Duke [Full Scholarship] vs MIT [$77k/year]

[Anonymous]

For CS, I would full pay if I could afford it and it sounds like you can. Other option is to go to Duke and go for a masters, which is good to have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d pick Duke under these circumstances…and I’m a Tarheel! Full ride at a top school is hard to pass up, even if the other option is technically better by some metrics. Huge savings for your family. Congrats, whatever the decision!

+1

Unless the $77K/year (that's nearly $320K total) is a "drop in the bucket" for your family, I simply don't see MIT as "that much better". A kid who can get into both and get a full scholarship with everything paid for at Duke is very smart. he will do exceedingly well wherever he attends college. So save the $$$ and let him graduate debt free and you not stress about your retirement or future kids college, etc.

MIT will have a better peer group so he may be happier. However for CS, often the college doesn't matter except maybe the first few years.

[Anonymous]

Never go to dook.

[Anonymous]

Isn't this the same troll who put out five more similar threads?

[Anonymous]

Can’t beat the Duke package

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No comparison.

For CS your go to MIT even if it cost 10x more than Duke.

Not for undergrad -- for undergrad it doesn't make that much of a difference from one elite school to another

Sorry.. but it does….especially if you have WORLD aspirations….Nobody outside of America know what Duke is….

[Anonymous]

MIT is the better value for CS. His peers alone are worth the extra $320,000 COA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MIT is the better value for CS. His peers alone are worth the extra $320,000 COA.

Yeah agree. I know so many MIT CS grads who are millionaires now (through founding companies or being early employees at big tech.)

They may initially have the same jobs out of college, but somehow MIT (and Stanford) grads seem to be the ones creating start ups.

If you can afford it, do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would worry about best fit, OP. These schools have very different atmospheres. Have you visited during Admitted Students' Day?

This

[Anonymous]

The schools are very different, I'd go with where they felt they'd fit in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid won a merit scholarship at Duke which would give him a full tuition, room, and board scholarship. He was also admitted to MIT, but received little aid and we would have to pay $77k/year. MIT was one of his dream schools, but I am wondering if we should go with Duke and maybe just give him the college money we saved as a graduation gift? I love the thought of him at MIT, but it seems nonsensical to turn down a full ride at a T10 just to pay out the nose for a T5. What would you do in this situation?

Omg MIT how is this a question

I would sell everything I owned if I had a student who got in.

I had two graduate from there. Best decision ever

[Anonymous]

I don’t really know why people think MIT has the better peer group. My kid went to MIT and loved it. But as the girls there say, “the odds are good, but the goods are odd”. She said, it wasn’t if you were on the spectrum, but where on the spectrum. She fit that description. She and her friends all got great jobs, for sure. But more 95k salaries than 300k salaries.

Duke feels like the smart beautiful people. Richer. More connected. Private school. I gotta think their outcomes are just as good if not better.

[Anonymous]

A kid who earned a full merit scholarship at duke is going to have great outplacement options after college. MIT is better, but I don’t think he will have that much better outplacement unless trying to go into like hedge fund finance. Graduating from duke and investing 300k at age 22 I bet he will be in a much better place financially than graduating MIT without the next egg. Career path and trajectory may be slightly different from duke, but he will be very successful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t really know why people think MIT has the better peer group. My kid went to MIT and loved it. But as the girls there say, “the odds are good, but the goods are odd”. She said, it wasn’t if you were on the spectrum, but where on the spectrum. She fit that description. She and her friends all got great jobs, for sure. But more 95k salaries than 300k salaries.

Duke feels like the smart beautiful people. Richer. More connected. Private school. I gotta think their outcomes are just as good if not better.

So true. The MIT nerds will get good jobs out of graduation but many will be stuck in midlevel careers.

[Anonymous]

I’ve been to MIT alumni events. It’s a lot of midlevel engineers in bad suits who are wondering if they can get a second gift bag.

Are there famous founders? Sure. Is that typical? No.