Few days to decide: U of Virginia or U of Chicago?

[Anonymous]

My DD is a freshman at Chicago and she loves it. She’s a smart hard working student , as all of the students are, but what she especially likes are her close friendships and the fun that they have together at activities and in with her dorm mates. She likes all of her classes and her professors and she’s just really happy there. It was her first choice and it has really worked out for her.

[Anonymous]

Chicago has always seemed to me to be more similar in type to William & Mary than UVA.

Chicago has become super selective and is now close to the top in a number of rankings. If there is a substantial cost differential between the two, though, that needs to be considered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask yourself if the extra debt is worth it. Will it matter when he is 40, will his friends and family care which school he went to 20 years prior.

Well, for my family it very much did matter at 40.

If I hadn't gotten the undergraduate education I did, I wouldn't have gotten into the grad program I got into and my career would have turned out quite differently.

Same story for my husband.

We both have elite undergrads (me Ivy, him equivalent abroad) and top ten in our field PhDs.

I'm curious, how do you know you wouldn't have gotten into the grad program you did?

They knew they would have. They are justifying other people going into debt

1. Because no one from my husbands country gets into elite us programs from tier II schools.

2. Because my background was a bit unusual for my field, but I had reds from some of the best in the field I was entering. My home state flagship didnt offer much in my undergrad field.

But sure, had I gone elsewhere, my life might have been just as good. OP should worry about what debt means for her family and consider it, but not everyone has to go into debt over $70k per year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD is a freshman at Chicago and she loves it. She’s a smart hard working student , as all of the students are, but what she especially likes are her close friendships and the fun that they have together at activities and in with her dorm mates. She likes all of her classes and her professors and she’s just really happy there. It was her first choice and it has really worked out for her.

My DC is a third year and has serious misgivings about the place. UChicago was DC’s first choice and DC was very happy with it first year.

[Anonymous]

Does your DC want a grind it out and feel really smart but overworked and stressed kind of place? Or a place where they are really busy but having fun? That's the choice, from a parent who has been there. Which campus had kids who were smiling during the tour?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think there is any question. Univ of Chicago is now $76,000 a year. UVA instate's tuition is $14,710. (our DS lives off campus so doesn't have dorm, food service, health service fees). He has no car so only expenses are shared apartment and food. Our total outlay was probably $22K this year. Even using UVA's cost calculator for a student living on campus at $32,000, you are still looking at a difference of $44K a year which is in after-tax dollars. We would have to make $70K to pay the difference. Multiply that by four or five years and you have enough to pay for grad school, which is exactly what we are doing. Go to UVA and bank the difference, if you have it. If you don't have it, you should be going to UVA anyhow. DS has had a wonderful four years. Chicago is full of smart kids but it is cold and dark and fun indeed goes there to die.

No, absolutely not. Nobody should pay to go to grad school (professional school like law and medicine are the exception).

Grad students should be offered a teaching or research assistantship which comes with tuition waiver. If you are paying for it, they don't really want you and don't think you will succeed, and they are probably right.

Wrong. Many grad schools do require payment and lots of it. First, DS is going into an M.P.P. (Master's of public policy) program at UVA's Batten School of Public Policy and Leadership. Guess what? In-state perks for all intents and purposes stop at graduation. DS's tuition for the Batten School will jump from current tuition of $14,000 a year to over $43,000 a year. Second, MBA programs also cost a lot of money. Third, after the Master's program, DS wants to attend law school. The tuition for my law school is now almost $100K a year x 3 years. I am VERY grateful that DS had the wisdom to pick UVA over other privates where since we were then looking at a delta of more than $43,000 x 4 years. We've been able to bank the money that would have been spent at an OOS or private so can now provide for DS at the Master's and Professional school levels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does your DC want a grind it out and feel really smart but overworked and stressed kind of place? Or a place where they are really busy but having fun? That's the choice, from a parent who has been there. Which campus had kids who were smiling during the tour?

Whoo! College was best 5 years of my life! Let’s do a kegstand! Sexual assault and binge drinking and cocaine! Yeah! Go team go!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think there is any question. Univ of Chicago is now $76,000 a year. UVA instate's tuition is $14,710. (our DS lives off campus so doesn't have dorm, food service, health service fees). He has no car so only expenses are shared apartment and food. Our total outlay was probably $22K this year. Even using UVA's cost calculator for a student living on campus at $32,000, you are still looking at a difference of $44K a year which is in after-tax dollars. We would have to make $70K to pay the difference. Multiply that by four or five years and you have enough to pay for grad school, which is exactly what we are doing. Go to UVA and bank the difference, if you have it. If you don't have it, you should be going to UVA anyhow. DS has had a wonderful four years. Chicago is full of smart kids but it is cold and dark and fun indeed goes there to die.

No, absolutely not. Nobody should pay to go to grad school (professional school like law and medicine are the exception).

Grad students should be offered a teaching or research assistantship which comes with tuition waiver. If you are paying for it, they don't really want you and don't think you will succeed, and they are probably right.

Wrong. Many grad schools do require payment and lots of it. First, DS is going into an M.P.P. (Master's of public policy) program at UVA's Batten School of Public Policy and Leadership. Guess what? In-state perks for all intents and purposes stop at graduation.[b] DS's tuition for the Batten School will jump from current tuition of $14,000 a year to over $43,000 a year. Second, MBA programs also cost a lot of money. Third, after the Master's program, DS wants to attend law school. The tuition for my law school is now almost $100K a year x 3 years. I am VERY grateful that DS had the wisdom to pick UVA over other privates where since we were then looking at a delta of more than $43,000 x 4 years. We've been able to bank the money that would have been spent at an OOS or private so can now provide for DS at the Master's and Professional school levels.

Not necessarily. UVA Graduate assistants get full in-state tuition and fees remission, as well as health insurance subsidy if they make a minimum of $5000/year -- and it's hard not to. Batten is affiliated with GA and RA positions, and in fact gives out yearly awards for good work in assistantships of various kinds.

Either you are saying "DS is going into" Batten without yet being at the stage of applying -- kind of jumping the gun there, no? -- or he isn't being offered a standard graduate student package. Which is fine, if that is what you want, I suppose.

I take it he did not get into the combined MPP/JD program, so he has to do these separately. As I said, professional schools such as law and medicine are a different category.

Aid Eligibility

Qualified graduate assistantships include tuition remission and the health insurance subsidy. They may also include tuition adjustment. A graduate assistantship is ‘qualified’ if it is at least half of a full assistantship (a quarter-time appointment, roughly equivalent to 10 hours per week).

Tuition Remission – The in-state tuition portion and all required fees (comprehensive fees, activity fees and, where applicable, the international student fee) paid on behalf of a student serving in a qualified graduate assistantship.

Tuition Adjustment – The amount of tuition above in-state tuition paid on behalf of an out-of-state student serving in a qualified graduate assistantship.

Health Insurance Subsidy – A subsidy funded centrally by the University and provided on behalf of a qualified graduate student. A qualified graduate student must be offered the health insurance subsidy if he or she earns at least $5,000 in wages as a GTA or GRA over the course of the fiscal year.

https://sfs.virginia.edu/grad/assistantships

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does your DC want a grind it out and feel really smart but overworked and stressed kind of place? Or a place where they are really busy but having fun? That's the choice, from a parent who has been there. Which campus had kids who were smiling during the tour?

Doesn’t take much intelligence to regurgitate these tired old stereotypes.

[Anonymous]

I just want to know what a keystand is

[Anonymous]

Which campus had kids who were smiling during the tour?

This actually is an important point. I have never met a Chicago alum who is a happy adult. They seem to be the most uptight, unhappy, cranky and plain old rude people around. While I have met some uptight, unhappy and rude UVA alum, there also seem to be more of them who are happy and successful than the other way around.

College is about education and growth; however, that education and growth needs to be positive and healthy both academically and socio-emotionally. The goal is to emerge from college with a good education and also to be ready to be a happy, socially well-adjusted adult.

[Anonymous]

What does your pathetic circle of acquaintances have to do with anything?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What does your pathetic circle of acquaintances have to do with anything?

Said the UChicago booster without realizing that s/he had effectively reinforced PP’s point rather than rebutted it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does your pathetic circle of acquaintances have to do with anything?

Said the UChicago booster without realizing that s/he had effectively reinforced PP’s point rather than rebutted it.

BAM! Thanks for the helping hand, PP!

[Anonymous]

I visited Chicago recently with DD, a HS junior, and we had dinner with my nephew, who's a law student there, and some of his friends. They all love the law school, but the one student who had also done UofC undergrad warned DD against it. She said it was a fantastic education, but a miserable existence, largely due to the quarter system. During our tour the next day, I picked up a copy of the student newspaper, which included an interview with the Dean of the College, who called the quarter system "relentless". He is heading up a commission to consider switching to a semester system.