What Schools are Worth Paying For Over UVA In-State Tuition?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ivies or geographically preferable/desirable schools like Georgetown or Northeastern

In fact, my kid chose Northeastern over UVA.

Received some scholarship/aid, and the cost was just little bit higher than UVA In-state

So you chose a fake USNWR gimmick school over one of our nation's most storied universities? I don't get it.

lol UVA is just one of the bunch of nice state flagships

[Anonymous]

It really depends on the major/program that DC wants to pursue.

Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service really is the best place to go if one wants to go into the US Foreign Service, for example. For engineering, the list of options will be different than for English, to pick some arbitrary examples.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ivies or geographically preferable/desirable schools like Georgetown or Northeastern

In fact, my kid chose Northeastern over UVA.

Received some scholarship/aid, and the cost was just little bit higher than UVA In-state

So you chose a fake USNWR gimmick school over one of our nation's most storied universities? I don't get it.

Northeastern beats UVA on most of the major metrics except for the business program.

On top of that it's in one of the best location compared to the middle of nowhere

Like what?

Like outcome, retention rate, student quality(based on test scores), etc.

outcome? Do you mean graduation rate? Or salaries 10 years out? Or what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The school your child wants to go to.

Mine wants Georgetown School of Foreign Service. He knows what he wants to study and in which fields he wants to work in. He's been deferred and might not get in, since it's very selective, but if he does, it's 80K+ a year we'd be happy to pay for. He's in at various safeties, but none of them have the same kind of focus on what he wants to do.

Sounds like you have one kid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ivies or geographically preferable/desirable schools like Georgetown or Northeastern

In fact, my kid chose Northeastern over UVA.

Received some scholarship/aid, and the cost was just little bit higher than UVA In-state

So you chose a fake USNWR gimmick school over one of our nation's most storied universities? I don't get it.

Northeastern beats UVA on most of the major metrics except for the business program.

On top of that it's in one of the best location compared to the middle of nowhere

Like what?

Like outcome, retention rate, student quality(based on test scores), etc.

Northeastern over UVa. on these "metrics"? You gotta be kidding

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ivies or geographically preferable/desirable schools like Georgetown or Northeastern

In fact, my kid chose Northeastern over UVA.

Received some scholarship/aid, and the cost was just little bit higher than UVA In-state

So you chose a fake USNWR gimmick school over one of our nation's most storied universities? I don't get it.

Northeastern beats UVA on most of the major metrics except for the business program.

On top of that it's in one of the best location compared to the middle of nowhere

Didn’t you read Selingo? Northeaster manipulates everything it does to maximize US News. For example if US News has a metric like percent of classes with less than 20 students, NE puts a cap of 19 students on many classes. Its acceptance rate is bs. Tons of international crap applications. Admits tons of kids TO. The whole thing is contrived. Congrats to them though as they escaped bankruptcy. And to some extent perception has become reality. Rewind 20 years and no one who could get into UVA would probably even apply to NE. The fact that UVA remains ahead of NE in the rankings (despite NE’s constant trickery) is also meaningful. There is no comparison between Thomas Jefferson’s brainchild and a regional work study school that almost went under not so long ago.

Like what?

Like outcome, retention rate, student quality(based on test scores), etc.

[Anonymous]

UVa clobbers Northeastern on Freshman retention rate and 6 year graduation rates. C'mon.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for all the thoughtful responses (and some of the back and forth was kind of entertaining). To answer some questions: my son is looking to go into either biomedical engineering or mechanical engineering, he likes UVA and likes its fun atmosphere but is a little worried there's too much partying, he has the stats to apply to "top privates" (1550+, 3.98 UW, high course rigor, rest of application should be good we believe). He would be unhooked though. What I'm understanding is most people think only a handful of schools (Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Duke, and a few others) would be worth it over UVA in-state in general? I thought UVA engineering was good, but some people are saying otherwise so now I'm not as sure. We are also looking into CMU, Georgia Tech, UIUC, etc. as some here suggested. We weren't looking at Purdue but more than a few people here mentioned it and it looks like a great option, so thanks for highlighting that!

The LACs included are interesting but so far my son has not looked into them much, perhaps due to a perception of them lacking STEM research opportunities and resources. That could be a false assumption so happy to learn more about them!

Also a couple we were on the fence about: would people consider Cornell worth it over UVA in-state? We know a number of people who turned down Cornell to stay for UVA but not all of them were engineering and that's one of Cornell's stronger suits. What about Northwestern?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ivies or geographically preferable/desirable schools like Georgetown or Northeastern

In fact, my kid chose Northeastern over UVA.

Received some scholarship/aid, and the cost was just little bit higher than UVA In-state

So you chose a fake USNWR gimmick school over one of our nation's most storied universities? I don't get it.

Northeastern beats UVA on most of the major metrics except for the business program.

On top of that it's in one of the best location compared to the middle of nowhere

Like what?

Like outcome, retention rate, student quality(based on test scores), etc.

Northeastern over UVa. on these "metrics"? You gotta be kidding

UVA is just a nice state flagship.
If cost is same, definitely go with Northeastern unless you are dedicated to business although you get 50% shot getting into McIntire

[Anonymous]

I think you could add brown Dartmouth Cornell rice duke and washu to this list of schools to consider over uva

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ivies or geographically preferable/desirable schools like Georgetown or Northeastern

In fact, my kid chose Northeastern over UVA.

Received some scholarship/aid, and the cost was just little bit higher than UVA In-state

So you chose a fake USNWR gimmick school over one of our nation's most storied universities? I don't get it.

Northeastern beats UVA on most of the major metrics except for the business program.

On top of that it's in one of the best location compared to the middle of nowhere

Like what?

Like outcome, retention rate, student quality(based on test scores), etc.

Northeastern over UVa. on these "metrics"? You gotta be kidding

UVA is just a nice state flagship.
If cost is same, definitely go with Northeastern unless you are dedicated to business although you get 50% shot getting into McIntire

Seriously who wants high school 2.0 in VA countryside when you can go to Northeastern if cost is same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ivies or geographically preferable/desirable schools like Georgetown or Northeastern

In fact, my kid chose Northeastern over UVA.

Received some scholarship/aid, and the cost was just little bit higher than UVA In-state

So you chose a fake USNWR gimmick school over one of our nation's most storied universities? I don't get it.

Northeastern beats UVA on most of the major metrics except for the business program.

On top of that it's in one of the best location compared to the middle of nowhere

Like what?

Like outcome, retention rate, student quality(based on test scores), etc.

Northeastern over UVa. on these "metrics"? You gotta be kidding

UVA is just a nice state flagship.
If cost is same, definitely go with Northeastern unless you are dedicated to business although you get 50% shot getting into McIntire

The northeastern boosterism on here is out of control. That’s what happens when a school full of rejects from other top schools manufactures a low acceptance rate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you could add brown Dartmouth Cornell rice duke and washu to this list of schools to consider over uva

Duke was already added. The rest are not so clear, maybe Dartmouth because it offers such a different experience (rural, cold, heavily undergrad)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your child wants to pursue engineering, UVA is not a great choice. I can think of tons of schools - GA Tech, UIUC, Michigan, Purdue, UT, Wisconsin, northwestern. UVA is not even a top 25 program.

But they're not worth the added cost if you're in state. The question was - what schools might be worth to pay for over the in-state discount?

out of state Purdue is about the same as in State UVA

[Anonymous]

Check out the Cornell engineering/cs thread - not a great education or culture there.