<p>Of course I can contrast this with friends of ours where the mom has gone back to work, the kid has loans/work study, and the parents are taking out a bank loan to pay their EFC in order to go to a top name almost ivy. It is all worth it to them, and for the people in question and the kid in question (actually a composite of three boys, all at the same almost ivy, so 3 families) the decision(s) were the right ones for them. You have to make the right decision for YOU.</p>
<p>Wow… hm.</p>
<p>Cheers you got me thinking about what UMD-CP could do for me if I petition enough - study abroad programs and the such. Just got into an interesting talk with the parents about going to JHU instead of Duke/UVA (because they believe JHU is the best for premeds, but I hate the cut-throatyness…)</p>
<p>I would have trouble mentally settling for UMD-CP though… but it could be worth it.</p>
<p>fengshuibundi, mercymom has made very thoughtful and valuable comments…UMD isn’t an inferior place, as you well know, and has produced many well qualified and outstanding premeds…JHU is an excellent school, and perhaps you might receive financial aid - but only you can decide if you and/or your family can handle the financial burden… There are still students out there who would love to get into UMD-CP… Good luck to you, and you will make the choice that’s right for you and your situation.</p>
<p>"Your kid takes the top scholarship instead of the top school. What’s next? "</p>
<p>MED SCHOOL BABY!!!</p>
<p>WOOOO HOO LOOK AT ME!! I PRODUCED HALF A DOCTOR!!</p>
<p>^ Well, there’s the bottom line! 
It’s great!</p>
<p>hey all,
before i was comparing free ride from u of t to 80k at cornell, based on starting to work after an undergrad degree
but im wondering what your opinions are on about going to grad school from cornell of u of t. Would a Cornell engineering degree give me more of an advantage in applying to grad schools (MIT, stanford, etc)?
thanks</p>
<p>DS applied and was accepted to UChicago, Carleton, Grinnell, Kalamazoo and Michigan. </p>
<p>With merit scholarships, he can attend Michigan Honors for about $7k per year, so every other school is at least $10k per year more (plus loans). He’s decided he will head to Michigan, graduate with no debt and save the money for grad school. Smart kid.</p>
<p>I think his only regret was that he didn’t apply to MIT just to see what would happen. If he got in there, then we would have a real decision. As it is now, the difference in the schools is marginal.</p>
<p>“Well, there’s the bottom line! It’s great!”</p>
<p>Thank you. </p>
<p>We’ve been sweating bullets for a couple weeks. He had a professor mail his rec letter late (on deadline day) and three schools simply pulled him out and said “NO” because of that prof. Really it was son’s fault there and mine. I should have told him NEVER tell somebody the actual deadline, always cheat it up a couple weeks. Then when they’re late, you won’t be.</p>
<p>While those schools would have been nice, too bad for them. </p>
<p>You have to do what feels right for you and not look back. We took the money, and he recieved an excellent education, a ton of 1 to 1 time and keys to the Labs. He also became a radio station DJ, LaX player, choir singer (and soloist in gailec no less), water polo player, tour guide, frat studies chair and so on… taking the money to a small LAC did more than make an occupation. It gave him a chance to make himself an entire person. </p>
<p>College should be more than just what occupation you wish to be in…</p>
<p>Opie…amen to that ^^ and congrats!! </p>
<p>Hopefully I will be back to post a similiar story 3 1/4 yrs from now and add to the success of “take the scholarship”</p>
<p>Full ride kids…kids like Beantown, mudgette, fengshui, b’s boy et al…those kids can afford to look twice at prestige schools. They have created their own prestige–at 17. Pretty darned incredible. Not likely to dim over the next four years.</p>
<p>I get the feeling that some of them are a little surprised by the opportunities they’ve generated for themselves. My message is that once you’ve produced that level of opportunity for yourself at 17 (!!!), the trick is to:</p>
<p>a) Think outside of the square when evaluating those opportunities. What is it that you don’t like about the full-ride option? Is there ANYTHING that would make it the sexiest offer on the table? Can you negotiate that into reality? You can’t get what you don’t ask for kids. Ask for it. Nicely. Develop your negotiating skills.</p>
<p>b) Believe in yourself. Believe that you will be able to generate those kids of ‘full ride’ opportunities for yourself for the rest of your life. That’s probably the most amazing thing you have in your hand–not the Ivy or ilk acceptance–the proof that you can generate amazing opportunities for yourself. Forget the prestige acceptance, 99% of 17 year olds would give their eye teeth to know they had the power to generate amazing opportunities for themselves. It’s heady stuff.</p>
<p>I’m not saying take the full ride or take the prestige offer. Either choice is full of opportunities. I’m saying that you can shape the full ride offer into something that is equally sexy before you evaluate. </p>
<p>I’m also saying that you shouldn’t necessarily be terrified of debt. Debt is a big part of business life–a big part of family life (mortgage). Taking a sensible risk with debt is a handy skill to develop. In my experience, a high tolerance for risk can be a huge asset in developing exciting work.</p>
<p>Cheers (post #1676) and others: Thanks a lot for ideas. </p>
<p>Already I have received letters from both Brandeis and Boston University assuring me of additional funding to carry out research with top faculty. (BU has also pointed out that study abroad will be funded. It is quite exciting to hear about these fringe benefits.) I can only imagine how great it will be to be mentored by one or two top faculty during my undergraduate years. April is going to be tough, I can’t wait for May 1 to arrive because then I’d have made up my mind…</p>
<p>Cheers, thanks again for post #1690.</p>
<p>Opie and Cheers, your posts should be required reading</p>
<p>Cheers, I really like your posts and your optimism. When I read your posts though, I think that it’s important to keep in mind how few people there are like you in terms of picking up and going where an open minded, successful career leads. It amazes me how many smart people there are who plan to return to their hometown and can’t begin to entertain global opportunities. To go to the top of just about any profession it seems you need to pick up and go wherever the exciting work is. Knowing where that will be is hard. Where my mother lives there are tons of unemployed engineers yet there’s a huge demand in some countries. If I want to be in banking I know I need to go where they send me. My pre med sister is intyerested in work they are pioneering in Germany and is going there for the summer. Some of her peers have parents who say just focus on what’s going on in NY.</p>
<p>Suze, some people place higher values on other things rather than on a career. It shouldn’t amaze you that some smart people aren’t trying to maximize their careers.</p>
<p>Your real best friends aren’t going to be trying to maximize their careers. Think about it.</p>
<p>Most of the regular posters on CC are doing a pretty poor job of maximizing their careers. ;)</p>
<p>Dstark, I’d never thought about it, but I guess you must be right on the CC posters front!!!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is a very valuable piece of advice that seems rarely discussed on these boards. Most posters do seem terrified of student loan debt.</p>
<p>In my experience, debt can be an incredible motivator to success. There is nothing like a load of debt to cause a person to sprint up the corporate ladder or compete hard for the top-paying jobs. Leveraging your finances to earn a certain credential IS taking a risk, but it can be a very smart risk that may pay off handsomely.</p>
<p>Those of us who are cautious are not terrified of debt. We just know the difference between reasonable and excessive. My daughter is taking the full subsidized Stafford amount, and I have no problem with that - I am sure that she will be able to handle payments on $17K worth of debt because my son could have handled that on his first year’s salary after he dropped out of college and went to work for a nonprofit agency. Any college grad in my geographic area ought to be able to find a job that pays $25-$30K without much problem.</p>
<p>The issues is when students take on debt based on unreasonably optimistic assumptions. Debt can be a crusher of dreams and severely limit options: I know, I have lived with debt, and it is no fun.</p>
<p>The concept of “leveraging” includes the idea that there is something to leverage it against. For a business that often means nonliquid assets – borrow the money to buy a 2nd cow rather than selling the 1 cow you already own; use the money earned from the milk you sell to buy cow #3 rather than rushing to pay off the debt incurred for cow #2. </p>
<p>In the late 90s I had many friends in the financial business who kept trying to encourage me to invest in internet funds, and I kept saying that the bottom was about to fall out of the market. I said that because I was working in an IT field and I could see that the startups lacked both infrastructure and the ability to generate revenue; their primary source of revenue was the inflation of the value of their stock, not product nor sales. So I refused to put my money into internet stocks, and my friends lost their shirts. </p>
<p>I think back in those days, there was a figure like, for every 1 internet startup that succeeded, 12 failed. Or maybe it was 40 that failed. Just a big failure rate compared to the success rate. But people only saw the success stories. </p>
<p>If you could discharge student loan debt in bankruptcy, I could see taking some more risks. OK - life doesn’t go as planned, you go to court, you get a fresh start. But you can’t.</p>
<p>dstark? So why do you think those of us on cc are not maximizing their careers?</p>
<p>Well, I don’t know enough about everyone here to generalize, but he sure was right about me!</p>
<p>Have definitely taken the side routes toward anything resembling a “career.” Life kept getting in the way. Though I fully salute those who can pull off a “maximized career” and the rest of life, too!</p>