MIT/Caltech

[Unstung]

I'm sorry if my posts have come across as flaunting or bragging. My impetuous for my original post was to see if there were any Caltech alum/students on OF.

It's fine, you should be proud of your accomplishment. You've done better than I have in high school so celebrating is natural. I can understand but I'm just a sour, if not envious of your abilities, engineering student. I hope I didn't ruin your celebration too much.

A premium of 15-30% doesn't seem too bad for going to a prestigious private university. If you do go to Caltech, don't forget to visit JPL and makes us all jealous. But I think Hielor makes some really good points.

 

[asbjos]

...
It looks like, for example, at Caltech, even though tutition+room and board+everything else is $63,000, the average financial aid package is $38,756 (so it would be $24,244 per year, which still sucks )

Ouch, that is a LOT of money.
Here in Norway I pay ~80 USD in student fee each semester, but other than that, the university is free.
All students who earn less than 20 000 USD a year, get 14 000 USD each year in loan from the nation, but if you finish your degree, 40 % is made into a scholarship, so after 3 years, I will have to pay back approximately 25 000 USD.

 

[Bibi Uncle]

I will be studying software engineering at Université Laval next autumn and my student fee is around $1300 (everything included, except the books) for each semester. Therefore, it will cost me around $10,400 to get my degree (4 years). I don't have access to a scholarship, because the revenue of my parents are too high. However, I know that if you don't live with your parents and have low revenues, you can have scholarship and loans from the government. The loans don't have interest while you are studying.

We can't beat Norway, but still, it's very cheap.

(Note : the fees are in canadian dollars. 1 CAD worth around 0.80 USD currently)

 

[Hielor]

I agree. An additional benefit of public schools is more of my APs/dual enrollment credits transfer.

That's something huge to think about. I had enough AP credits that I was able to finish college in only 3 years, and I took a lighter-than-average courseload and also had a semester off for a co-op. I wouldn't have been able to do that at a big-name school.

My question is are there actually education benefits? I would like to believe that having a more prestigious university would attract better professers etc which would result in a better education, but I wonder how large that benefit, if it exists, is.

I doubt there is going to be a huge benefit in terms of what you encounter in class, as long as the public school in question is sufficiently highly ranked for your major.

The only benefits might be in the sort of research projects the professors are doing, but it might be a whole lot harder to get involved in that sort of thing at a prestigious university.

As the saying goes, it's better to be a big fish (above-average student) in a small pond (public school program) than that same fish in a larger pond (prestigious university full of people who are also above-average students).

 

[GLS]

This probably breaks some rules of internet etiquette, but are there any Caltech orbinauts out there?

I'm not at Caltech, but I've heard one should watch out for a certain Dr. Cooper there :lol:.

 

[boogabooga]

The weather will be nicer at CalTech than MIT anyway...

Congradulations!