<p>would passing up wustl, duke, and rice for purdue because purdue has better engineering be a bad idea?</p>
<p>^I’d disagree and say that Rice has better engineering.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’d say Duke and Rice have better engineering than Purdue, and Duke and Rice are VERY different from Purdue. I personally would choose Rice or Duke over Purdue any day, for many reasons other than engineering rank.</p>
<p>Anyway, my dad chose Case Western Reserve University over Duke, but that was a long time ago.</p>
<p>I might choose Rice over HYPS if I get into one of HYPS. It looks like I’ll be getting merit money at Rice (likely letter already), which could be a deciding factor. I’ve also received likely letters from Columbia and Cornell, over which I would probably pick Rice.</p>
<p>My good friend got a full ride (covering tuition, room and board, meal plan, books, and travel expenses) to Ohio State University. He might choose that over wustl, to which he has been accepted, Cornell (likely letter), or even HYPS if he gets in.</p>
<p>Ok first of all Cornell over Caltech or NU over Yale are not big differences, especially for undergrad as far as prestige goes. I can see UI- cHicago over Harvard being an issue but this is not. People would be impressed either way. Go with what you want. My school preferences aren’t in order of prestige (well to an extent) and neither schoul yours. Go where you will be most happy.</p>
<p>my friend passed up UChicago for Temple because of financial reasons… another did the same thing (however, it wasn’t w/ Chicago-it was a different “top” school")</p>
<p>If you are certain about going to grad/medical/law school than go to the “lower prestige” undergraduate school. Hopefully you will be at the top of your class which makes getting into the grad/ medical/law school easier. It will be the grad/medical/law school that counts more in the long run than the undergrad school.</p>
<p>Can anyone verify what Native NJ is saying? If this is true, maybe that will influence my decision…</p>
<p>It seems like rising to the top of your class at a good state school (UMich, UVA, UCB, UCLA, UW) would nearly as difficult as rising to the top of your Ivy class.</p>
<p>Moreover, I would think grad schools don’t value class rank as much as she expects. The prestige, and perhaps better education, at a more prestigious university may be enough to sway the AC of graduate school the way of the student at the more prestigious school despite their lower class rank.</p>
<p>quote:“My friend chose UC Davis over Cornell and Cambridge.”</p>
<p>someone at my school last year did this, though i think it was oxford and harvard, but went to davis. she was a horse fanatic, wanted to be near her horse, and wanted to go into veternary medicine. as ridiculous as it sounds it was probably the right choice given her priorities</p>
<p>UNLESS there is a serious difference in the amount of financial aid available I say Cornell. Cornell has one of the most beautiful campuses in the country, and some of the very best college food (thanks in large part to the presence of the Hotel Management program). The academic diversity of the students is fantastic given that half of the university is SUNY (Agriculture, Human Ecology, Industrial Relations) and the other half is private. The only thing awful about the place is the amount of snow (feet, not inches), and the winter-time dark that is from 4 pm to 8 am. IF you have the time and the money to take summer classes with the long beautiful days (light from 5 am to almost 10 pm), and the cheap summer sub-lets, that season simply can’t be beat.</p>
<p>Also, the Engineering Quad is the closest to the off-campus shops and restaurants, saving tons of up-and-down-hill hiking in comparison to the Ag. quad where I spent waaaay too many years of grad school!</p>
<p>I haven’t done it yet, but… I would probably pass up U of Chicago AND Northwestern for DePaul. DePaul has an urban feel to the campus (unlike Northwestern) and I just like it better than UofC’s social life. That is, if finan aid ends up how I wanted. Only one that beats DePaul (so far) is Columbia and that’s not too likely.</p>
<p>My cousing axed UPenn Wharton for NYU Stern full scholarship, however i wouldn’t call NYU less academically respectably, it’s a damn fine b-school however wharton is irrefutably better in just about everything… lol.</p>
<p>what I really never understood though are the people who pass up “top” schools for financial aid reasons. To my knowledge, most of these schools like Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc, give GREAT financial aid packages. I mean, at Stanford, if your family makes less than 60,000 a year, you get to go for practically nothing. So why give that up for your local state school or something? </p>
<p>The only reason that makes sense is if a “lesser” school is a better fit for you. If you hate the environment at Princeton but love Boston University, then go for it. But don’t turn down Princeton because you can’t afford it, considering Princeton is enormously generous with financial aid.</p>
<p>Hippo – people pass up HYPS for merit money for financial reasons (not financial aid reasons) if they will have to pay full freight at HYPS. Just because a family is not eligible for financial aid doesn’t mean that paying an extra $120,000 is worth attending HYPS over a top 20 school.</p>
<p>lol, if only all college education were free, then we’ll be able to focus on academics only, not on money/fin aid problems.
and i say, either schools are fine…except caltech is more mtah/sci hardcore than cornell. if u are absolutely sure that u will have a career in math/sci and will be very happy in it, then go to caltech (though i heard the workload is pretty punishing).</p>
<p>“Just because a family is not eligible for financial aid doesn’t mean that paying an extra $120,000 is worth attending HYPS over a top 20 school.”</p>
<p>my post was only in context of people eligible to receive financial aid which is virtually anyone whose family makes less than 100,000 a year at some of these schools. </p>
<p>My point was that there are people who would get excellent financial aid at HYPS but turn it down for a state school because they think it’d be cheaper. They just don’t give it a chance to work out.</p>
<p>I know a guy who turned down several Ivies for a far lower-ranked state school.</p>
<p>However, for him the choice was quite clear and easy to make. He did it for one reason: football. He was one of the top high school football prospects in the country, and while that state school might be lower ranked from an academic standpoint, it is also a perennial football national championship contender. More importantly, it is also a well-established “NFL factory school”, and hence has given him an excellent opportunity to be drafted into the NFL, where he would make many times more money than an Ivy grad would to start, what with the NFL rookie salary minimum being $295k a year. </p>
<p>Now, to be fair, you can also make the NFL coming from an Ivy, and a few people do. It’s just quite hard to do so, because you simply don’t play in the spotlight of a major football conference and won’t play in any bowls, and hence you have limited opportunities to demonstrate your skills. Moreover, the coaching staffs and training facilities at the Ivies simply do not compare to what you have at the major football schools. Besides, he tells himself that if he doesn’t make it to the NFL at all, at least he still got a degree fully paid for via his football scholarship and he had the experience of playing college football at the highest level. He’s satisfied that that compensates for not attending an Ivy.</p>
<p>Interesting example, Sakky.</p>
<p>Here’s a cautionary tale that’s a bit off the OP’s topic, but perhaps worth repeating.</p>
<p>There’s a saying among football players that “NFL” is an abreviation for “not for long.” The average NFL career lasts three years; one reason the careers are so short, and the pay is so high, is that the injuries can really be debilitating.</p>
<p>I saw a documentary a few years ago that showed Jim Otto, who was the starting center for the Oakland Raiders for the first 20 years of the franchise’s existence, trying to get out of bed and put his pants on one morning so he could go see his orthopedic surgeon. It was really painful to watch. He looked incredibly old, but pointed out that he was actually the same age as his orthopedic surgeon, who was really just getting started in his career.</p>
<p>Jim Otto invested in Burger King restaurants; I ate at one of his restaurants one time. He had a picture of himself on the wall there, dressed only in shorts, with arrows pointing to every part of his body where he had undergone surgery for football injuries. There were about 20 of those arrows. He’s a wealthy man, but one who’s essentially crippled. He lives with horrrendous pain every day.</p>
<p>The same documentary with the footage on Jim Otto included a segment about a guy who I remembered playing for the Stanford team, followed by a short career in the NFL. They showed the play where his leg was broken - an injury that ended his career. Incredibly, he played for another down after he suffered the really horrible leg fracture. He said that he just didn’t want his football career to be over yet, and so had played one more down with the injury.</p>
<p>That injury left him mostly disabled. He earned something of a living by cold-calling people to try to sell them life insurance. He worked at home, sitting in a recliner, but three hours a day was all that he could handle. </p>
<p>He was also a volunteer assistant coach for his old high school team, showing up when his health permitted, strapped into a back brace, and limping badly despite his use of a cane.</p>
<p>I still watch football. Stanford’s victory over #1-ranked USC as a 41-point underdog last year is a thrill I will never forget. But I watch football with the guilty knowledge that football players put their future health on the line for our entertainment, and for the glory that comes with a stadium full of cheering fans, with every snap.</p>
<p>OK, carry on.</p>