prestige vs price?

dntw8up
Thu, 22 Nov 2007 13:11:58 +0000

The “quality” of your undergraduate experience is not a matter of the ranking of your school. It is more a matter of access to professors and their projects, smart and capable peers, etc., which will be available at most schools, regardless of ranking. The difference is that when you choose to attend a school that offers you a full tuition scholarship, you will be considered top of the heap and your professors will know this and be more favorably inclined to have you participate in their endeavors, which will likely lead to more enthusiastic graduate school recommendations because they will know you and your work better.

Your college experience will likely “change your life” regardless of where you choose to go to school, and an excellent education can be had at all of the schools you’ve mentioned, so you have to decide whether a name brand is worth the money. If someone offered me a quality good for free or a quality good with an exclusive name brand for $100,000+, I would opt for the quality good for free because I don’t think brand names are worth the cost. You may feel differently.