I realize this is a great dilemma to have, but I’m looking for some advice on how to guide my son to make the best choice. His dream for years has been to attend MIT and we both think it’s a great fit for him although I worry about the intensity. He was deferred EA and then accepted RD which was frankly a huge shock to both of us. Financial aid after a couple of appeals could be better but is manageable. Frankly what the schools find to be an acceptable family contribution seems very high. He’s also been accepted to Brown, Penn, Wesleyan, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Northwestern and Harvard. His passion is physics and math. Most people are saying the only contest is between MIT and Harvard which I think may be oversimplifying a bit. All these schools are great and he has always been in small schools his whole life so I don’t necessarily want to write those off straight off the bat But realistically I doubt any of them liberal arts colleges will provide the level of financial aid that we need. Should I see if we can get better financial aid from Harvard or Brown than what MIT is offering? Should I do that with all of the schools? Or just decline all but MIT? I am a single parent, work at a nonprofit and his father is not going to contribute anything.
Hard to imagine a better place for math and physics than MIT. Hopefully others can opine on student culture.
Did you get financial aid packages from the other schools?
From some of them, yes. But since my job and income went down since the time we completed the CSS (was working overseas with a package of expatriate benefits, now working a normal American job) I would need to go back and appeal all of the financial aid offers as I did with MIT, to get the best offer from each school and be able to compare the offers. I haven’t done that yet and I’m not sure if that’s a really worthwhile thing to do.
Has he visited the schools? Does he have a gut feeling on where he’d fit best based on spending time on the campuses? If not, it might be worth the trip and then going after financial aid appeals when your child has a favorite or two.
He is going to MIT’s CPW and we will try to do the other two. His gut feeling is that MIT is the best fit followed by Brown and then Harvard.
I believe you can stop there.
For each school, if it produced a substantially lower net price than MIT, would that affect the student’s decision? The answer to this question is the answer to the question about whether it is worthwhile to try to get the financial aid changed at that school.
I wouldn’t decline until he is absolutely sure of where he wants to go.
Both Brown and Harvard will likely reassess their financial aid based on MIT’s offer, which might save you some time and paperwork—but you will probably still need to submit supporting documentation.
But you can do that in April. They usually work very quickly on aid appeals for admitted students.
And congrats!!
MIT is reputed to be “not as generous” as Harvard. However, it is easy enough to find paid research roles on campus (there is a database for what they call “UROP’s” and students can choose cash or course credit) which often pay more than typical college student jobs.
If the MIT package is doable-- with your son contributing for books, incidentals etc. out of his summer earnings this year and some paid work during semesters-- then asking the other schools for a review may or may not be worth the hassle.
How much pain are we talking with the MIT package?
They want me to pay $29k which is doable but for sure $15k would be a lot more doable. But at the end of the day I guess I would have a very hard time telling him he can’t go to MIT even if we got a better package from another excellent university.
It is a great dilemma, but also I can see how it would be stressful, especially with the large number of schools and how they differ. He’s set a bar for you to work from, though, which is that his dream has been MIT. So it seems like the only reason to not choose MIT is if another top school could offer a substantially lower net cost that it necessitates having a decision to make for your family.
Did your son receive his financial packages from Harvard and Brown (since you’re listing those as the top alternates)? Was the net cost to your family lower there (or anywhere else)? If you do have an offer that’s more affordable, you could go back to MIT and ask them if they’d reconsider. If they haven’t provided that information yet (I honestly don’t know the timing these days), you can encourage them to move quickly and/or wait them out - you’ll have a bit of time.
If you would have to go back to Harvard or Brown to ask them to reconsider their package, you’re probably not going to get very far - the schools will consider matching each other but they’re not interested in negotiating against each other.
There are likely a few conversations for you to have, but not that many, and they could be conversations with great returns on investment.
Good luck, and congratulations to all of you!
Harvard has a reputation for being the most generous with fin aid. Definitely worth appealing the offer, even if only to then use that to crowbar more out of the others.
Does that include student loans and work study? Because that can help bridge the gap.
And he can likely earn more than the work-study allowance via non-WS jobs plus summer jobs, which might bring the total payment close to what you are hoping for. MIT pays their undergraduate physics TAs $19-plus an hour, and at my son’s college (not MIT), TA’s usually work around 10-12 hours a week so that can add up fairly quickly.
I do think he should visit his top 3 or 4 if he hasn’t already. I know that actually setting foot on campus changed my student’s mind about what she wanted and really helped us make decisions about what to pursue further or not.
It is a bit stressful! We’ve decided we will go back to Brown and Harvard and ask them to revisit their financial aid in line with our new financial situation. We’ll also go and visit those two schools. In that way he will have a better basis to make his final decision. For the rest we will decline so they can have the space to offer to kids on the waitlist. They are all great schools and frankly I am shocked that he got into so many. But he can only go to one.
We haven’t started talking about loans yet, but I want him to get the maximum federal subsidized loans he can.
What does he think about general education requirements? They are extensive at MIT and very few at Brown.
@Christine6, congratulations on such fine choices for your child. I sent you a PM about why my son chose Harvard. I am also paging @Chekov whose sons chose MIT.
Is he interested in pure math or applied math? Brown’s applied math is reputed to be very highly regarded.
And the requirements for Brown are more flexible than the webpage indicates. For instance, there are a very large number of courses that can fulfill the two-course writing requirement, including a number of courses in STEM disciplines.