<p>Here are my options:</p>
<p>UIC: free (playing a sport)
UChicago: 15k a year</p>
<p>I have absolutely no funds for college. All loans for me. Also have no idea as to what my major will be. Everything is up in the air at this point.</p>
<p>I’ve visited UChicago and liked it but am not sure of the 15k a year price tag. I know it is ranked a lot higher than UIC. So, opinions?</p>
<p>Depends if your major will enable you to obtain a paid internship after your sophomore year and if you can work during the school year on campus and still maintain your grades at UChicago. Since you can only borrow around $5-6K, you will have to come up with the rest either from your parents or from working.</p>
<p>These would be completely different college experiences, independent of the price tag. The University of Chicago is known as one of the most intellectually intense schools in the country. At UIC, you will likely meet all kinds of smart people, and you can be as intellectually stimulated as you want to be, but you’ll have to work hard to find the level of academic challenge you’d experience at U. of C. It wouldn’t be worth going to the U. of C. if you don’t want that level of challenge, that’s for sure.</p>
<p>At present Sallie Mae’s highest interest rate for college loans (<a href=“https://www.salliemae.com/student-loans/[/url]”>404) is about 10.5%. 15k a year, plus interest, goes to about $77k at time of graduation.</p>
<p>I) This is on the high side as far as student loan debt goes; according to US News average debt was $24k but anecdotal evidence places the range more towards 30k-60k.</p>
<p>II) What do you plan on doing/ majoring in? Coming out of U of C, doing finance or consulting with 60,000+/yr starting salaries, $77k might be easier to handle. Meanwhile, if you plan on attending grad/med/law school, it would be difficult to manage in addition to financing your graduate education.</p>
<p>Ultimately, how much is the University of Chicago worth to you, how much more does it offer than UIC? Would you pay almost 80 thousand dollars to attend U of C instead of UIC?</p>
<p>Do you WANT to play this sport? How much will being on the team define your experience? (From a community/social life perspective, I imagine that being a varsity athlete at UIC is pretty different from being rank and file.)</p>
<p>It is worth contacting UofC if you prefer there. If you have a GC with a clue, he can help you make overatures to see if you can get a better offer. I have known it to happen. But make very very sure you really want Chi. It is a tough core. Most classes are seminar style with about 18 people, which is awesome. It’s a little grimmer and more conservative than most colleges my daughter applied to (she was told after, by a friend who attended), to but she was dead set on it at first. Undergrads have terrific opportunities to do work in the grad school with really famous prof’s believe it or not, we know a few. </p>
<p>If you have zero money, why the disparity between the zero and your 15k EFC? </p>
<p>I don’t know anything about UIC. I assume is is way larger than Chi’s 4-5,000 undergrads. But a big state school should afford opportunities and maybe an honors college? Maybe they have a nice setup for athletes. How important is playing the sport at that level of competition to you?</p>
<p>If you’d rather go to UChicago, maybe contacting them with this information and appealing your fin aid package is a good idea. The appeal system is there for a reason; if you let them know they’re your first choice, that might help. But really, do you want to go to UChicago? If you’re not dead set on it, you should know there’s nothing wrong with preferring UIC. But if you’d rather go to UChicago, again, there’s nothing wrong with that and you should explore every avenue available to you in order to reduce the financial burden on your family.</p>
<p>Also, as someone else asked, what does sport mean to you? Do you want to play at a high level for four years? Would you be able to juggle practice and studying? Would your athletic scholarship be rescinded if you suffered a career-ending injury?</p>
<p>Think very hard about which school you’d rather go to, and how you want to spend your time in college, and when you’ve made a choice, act on it. If you choose UChicago, contact the fin aid office first, not the bank.</p>
<p>Anyone else? Also, I have a full ride at UIC (some academic, some athletic). I would also be playing the sport at UC.</p>
<p>If it were me, it’s obvious - I’d go to UC hands down. But you’re not me, and I don’t know you. </p>
<p>You know the differences between the two schools. It’s up to you, with perhaps the help of the people who know you best, to decide which one is the right fit for you. A bunch of strangers who don’t know you can’t tell you which awesome choice is better for you. </p>
<p>Good luck, and congratulations!</p>
<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I go to UIC. I was also at the top of my class and UIC is not an environment for intellectual students who seek to challenge themselves. I say this as not a person who is picky, but someone who has analyzed this issue. UIC attracted me initially b/c of its price, diversity, research opportunities, and location. But after a semester here, it’s not worth it. UIC has a LARGE student body volume. This makes courses uninteresting and often, you don’t have the same intimate connection that you do in a smaller, liberal institution like U of C. In addition to that, you have to fight for an advising appointment, by that, I mean that you have to schedule one weeks ahead. In addition to that, most of the resources are very competitive. If you want to make a name for yourself and would really like to learn outside of the confinements of the classroom, go to UChicago. I am applying to transfer to Uchicago because it offers every single aspect I look for in a university; a community of intellectuals, a challenging curriculum, and the opportunity for personal growth. I promise you going to UChicago will be the BEST choice you have ever made. You can’t put a price on happiness. E-mail me if you need more info!</p>
<p>Ordinarily I do not recommend taking on heavy debt to attend a selective private school (including Chicago) when the alternative is a good public university. However, $15K/year is getting close to a price point you should be able to manage with no more than about $5K/year in student loans. </p>
<p>Think about how to cover the other $10K through some combination of family help, work-study, summer employment, and maybe a modest outside scholarship (or a little more help from the U of C, if you can negotiate that). </p>
<p>There must be many thousands of college students and families who manage to come up with $10K/year, plus a few thousand in loans, to pay for far less prestigious schools. Contact the financial aid office, tell them you are close to choosing the University of Chicago but need help with a clear plan to bridge that last gap. If they can’t help you, you do have a fall-back.</p>
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<p>TK, I’m with you on this. MrOrang3, we can’t advise you to take on debt - only you know what your and your family’s financial capabilities may be. And when we usually advise prospective students about debt, we generally say that you shouldn’t go over $30-40K. But my gosh - if there was ever a case in which you’d want to see how far you could stretch, this is the one. It’s a huge understatement to say that Chicago is ranked a lot higher than UIC; Chicago is one of the most distinctive college experiences in the world. I guess the best suggestion I can offer is that if $15K per year x 4 is out of the question for you, then it’s just out of the question. But if it’s any more plausible than that, I’d get back with the Chicago financial aid office, look for loans, look for outside awards, and do everything I could to try to make it possible.</p>
<p>Another vote for UC. </p>
<p>UIC is trying hard to change itself from a commuter school to a residential, destination u. But it still has a way to go. UC is world class and the debt burden here, although not ideal, is not extreme. Work on UCs financial aid office and look hard for outside funding.</p>