My son has a hard time with the idea of paying six grand a year more for Hopkins than Harvard, and having loans to boot.
As well, there are some scary aspects to each of these places. Maryland is huge. Harvard and Hopkins are really, really tough (Hopkins has a special reputation for grindingly difficult grading.).
Both Maryland and Harvard have gone out of their way to communicate that they'll do what they can to help my son succeed. It's that, "We got your back" feeling. We're just not feeling the love from Hopkins. It's probably between Harvard and Maryland.
sitetest
Just curious. Had he checked into what those in the engineering field think of a degree from Harvard vs Maryland?
I’ve heard that within the engineering field, an engineering degree from RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) actually goes further than an engineering degree from MIT.
MIT certainly has the better reputation but the person who made the statement found that RIT students had a better grasp of the practical, being able to apply it kind of ability and made better employees.
Those within the fields know the strengths and weaknesses of the different colleges and sometimes a lesser known smaller college can provide just as useful a degree as one from a big name university.
My kids also found that the size of the university is not really always relevant. The size of the department they’re in makes more of a difference because those are the people they will be spending most of their critical time with in pursuing their degree.
Then go Harvard! But if he really, really wants Hopkins, let him go...it is his life.
I went to a SUNY school on a full scholarship for bio, gently knudged there by parents who knew I would get the regents scholarship. I disliked the school and it wasn’t intellectually rewarding aside from my science & math courses which might as well have been autotutorial (organic chem actually was autotutorial but you had to pass each chapter with an A in the lab exam.) Sometimes saving money is not all it is cracked up to be.