@adezar2 I did get into GT but I don’t like it there, and I didn’t end up applying to any other “big name” engineering schools. Thank you @3boystogo for the information!
@ChoosingASchool YOU WILL BE A LEGEND IF YOU GO TO MIT. SAME WITH HYPS.
Go to MIT, no question.
@choosingaschool - general rule of thumb, ignore any comment on CC that does not have a supporting rational…
There is a saying within engineering that was popularized by Google:
In God we trust - all others must supply data…
Here is the MIT 2012 graduation data, there is another report that is better, but I couldn’t find it and I have some other stuff to do.
https://gecd.mit.edu/sites/default/files/graduation12.pdf
I found the report on Biotech Clusters
I looked into VTech for you, but I have to go right now…
@julliette thanks for the Gtown study I will comment some more when I get back…
At MIT there is an interdisciplinary CS/Bio Major
https://gecd.mit.edu/sites/default/files/graduation12.pdf
UF has a bioinformatics minor
https://catalog.ufl.edu/ugrad/current/agriculture/minors/bioinformatics.aspx
Vtech does not have a special Major or minor, but it looks like it has enough courses that you could do it as a CS major with a bio minor or a bio major with a CS minor or a double major.
http://www.cs.vt.edu/undergraduate/AnticipatedCourseOfferings
I wouldn’t.
If sticker price at MIT is $64,000 a year, that’s $256,000 over four years. First of all, that’s a lot of debt - OP might not even be able to borrow that much over 4 years. Let’s say that you borrowed $256,000 at 6.8% and you managed to get a 25 year repayment plan. You’ll be paying nearly $1,800 a month for 25 years to repay those loans. That’s twice my rent. The cumulative payments (with interest) over that 25 years would be over $500,000, which you could’ve used to buy a house. Even if your parents were able to pay half that, $128,000 over 25 years is still $888/month and a cumulative $266K+ in payments.
The odds of you starting a job with a salary of $150K with a bachelor’s degree, even from MIT, are quite slim. More likely, if you do engineering, you’ll make in the $50-75K range - very nice for a new graduate, but not nice enough to repay $128K in loans much less $256K. There is no IBR or forbearance with private loans. They can ruin your credit if you don’t repay.
No offense to the people claiming that you’d be legendary if you went to MIT/that the debt is worth the cost/that piece of paper will get you a job ANYWHERE/that long after you finish repaying the loans MIT will pay you dividends, but from their posting history it appears that they are also high school seniors deciding between colleges and weighing options. No doubt extremely intelligent young people. But they’ve never made a student loan payment before and had to balance bills and life and such. I’m 7 years post college; with the tax benefits my position pays the equivalent of around $60K, and my loans are currently in repayment; my loan payment is less than $100 a month. That’s really nice - it’s not a burden. I will tell you straight up there’s no way I could afford to repay $1800 a month in loans without moving back in with my parents (which is NOT an option!) Even if you think you would get a higher salary from MIT…is it $1800 a month higher? Over 25 years?
As for being a ‘legend’ if you go to MIT…well. I think there’s a common perception when you’re in HS that your college/university will play outsized importance over the rest of your life and career. I’m only 7 years out but I’ve already found that to be untrue. I have a graduate degree, which immediately makes my undergrad moot: people want to know where I got my PhD, not where I got my BA. They don’t care. Even if you don’t go to graduate school, once you get past your first 1-2 jobs, your prior work experience matters far more than where you went to college. And once you get 7-10 years in your career, bringing up your undergrad alma mater is going to just be weird. (I mean, when we’re getting to the point that VT and UVa, two excellent top universities, are “meh” and the entire SEC is a wasteland? The prestige machine has gone out of control.)
$10K at VT brings the cost down to $25K, which is a manageable amount - can your parents pay for part of that? The Alabama scholarship is a pretty good deal - full tuition, one year of room and board, a yearly stipend and a $2,000 allowance for summer research or study abroad. Unless the Rodman Scholars comes with money I’m missing, MIT and UVa seem unaffordable, so I think the choice should be between VT, UF, and Alabama.
Choosing a school, Congratulations on all of your hard work paying off! You have so many great choices. I am "Hokie biased 
with two kids going through there. Each of mine had other acceptances that would have cost them/us much more, were higher in the “ooh ahh” factor, but ultimately they chose to go where their head and heart pointed them. You may or may not have heard of the book “Where You Go Is Not Who’ll You Be”… great book content, but even its title speaks the truth. You can set yourself up for a great career by getting involved in all of the opportunities available at VT. It is a top 25 research school, the new engineering building is insane, and the alumni networking is, too. You could be involved in working with some of the brightest minds in undergrad engineering academia, and love the total experience of your undergraduate years. I wish you all the best, but do be smart and consider the debt load that could affect both you and your folks.
@juillet thank you. That was a wealth of information and I am very grateful for it. The cost of VT has gone up a bit so it is quoted at 30k for me without my using my prepaid (which will pay over 6k/year), but that also incorporations the $1000 for books and like $1700 for transportation, and since my family goes up to VA all the time it definitely won’t cost that. My parents are fine with the cost of VT, so it’s looking like that’s where I’ll be.
@KandKsmom are you in state for Virginia Tech? It would be a no-brainer kind of decision if that were the case for me, but the only thing holding me back is that VT seems to cater a lot towards in-state students with scholarships and such. I love what you said about VT though. I’m sure I’ll be happy there and there is a lot I can do there, and while it isn’t “elite” is is swarming with opportunities. Thank you!
OK, So I looked back at your post #8. Based upon my understanding of your interests it seems to me that you have a couple of options at VT. First is to get the CS degree with the biological sciences minor. Take the following courses: CS3414 Numerical Methods, CS3824 Intro Computational Biology, CS4214 Simulation & Modeling, and CS4884 Bioinformatics Capstone. There are a good number of professors doing research in bioinformatics and participating in a research project, whether for credit or not, is critical for future grad school. Note: a CS major needs only one more course in Math to acquire a Math minor.
The second option is to study in the Academy for Integrated Sciences http://www.science.vt.edu/ais/index.html. The Computational Modeling and Data Analytics degree is heavy in Math and Statistics and has a solid number of CS courses through the 4000 level classes. There’s also a new major Systems Biology that’s also part of Integrated Sciences.
IMHO - you should go with the college that you feel is the best fit for you assuming that the price is within reach. If you feel engaged at Virginia Tech you are more likely to take advantage of all that the school has to offer. I’m not really that familiar with bioinformatics (my kids were both interested in computer systems rather than biological or scientific modeling). But I seem to remember all sorts of different bio-informatics research labs sprinkled around campus.
Good luck with your decision.
Be careful with Florida engineering. While the engineering degree programs require 128 credits, which is doable in 8 semesters at 16 credits per semester, it seems that their suggested schedules take more than 8 semesters, based on students taking fewer credits per semester. So be wary of advising if you really want to keep it to 8 semesters.
https://catalog.ufl.edu/ugrad/current/engineering/majors/environmental-engineering.aspx (9 semesters + 1 summer)
https://catalog.ufl.edu/ugrad/current/engineering/majors/civil-engineering.aspx (9 semesters)
https://catalog.ufl.edu/ugrad/current/engineering/Majors/biological-engineering.aspx (9 semesters)
If you do a CS-related major in MIT, realistically you can expect 90-100k starting salary today.
Having had a few more laps around the sun and seeing the real world in action, I just have to disagree with those claiming MIT is worth the debt or that you’ll be a legend if you go there…
I’d be choosing between UF and VT and would be investigating their courses in my desired major or career.
Here’s the latest MIT salary survey for 2015.
http://web.mit.edu/facts/alum.html
Bachelors Degree median is $72.5k. Just about $5-10k or so difference between MIT and UA engineering graduates.
https://www.eecs.mit.edu/academics-admissions/undergraduate-programs
The average starting salary for MIT BS EECS is $90k+. Given the job market conditions for EE and CS are quite different, it is not a stretch of imagination that their CS graduates start around $100k.
Of course, we don’t know how many of the MIT Course 6 (EECS) students emphasize EE and how many emphasize CS (at Berkeley, another school with an EECS major, class enrollments indicate that most emphasize CS).
Also, MIT does appear to attract finance and consulting employers, so there may be some upward skew of the pay levels from those types of employment. That may be good for students interested in such employment, but can be misleading for those not interested in such employment.
I would suggest digging further into UF versus MIT if I were you. As biased as I am towards the Virginia schools as a UVA grad very familiar with VT, if you are OOS they approach the cost of MIT but wouldn’t deliver the same value as MIT (in state is a different story).
I have heard very good things about the engineering programs at UF and, while MIT would certainly have an edge with many employers, would still be a good option for you. One thing to consider may be the differences between the schools themselves. I can’t speak for UF but as a grad student just down the road from MIT I can tell you that that is one very academically driven place. If you’d thrive more in that type of a climate (from an outsider’s perspective those kids seem to work even more than the Harvard undergrads down Mass Ave; and those kids don’t slack much either), MIT may be worth the value
CMU SCS BS graduates had $95k+ mean and $100K median starting salary in 2014, with almost 100% in technical positions. It’s hard to imagine that MIT CS graduates in tech fields would be any different.
^^ And at least one CS student from my oldest son’s small southern LAC - not even ranked in the Top 100 - also earned > 100K when he graduated + had three (maybe four) offers to choose from at that. With CS, it’s not necessarily the school, it’s the grad and what they can do. There may be more from my son’s school. I have no idea. I only know about that one because he was on my son’s hall and they knew each other fairly well. CS was not my son’s major.
CMU and MIT get terrific students in, so it’s not surprising that they go on and get great offers. However, those same students would get great offers going elsewhere too, and if that elsewhere costs quite a bit less, they are economically far, far ahead.
^^A friend of my college student son is taking a gap year before starting college (I think BU). He’s a very smart kid and a computer and math whiz. He’s working in Silicon Valley for a startup and already making over $100k without a degree. CS is one of those areas where a very smart person can make $$ without a formal education.