Anonymous wrote:My DS got in these two schools and we are debating too. DS has lot of hobbies and spend about 75% of his energy on school work (All As, not show off). I feel he has great potential and hasn't tried his best. If we choose CMU, he has to work hard in order to keep up with other intelligent and hard working kids. If in UVA, he could just have another 4 years' easy life without pushing up his limit. Does my thought make sense?

That is a weird assumption. No one likes that parent who thinks their kid’s shit doesn’t stink. Stop it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's really nothing wrong with choosing UVA over CMU because you think it will be an easier lifestyle. Not everyone has to have the absurd level of drive that leads to kids working 60 hours per week on schoolwork, and then after graduation continue working 60-80 hours per week on a heavily time consuming profession i.e. top firms in tech/finance/consulting.

Let's just surrender it all to China.

No, we beat China by creativity and innovation. Those do not come by long cruel work hours, instead by invoking free mind and intense curiosity.

Anonymous wrote:There's really nothing wrong with choosing UVA over CMU because you think it will be an easier lifestyle. Not everyone has to have the absurd level of drive that leads to kids working 60 hours per week on schoolwork, and then after graduation continue working 60-80 hours per week on a heavily time consuming profession i.e. top firms in tech/finance/consulting.

Let's just surrender it all to China.

Anonymous wrote:15% of CMU undergraduate students are international
MIT=11%
Yale =11%
Stanford = 14%
Hopkins= 12%
University of Chicago= 14%

The usnews says CMU has 22% international student body while UVA has 5%.

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/most-international

There's really nothing wrong with choosing UVA over CMU because you think it will be an easier lifestyle. Not everyone has to have the absurd level of drive that leads to kids working 60 hours per week on schoolwork, and then after graduation continue working 60-80 hours per week on a heavily time consuming profession i.e. top firms in tech/finance/consulting.

Anonymous wrote:My DS got in these two schools and we are debating too. DS has lot of hobbies and spend about 75% of his energy on school work (All As, not show off). I feel he has great potential and hasn't tried his best. If we choose CMU, he has to work hard in order to keep up with other intelligent and hard working kids. If in UVA, he could just have another 4 years' easy life without pushing up his limit. Does my thought make sense?

Not much sense at all. Not sure what field your kid will pursue. If it's gender studies or some such nonsense, then school will be an easy lift wherever he goes.

But you say he spends 75% of his time on hobbies, and still gets A's. Presumably he tested well enough to get into two pretty well-regarded schools.

If you're suggesting he needs to spend 75% of his time on school work, then have him study engineering or physics or something along those lines. I imagine he'll find plenty of students at either school doing the same.

The only real choice you need to make is whether you want your kid to have a normal, sunny, all-American kind of college experience. If you do, then the choice is UVA.

If you want him to be a nerdy grind at a dreary relatively cheerless place, your best bet is CMU.

When you make this decision, recognize that it will reveal as much about you as your kid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS got in these two schools and we are debating too. DS has lot of hobbies and spend about 75% of his energy on school work (All As, not show off). I feel he has great potential and hasn't tried his best. If we choose CMU, he has to work hard in order to keep up with other intelligent and hard working kids. If in UVA, he could just have another 4 years' easy life without pushing up his limit. Does my thought make sense?

Not at all.

why? So the kids should just choose whatever the easier one?

Anonymous wrote:My DS got in these two schools and we are debating too. DS has lot of hobbies and spend about 75% of his energy on school work (All As, not show off). I feel he has great potential and hasn't tried his best. If we choose CMU, he has to work hard in order to keep up with other intelligent and hard working kids. If in UVA, he could just have another 4 years' easy life without pushing up his limit. Does my thought make sense?

Not at all.

In light of the pandemic and economic downturn, I would advise going wherever the ultimate out-of-pocket to OP is the the least cash.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:15% of CMU undergraduate students are international
MIT=11%
Yale =11%
Stanford = 14%
Hopkins= 12%
University of Chicago= 14%

So CMU is in the normal range. Some posts said 50% are international which scared me.

Look at the table in a previous post. CMU has about 13k - 14K students overall (grad and undergrad). About 6K are foreign nationals.

If you're looking just at the undergrad population, about 1.5 to 1.8K of the 6.4K enrollees are foreign nationals. This would be about 25%, based on the table compiled by CMU (as of 2018). Don't know what percentage of these foreign nationals come from mainland China, but presumably a lot of them do.

Additionally, about 30% of the undergraduate population is comprised of Americans of Asian descent.

Not sure how these numbers compare to the other schools you listed. Not sure how many schools categorize their students according to race/ethnicity/nationality.

My DS got in these two schools and we are debating too. DS has lot of hobbies and spend about 75% of his energy on school work (All As, not show off). I feel he has great potential and hasn't tried his best. If we choose CMU, he has to work hard in order to keep up with other intelligent and hard working kids. If in UVA, he could just have another 4 years' easy life without pushing up his limit. Does my thought make sense?

Anonymous wrote:15% of CMU undergraduate students are international
MIT=11%
Yale =11%
Stanford = 14%
Hopkins= 12%
University of Chicago= 14%

So CMU is in the normal range. Some posts said 50% are international which scared me.

15% of CMU undergraduate students are international
MIT=11%
Yale =11%
Stanford = 14%
Hopkins= 12%
University of Chicago= 14%

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous. [/quote wrote:

Here's the demographic distribution, as reported by CMU (for 2018):

https://www.cmu.edu/ira/Enrollment/pdf/fall-2018-pdfs/university-facts-2018-student-enrollment-by-citizenship-race-sex.pdf

Very interesting figures in that table.

You aren’t kidding. If international students don’t enroll in the US in high numbers this year due to the economy, virus, or delays in the student visa process, where does it leave some of these schools that reply on high numbers of international students?

A bunch of schools can be in trouble if students are still doing distance learning come September.

My son is a sophomore at MIT. A lot of international students stayed in the US. Their parents did not want them to risk not being let back in, in the fall.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous. [/quote wrote:

Here's the demographic distribution, as reported by CMU (for 2018):

https://www.cmu.edu/ira/Enrollment/pdf/fall-2018-pdfs/university-facts-2018-student-enrollment-by-citizenship-race-sex.pdf

Very interesting figures in that table.

You aren’t kidding. If international students don’t enroll in the US in high numbers this year due to the economy, virus, or delays in the student visa process, where does it leave some of these schools that reply on high numbers of international students?

A bunch of schools can be in trouble if students are still doing distance learning come September.