I am making a post that’s not typical because I am not a current student here. Rather, I’m a Ph.D student at an R2 university in Michigan (won’t say which one cause I’ll out myself). I am someone who was slated to enroll in the 2013-2014 academic year, but declined Ohio State and being part of their Scholars program to go to Bowling Green State University (BGSU) instead.
Despite my parents poking around and becoming a research assistant at a neuroscience lab with a full professor (who is now at the University of Toronto and got tenure recently, which is awesome), 29 with a 3.7 GPA (unweighted, my high school graduating class was 7 people and there was no AP, IB, Honors courses, or even foreign language courses so no weighted GPA here), and completed 26 credit hours dual enrolled also with a 3.7 GPA (I know most coming in get like 40 something credit hours nowadays but for the time this was a lot), I did not enroll. The reasons why I think were kind of dumb in hindsight. Here is the list.
1.) Would’ve had to take a ton of remedial classes. (My math was so bad I was at pre-algebra levels to be exact. Can’t remember if English or writing was in there but all I know is that those classes wouldn’t have counted towards my major).
2.) Not all of my credits would transfer from what I remembered but BGSU accepted them all.
3.) Generous merit based financial aid. A now removed merit scholarship BGSU gave me was $6,000 a semester on top of an additional $2,000 a year before I got kicked out of the Honors College at BGSU (more on that later but someone needs a 27. Ohio State didn’t give me any merit scholarships and I distinctly remember my buddy with a 35 going to UC since he got a full ride (tuition + room and board) and a stipend to live. Since I never quite crept my score up to a 30 due to my low math score, I wasn’t eligible to get room + board covered at BGSU. Although I regret not applying for more scholarships I still graduated with around $26,000 in debt for my whole bachelor’s (living on campus was required for two years, but I did 3 given I didn’t have my act together finding apartments independently and would melt down over the process), which isn’t terrible especially given my parents income bracket didn’t qualify for needs based financial aid ($250,000 combined) and they were bad with money to the point me and my brothers were on our own for tuition, this was not a bad thing.
4.) Despite the above point about them being bad with money and not getting any merit based financial aid, my parents almost forced me to go to Ohio State and would’ve paid whatever difference I couldn’t take out for student loans to fund my time there.
5.) I would’ve been able to join the lab I was in already if I enrolled at Ohio State. To this day, I was the only high school student a PI ever took and could be a research assistant. He wrote me a letter of recommendation for undergrad AND grad school, which was huge.
6.) Massive internship opportunities so I could do something with my BS in Psychology.
Reasons why going to OSU may have been bad (playing devil’s advocate):
1.) I had around a 2.5-2.6 cumulative GPA after my first year at BGSU. Second year, I had a 2.9 cumulative GPA. I had to appeal to keep my scholarships, twice. By the next Spring review though, I had a 3.7 GPA in Fall 2015 to bump my cumulative GPA up to a 3.1. My final GPA was a 3.1 (ETA: 3.3 with transfer classes and a 3.5 PSY GPA with As in Stats, Research Methods, and a B in Stats II). For those wondering what I studied, I got a Bachelor of Science (instead of a Bachelor of Arts) in Psychology since I was told my that lab at OSU that a BS was more sellable to graduate schools than a BA. I had to take math classes up to Calc 2. I had to retake Calc 2 (withdrew the first time since I was going to fail it) and thankfully got a B in it, which helped my GPA.
2.) Precalculus (which I could start at based on my ACT score) was 5 credit hours, Calculus I was broken up into two classes worth 3 credit hours each (6 total), Calculus II was 5 credit hours as well. Grades in those were: C, C, and B (note that BGSU doesn’t do plusses or minuses).
3.) Foreign language. I took two semesters of Japanese at a small liberal arts college. I was originally going to take Intermediate Japanese to knock out my foreign language requirement ASAP once I got to BGSU but it turns out what they covered in two courses at that small liberal arts college was what was covered in one semester of Japanese at BGSU. I was forced to take French instead and start from scratch on the foreign language requirements. Thankfully, the two Japanese courses I took counted towards other general education requirements (and it’s not possible to “double dip” and have them count for both either sadly). I got Cs in all French classes (4 credit hours each) other than the Reading French class (it was taught in english but we read poems and short stories in French before discussing them as a class).
4.) Little merit based aid. Since my parents wouldn’t qualify for needs based financial aid and I was on my own for tuition (to this day, my brothers and I are infuriated by this. Had we known their true income, we would’ve tried to convince them).
5.) Bad first year would’ve probably been multiplied at Ohio State. At BGSU, I had public meltdowns in the dorms, would leave classes quickly when the end time hit, struggled with personal relationships, social cues, and had poor stress management. At the time, I was (and still have) autism, ADHD-I, dysgraphia, social anxiety, generalized anxiety, and moderate depression.
Overall, I would’ve had a stronger research background if I came out of OSU, had internships (BGSU didn’t require any so I never pursued them), and so much more even if the cost was huge due to no merit based scholarships. I currently have around $54k in debt after my Master’s (they’re rarely fully funded in my field) and, although I would’ve had the same at Ohio State, I could have probably gone straight to Ph.D easily and not have had to do a Master’s beforehand. Welcoming any thoughts, comments, or reactions.