OOS with EFC of zero?

KamelAkbar
Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:23:57 +0000

Turning down a full-ride scholarship in order to pay OOS tuition with student loans (if you don’t get any aid) to major in CS sounds absolutely insane to me.

You really have to experience having massive debt to know how huge the impact on your life is. If you don’t get any help from GT and end up paying for it entirely with loans to cover OOS tuition at Tech, you could be paying the cost of renting an apartment for a decade or more after graduation - and that’s if you stopped at undergrad. If you do go to grad school, your loans will keep gaining interest, and you will likely also have to take out a lot more loans to cover grad school (depending on what route you take). There are people in your situation who go to grad school, graduate and have to pay more than half their salary towards loans for 20 years after they graduate. Compounding interest is no joke, and the bigger your loans get the harder it is to keep up.

I would really encourage you take it one step at a time with your PhD ambitions. College is a life-changing experience. I don’t know a lot of people who wanted to do the same thing at the end of college as they did when they started. If you know that all you want to do is CS research, and won’t ever want to work in industry, that’s fine. Believe me, if you will do well enough at GT to get into Cal Tech, you will do well enough at UCF. The research opportunities ARE there, and if you are a good student you will find them. You said you’d be in their honors program. If you’re going to be a top student at UCF, you’re just the person that would get them.

You can get into Cal Tech from UCF. You don’t have to be in the top 1%. Getting into Cal Tech as a CS major is not like getting into Wharton. There’s no formula for getting into Wharton. The best of the best still get rejected. If you get good grades/scores, and have solid research experience, getting into Cal Tech totally reasonable.

Imagine getting into Cal Tech debt free rather than massively in debt (owing a house to someone). It’s not just a number.

I know you don’t want money to hold you back - so don’t let it. You just have to work hard. It’s a sad truth that the road to success is a little harder for those who weren’t born rich.