in loans? I wouldn’t pay that. I’d do one of two things instead: first, with an EFC of zero, I’d apply to some very good private schools. They tend to give lots of money to people in your situation. Try Duke, Rice, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, etc. Second, if I absolutely had my heart set on Tech, I’d go to a community college for the first two years then transfer into Tech. If you monitor the transfer credits properly and maintain a good GPA, you’ll get into Tech without a problem and you’ll cut off two years of tuition.

Of course, this is all a moot point because Tech will probably give you some money and you won’t really be looking at $100,000. How much is something we won’t know for a few months.