I’d rather not having my family give up things. Someone made the point above - we don’t really know what financial strain means. Perhaps the student doesn’t…but I’ll take them at their word. And if they are strained - $300K is a lot - perhaps it impacts not today but 20 years from now in retirement - how do you pay for medical care, etc.?
I’d likely send my kid to U of Tennessee over Yale if saving $300K - but that’s me. Of course it depends on the ultimate goal.
This student seems assured about law school but even if it’s an MBA or MPA - or Masters in Poli Sci - from an ROI POV, I don’t see how Yale covers.
I’m conservative financially - and I think kids can create opportunities - but in your argument - I don’t think a 3.2 at UVA or Yale matters much - and there’s a lot of hypothetical in there.
What if another Jefferson Scholar becomes their spouse and at Yale, they get hit by a car in the streets of New Haven…I mean, there’s just too many hypotheticals !!
All we really know from a financial perspective is that OP suggested paying $70K at Yale will cause “some financial discomfort.” None of us can parse what exactly that means, especially with one retired parent and one who may be retiring in the near future.
Nor should any of us be suggesting how OP’s family should be spending their money…especially calling out data that don’t exist (not that you did that).
Deciding if Yale is financially the right decision is for this family to decide.
The question OP asked is whether they should use UVA’s merit offer to have a convo with Yale FA to try to entice them to give more need based aid. OP can certainly contact them, but I don’t see Yale ‘finding’ more need based aid, that’s not how their system, nor how their need based aid formula, work.
Would your parents foot some of your law school bill if you go to UVA now? If you’re going to law school, I think you should absolutely choose UVA. You will have no trouble getting into a top law school if you get a 3.6 or above and do well on your LSAT. I really don’t think going to Yale would appreciably improve your law school opportunities.
If you put that $300,000 into a mutual fund right now and made 7 percent over 30 years, you would have $ 2.3 million. That is a huge amount of money.
Yale would be a great springboard into all three – it’s home to the #1 law school (which, I have heard, really likes applicants with a Bachelor’s from Yale), it’s excellent for Poli Sci, and it is among the top Wall Street targets.
At Yale, declaring a major is fairly easy and straightforward. At UVA, if you decided that you wanted a BS in Commerce from McIntire, you would have to apply. What if you weren’t accepted? Would you be okay with a second-choice major like Philosophy (popular among future lawyers), Poli Sci, or Econ (if you remained interested in Finance)?
UVA is also a very good school, but if price were the same or similar – you would probably choose Yale, correct? For it to be your top choice, you must have identified it as your best (or among them…) fit.
All that said, boy, it is hard turning down a $200-$300k (relative) discount to attend UVA. I don’t envy your decision. If you continue considering Yale, be sure to have a real heart-to-heart with your folks with respect to its affordability. How difficult would it be? Be sure to take the possibility of grad school into account as well.
Actually, I only proposed one hypothetical. And just because you know about a very selective scholarship at UVA, it is simply unrealistic that most Americans, let alone people worldwide ever heard of it. It’s not the Fulbright. It’s not the Rhodes. For the vast number of employers worldwide, a 3.2 at Yale is better. All those people and employers are just not as knowledgeable as you. I’m reminded of all of my friends who got insulted any time someone said they went to Penn rather than Wharton undergrad. I get it. But, it doesn’t seem that fun to live life like that. Do you go through life stating “UVA - Asterisk Jefferson Scholar”? That’s one bag too many to carry.
Students should pick the option that opens the most doors. Few degrees will open a lifetime of doors as well as a Yale degree.
For parents who are retiring just as a child is entering college, it would seem that 200k probably isn’t make or break. 200k sucks for most people, but if they’re willing to pay, and if this kid has a say. Yale all the way! You only live once, and Yale of all the ivies… is worth it.
UVA is a fine school. Offered this choice, it would not be a slam dunk for my family, although we chose differently in a similar situation (but we had no financial stress). I was addressing the fact that there are nuances to this decision that OP and his/her family need to consider. Too many times I read, I am sure, well intentioned advice that I think is almost absolute and not well informed.
We don’t know about the finances - just what the OP told us - which didn’t have a lot of context.
And I don’t see that OP said they’ll be working around the world - and even if they were, it might come via a US transfer.
OP asked - should they ask Yale for consideration. Sure, why not? But Yale has a calculator and it’s not going to change based on a better offer.
So they and the family will have to decide.
The OP did what no student should do - get one school locked and loaded on their mind.
Obviously, the OP student wise is the creme de la creme - and their hard work has paid off.
Another good point someone brought up - if they didn’t have UVA or Stamps at South Carolina - would they have chosen Yale? Or is Yale at $70K too expensive?
OP - did the $70K offer match expectation from before you applied?
Honestly, if my friends got insulted when somebody said they went to Penn undergrad instead of Wharton…I would find new friends. That type of talk makes me cringe.
Most people do not walk around discussing where they went to college- I have no idea where my boss or colleagues went. What you have done with your degree is more important…once you begin working.
There is absolutely nothing that you will not be able to do as a Jefferson Scholar from UVA. This is elite beyond elite. Without the scholarship…it is still a top university.
And you base this on what? Let’s go to number 15 on the US News ranking, Georgetown. The median GPA is 3.86 and the 25th to 75th range is 3.63 to 3.94.
While I don’t have specifics to say how much Yale would improve law school opportunities, I can be pretty sure to say that they won’t be made worse. Let’s say though that the advantage is marginal, the point in a highly competitive selection process with many high quality candidates is any “tie breaking” advantage is huge.
I guess you are judging my friends and acquaintances more harshly than I having never met them. And in grad school, people do mention where they did their undergrad. Sometimes that helps people figure out whether they know the same people. In my hallway in grad school, no one was cringing.
UVA is a great school. So is University of Southern California. So are a lot of schools that are not great universities of international stature - at least not to the extent of Yale. But people are busy, and Yale will give a presumption of competence and intelligence beyond many other top universities.
Undergraduate school does matter for the elite law schools. But we are talking UVA not WVU. If you are interested in mock trial as an undergrad, Both have top level teams with UVa having a better current year.
I have never been in circles where people get offended by that type of comment, but those are my friends/colleagues and not yours. You do you, as they say.
Grad schools will not turn anybody down because they attended UVA as a Jefferson Scholar. That’s absurd.
Yes it is true that students in grad school might discuss their undergrad colleges…. initially. They do not have ongoing discussions… generally speaking. They also include them in their grad school bios, but within those bios are their accomplishments from undergrad- and that is what people also notice.
If your hypothesis is right - and forget Gtown- throw out any school - is that “risk” worth $280K+ - and it’s plus because of the other things UVA comes with.
Yale law lists 170 colleges attended from 2020-24 (so different in Harvard looked at 1L in 2023/24.
There’s 213 kids in the class of 2026 so even if you extrapolate over four or five years, like Harvard, they have a lot of school (and btw racial) diversity which could hit the top tier students as well. Yale Law is 57% students of color. Harvard 51%.
So - again, while studs traditionally go to higher level schools (but not all do) and maybe that’s where the school diversity comes from. We don’t know why someone chose a school - maybe cost, location, sports or something else - but I don’t think you’d be high on someone attending Yale vs. these - but yet they are at Yale Law:
Allegheny
Arizona State
Birmingham Southern
Earlham
George Mason
Hunter College / CUNY
Lewis and Clark
Lynn
Michigan State
Oklahoma Baptist
Quinnipiac
U of Alabama
U of Houston
U of Idaho
UMBC
U of Redlands
UT Dallas
West Texas A&M
Youngstown State
And there were plenty more - again, I don’t think the concentrations are like you say because with 147 represented in a class of just over 500 or now 170 over a class of just over 200 over a 5 year period - there’s just a ton of variety.
I’m not a lawyer or law school expert - I’m just interpreting the data as presented and it tells me - you won’t be excluded from Harvard or Yale just because you’re not at a top top top college.
I believe OP intended U of South Carolina (perhaps I’m wrong). While USC is still on the Stamps Scholar page, it doesn’t appear it’s offered - at least not in web searches.
Obviously if it were So Cal, it’s another pedigree heavyweight but then again, South Carolina and its top Honors College is nothing to sneeze at either.
I agree her chances will not be worse at Yale. But I really don’t think a law school will look differently at a UVA Jefferson Scholar – recipient of an incredibly high honor at an excellent university – versus a Yale graduate. I’m not an expert, but I did go to an HYPS undergrad and a top 5 law school and have come across a lot of lawyers in my career.
Plus, most likely, this woman won’t have a 3.6 – I don’t know her stats but she is clearly an extremely impressive person who excels in school. I suspect she could go to nearly any school and do well enough to get into a top 5 law school.
Again, $300,000 is a HUGE amount of money, and UVA Jefferson Scholarship is extremely impressive. I greatly prefer private schools and SLACs, but in this case, if I were planning to go to law school, I would definitely pick UVA. I don’t know as much about finance, so I won’t try to opine on that.
I feel as if I should be more specific about the “financial discomfort” part, since I agree that it was super vague. Again I need to reiterate that this is coming from a place of extreme privilege. It would simply mean forgoing certain luxuries that my family has enjoyed in the past- they’d probably sell my car since I won’t need it in college and stop doing expensive things for pleasure (big vacations, major purchases). I have had the conversation with my parents and they are more than willing to make these sacrifices. The 70k was about 5k a year above the NPC, and our NPC for future years goes down to about 64k.
How would your NPC go down? Is there another student in college?
It’s such a no brainer and why should your family suffer when you say this: probably sell my car since I won’t need it in college and stop doing expensive things for pleasure (big vacations, major purchases).
But that’s easy for me or anyone to say - because - we are not them.
I can’t imagine from an ROI POV that this makes sense.
And if you eliminated what no one should have - the dream school concept - you would realize that.
And you talked about law school is on you (so have you thought where that $300K will come from)?- well maybe they could put that $70K in a CD at 5% + and have it generate income and have it still be there and contribute to you. You said no matter what - you have to pay - but even if you save them - not $70K up front but more - there’s study abroad and other things that will be funded.
If you saved them $300K, they wouldn’t help with law school? Because then that begs the question - say you get into a dream law school, how do you pay? One way would be with money they put aside for undergrad since they didn’t need to spend it - and let it make 5% a year in the meantime.
But - all that said - the financial sacrifice and all that - how one family chooses to spend their money, is in the end, their choice.
But you’ve certainly heard / read all the perspectives for you to think about - and I wish you great luck and success wherever you land.
Please please thank your parents for their willingness to fund your undergraduate education in the amount that makes Yale a possibility for you. Some families won’t do that even if they can. This is a wonderful gift they are giving you.
This is a tough decision. The Jefferson scholars at UVA is a very distinguished award at a very very highly regarded university. And it reduces your undergrad costs significantly.
If you take the UVA offer, will the money your parents would otherwise spend be available for grad or law school? Ask.
I do not think you can make a bad choice here…since your parents are on board with paying for either school.
I’m sure wherever you matriculate, you will do well.
The OP wrote that the parents would be retiring so…presumably, their incomes would be reduced enough to make a small dent in their family contribution.