Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any family that can afford $100,000 a year for tuition at HYPS has a kid whose life wouldn't be transformed by going to an HYPS school. That kid's life might actually be transformed by an undergrad education at an excellent public university.

Not necessarily about transforming, it's about MAINTAINING that level. And marrying well, network, and not having doors closed on you because you don't attend a peer elite college.

I'd suggest not sharing your lunatic thinking with people who actually went to elite colleges.

Anonymous wrote:Any family that can afford $100,000 a year for tuition at HYPS has a kid whose life wouldn't be transformed by going to an HYPS school. That kid's life might actually be transformed by an undergrad education at an excellent public university.

Not necessarily about transforming, it's about MAINTAINING that level. And marrying well, network, and not having doors closed on you because you don't attend a peer elite college.

Anonymous wrote:OP -- are you assuming DC would get a BA in three years, regardless of which school she attends? I'm wondering because you're asking whether it's worth the extra $120K. If that's not your assumption (and if your cost data is right), the difference in cost is 160K.

If it is your assumption, are you sure it's accurate? The rules vary widely from school to school and whether 3 years is realistic can depend on major and on the availability of particular course in particular years. It may also preclude things like study abroad.

Obviously the $120k was just a typo or brain fart.

Anonymous wrote:I don't know brown, but we made the choice to send our son to Dartmouth rather than a highly ranked State University. He is a sophomore and so far I think it's worth it. He loves the school, he gets a lot of individual attention from his professors, and is incredibly well supported in anything he wants to accomplish. The campus life and social aspects of Dartmouth are really different then a huge state school campus even though Michigan is one of the best.

I am sure if he went to Michigan you would be saying the same thing. Most students do well at the college they end up at.

Anonymous wrote:Where you go to college impacts your life from age 18 to death. Ivy League experience is worth $40,000 premium per year.

Stanford HYP could charge $100,000 PER YEAR in tuition and still fill the place up with 98-99 percentile students.

That just shows you how crazy humans are.

OP -- are you assuming DC would get a BA in three years, regardless of which school she attends? I'm wondering because you're asking whether it's worth the extra $120K. If that's not your assumption (and if your cost data is right), the difference in cost is 160K.

If it is your assumption, are you sure it's accurate? The rules vary widely from school to school and whether 3 years is realistic can depend on major and on the availability of particular course in particular years. It may also preclude things like study abroad.

I don't know brown, but we made the choice to send our son to Dartmouth rather than a highly ranked State University. He is a sophomore and so far I think it's worth it. He loves the school, he gets a lot of individual attention from his professors, and is incredibly well supported in anything he wants to accomplish. The campus life and social aspects of Dartmouth are really different then a huge state school campus even though Michigan is one of the best.

I'm one of the PPs with a kid at Brown.

For us, the question of value was critical. With financial aid, we ended up with an annual tuition bill of about $28k.

My kid received a couple of merit aid offers at other private schools that would have made our tuition bill about $15k.

We decided that $13k a year was not life-altering for us and that, based on other factors, Brown was worth having to keep our 13-year-old car on the road for a couple more years. Had a full tuition merit aid materialized, we probably would have decided that $112,000 over four years qualifies as life-altering (at least for us, and also for kid with a sizable chunk of that money being earmarked for grad school tuition).

I have no idea of OPs finances - is $120K life-altering for you/your family, or is it just extra money in the bank, or forgoing a new car purchase for a few more years?

Anonymous wrote:I work in the District Mon-Thurs and our main residence is in Metro Detroit. Daughter likes UMich but believes too many students from her h.s. matriculate so it ends up being h.s. 2.0. She plans to specifically target Brown and would attend UMich if rejected. But if she's accepted to both, is Brown worth the extra $120K? I'm on the fence.

Over a lifetime, definitely.

Any family that can afford $100,000 a year for tuition at HYPS has a kid whose life wouldn't be transformed by going to an HYPS school. That kid's life might actually be transformed by an undergrad education at an excellent public university.

^ For a variety of reasons e.g. family ties, athletics, geography, scholarship, friends.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Goodness, I'd never call Michigan a safety school. And I'm from Ohio with an inborn dislike of the place. (Go Buckeyes

At some elite privates like GDS, U of M is a quasi-safety for most applicants.

Honestly the only GDS kids that get rejected from Michigan are kids they know won't go — colleges want to protect their yield. GDS counselors nudge high stats kids into NOT applying for this very reason.

That's silly. Have you seen GDS exmission listings this year? A lot of kids ended up at schools which no sane person would prefer over Michigan.

Where you go to college impacts your life from age 18 to death. Ivy League experience is worth $40,000 premium per year.

Stanford HYP could charge $100,000 PER YEAR in tuition and still fill the place up with 98-99 percentile students.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Goodness, I'd never call Michigan a safety school. And I'm from Ohio with an inborn dislike of the place. (Go Buckeyes

At some elite privates like GDS, U of M is a quasi-safety for most applicants.

Honestly the only GDS kids that get rejected from Michigan are kids they know won't go — colleges want to protect their yield. GDS counselors nudge high stats kids into NOT applying for this very reason.

Sorry, misremembered the question. Harvard or Princeton would be different than Brown for me.