<p>PCP, based on what you’ve said, I think it is important for your S to visit Chicago before deciding. Has he ever visited?</p>
<p>PCP, my older son applied to Caltech and Chicago (math/CS guy). Caltech was on the list because he thought “he could make it work,” but in retrospect, he would have been miserable. He wanted the broader focus of Chicago along with the stellar rep of the math department. Chicago also trumped MIT, though if he had to make the decision again, I think he would have agonized a LOT more. However, he now knows what he wants for grad school :).</p>
<p>Cadbury, my younger S has a 3.5 UW and Chicago is one of the last two schools standing. I have no doubt he can handle the academics. The IB program he attended was darned good preparation, in terms of subject matter, self-discipline and stress. What seems to be the sticking point is whether he wants another four years of that.</p>
<p>Just piping in with a gentle reminder of just how much money $200,000 is to a family that doesn’t have a lot more where that came from. I scratched my head at the explanation of “dipping into retirement” funds and “cutting back” on other kids’ activities to come up with all that money. I can’t imagine finding 200 whole grand or more just from a little dipping and cutting back. And more to worry about–where will the next $200K come from for child 2 and another $200K (or likely much more with time) for child 3? And then… retirement?</p>
<p>Not to be a total buzzkill, but is it possible that a parent’s totally understandable wish to see a very gifted child rewarded with a top private education may not, in reality, be practical or healthy for the family’s budget and longterm wellbeing?</p>
<p>I think your s has shown remarkable resilience, independence, and self-confidence thus far by switching to science from his original humanities bent, and also by becoming a breakdance star. With those important gifts, he will thrive at UMass’s honors college. For the sake of his younger sibs, he may be willing to postpone attending some ultimate intellectual heaven until grad school?</p>
<p>Best of luck. I feel for you.</p>
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<p>Graduate rankings are not the best way to choose an undergraduate school. </p>
<p>As a bio major, I would recommend University of Chicago if they enjoy the humanities. If not, Caltech may be a better choice. However, I think of all the sciences, bio may not be the best taught at Caltech. At least I heard complaints about the intro class. I didn’t go there, so inquire on the Caltech board about that. I have some questions about whether the firehose mentality is good for the development of a future scientist. It’s important to have a challenging curriculum, but it’s almost more important to have time to think about it. And by thinking, I don’t mean just doing problem sets.</p>
<p>Both Uchicago and Caltech have reputations for being particularly intense. It’s too bad there is not an in-between school in terms of intensity, such as a school like Northwestern.</p>
<p>You should tread carefully when dealing with any school with very strong characteristics. It may be great for you, or it may be terrible. These are cases when you shouldn’t go by rankings. </p>
<p>In contrast, if you’re deciding between Northwestern or Harvard, you could just make the decision based on prestige and it wouldn’t be a disaster because these are relatively similar schools. (I’m not advocating making the decision based on prestige.) </p>
<p>I don’t know if they already made the decision, but to me the big questions here are this:
- how much do they care about the humanities?
Caltech humanities may be well-done. However there is a huge difference in atmosphere between Caltech and University of Chicago. They may be close to polar opposites in terms of liberal arts atmosphere.<br> - do they love physics and math enough to be a physics major? because at Caltech they are probably taking more math/physics as a bio major than physics major at other schools
- when they look at the Caltech course catalog, do they light up at the prospect of taking the wide swath of interesting and challenging classes? Or are they worried that the rigorous coursework and workload will make them feel like they don’t have time to reflect on the material.</p>
<p>For the record, the quality of the student body top-to-bottom at Caltech is unparalleled, the workload is harder than anyplace else, and pretty much they are top 5 in all technical fields, but these are not the most important reasons to choose an undergraduate school.</p>
<p>CountingDown: “Cadbury, my younger S has a 3.5 UW and Chicago is one of the last two schools standing. I have no doubt he can handle the academics. The IB program he attended was darned good preparation, in terms of subject matter, self-discipline and stress. What seems to be the sticking point is whether he wants another four years of that.”</p>
<p>CD, yeah that’s my point exactly. OP’s son and yours probably CAN do it, but at what cost in terms of quality of life? Add to these more subtle/personal issues the whole question of $$$, and UMass/Amherst starts to look pretty darn good! BTW I did my graduate work at UMass and I LOVED living in the 5-College area. There’s so much going on that it’s like living in a city, while still having natural beauty and lots of opportunities for hiking, biking, etc. That said, the UMass campus isn’t really anything special.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the feedback! </p>
<p>We knew the financial implication when S1 applied to all his schools, and we were prepared to support S1 to attend any of the privates he had applied to as long as our cost is inline with our FAFSA EFC. The UMass offer just compelled us to re-examine all our premises, hence this thread.</p>
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<p>ihs76, thanks to your forceful suggestion, I booked a round trip flight to Chicago for S1. He’ll be doing an overnight later this week.</p>
<p>Barring any catastrophic events, S1 will decline the UMass offer this week. This decision was harder than I thought after reading this thread. Even S1 talked about how we can hold-off supporting him until he gets to grad school, if he still needs our support then. I knew he said that out of his concern for our finance (this warmed my heart), not because he really likes UMass’s academic and social offer, because after receiving a revised package on our appeal from one of the privates, he quietly asked me, “We can afford this now, right?” </p>
<p>He is still leaning toward Caltech, but will hold off on the final decision until after his UChicago visit.</p>
<p>I think the first instinct is always right. Besides it’s 7K lower per year.</p>
<p>sort of the ‘2nd in rome or 1st in naples?’ debate… with money thrown in? At first blush this might seem to be the case, but reading this thread makes me think that the umass option might be a tad better than naples.</p>
<p>Incidently, my hs jr son thought he’d rather be 2nd in rome. He’d still have more span of control compared to being the top dog at naples. But this is something that he needs to confirm with himself since he is close to the top dog at his hs now and how would he know anything else? am I mixing metaphors? :)</p>
<p>a friend of my d1 picked a free ride at uchi over harvard no money, and is loving UChi a yr and a half later. this case is definitely not analogous to rome-naples and to umass-cal.</p>
<p>I’d like to thank everyone for your opinions, arguments and support. After a surprisingly lengthy deliberation, S1 finally chose Caltech over the other wonderful schools. I’m glad this is behind us now.</p>
<p>Congratulations, PaperChaserPop! We all look forward to hearing how much he likes it!</p>
<p>What were his impressions of Chicago and what tipped the scale to Caltech?</p>
<p>Best of luck to your son. Please update everyone after he starts school.</p>
<p>PaperChaserPop: Good luck to your son. As I had mentioned we went through the same situation, my S was torn about Chicago (he had other good choices too) but after pre-frosh he decided Caltech was where he wanted to be so we made the same decision about couple of weeks back.</p>
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<p>Why am I not surprised? (LOL)</p>
<p>Congratulations PCP; I think your DS made the right decision.</p>
<p>Fellow Caltech parents–WELCOME (I wish I knew how to use color, like gifted others).</p>
<p>Please PM me, and if I can, I’ll answer, or try to have S reply.</p>
<p>I see a Caltech meet-up somewhere in the near future!! Congrats to all.</p>
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<p>There was no single factor that tipped the scale. It’s a combination of factors: academics (as it relates to his field of interest), social, research/internship, peers, dorms, weather, safety, lecture style, access to other good local colleges. According to S1, Caltech has the advantage on academics, research/internship, weather, safety and access to other good local colleges, while UChicago wins social, dorms and lecture style. It’s a push on peers. Recently, S1 has taken an interest in engineering, especially robotics. This may be a factor as well. </p>
<p>I was surprised that UChicago students encouraged S1 to accept Caltech’s offer once they found out he was admitted there. Before he made his decision, it was nice to hear S1 assuring us that he can’t choose wrong with these two schools.</p>
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<p>Sheesh. I know I’m starting trouble but if UChicago truly beats Caltech on “social”, Caltech is now the new lowest of the low in that category. ;)</p>
<p>Best of luck to your son - great school.</p>
<p>Chicago is not at all unsocial these days. It is probably less social than Northwestern or Penn State, but it is not hard at all to believe that it is a lot more social than Cal Tech.</p>
<p>I am also confused by the “access to other good local colleges” criterion. Cal Tech has great access to Occidental, but Cal Tech and Occidental put together don’t equal the people and course offerings of the University of Chicago. Of course, you can go farther afield to the Claremont Colleges, UCLA, USC, but that’s basically really not convenient – no more convenient than Northwestern is to Chicago.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding, it sounds like PCP’s kid made absolutely the right choice. “Recently, S1 has taken an interest in engineering, especially robotics. This may be a factor as well.” Basically, that should have disqualified Chicago, at least vs. a college as strong as Cal Tech, and for a student who was not drawn inexorably to the Core Curriculum. I suspect that most Chicago students would have said so.</p>
<p>I think Caltech is quite social, but in a kind of nerdy quirky way. I know grad student life better than undergrad life, but our house used to throw the Halloween party for the biology department and it would get pretty wild.</p>
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<p>Q to the E to the D.</p>