Decide what your educational goal is and use colleges to achieve your goal not theirs.
Financially, I'd register as a full time student at the cheapest and pick and choose classes at the others during summer or a semester or two at another.
My son got business classes from one, music from another and music-business from a third. He's now a professional musician, but has backup education to supplement and support his chosen professional.
Hillsdale college.
Congrats on raising such great kids..
Consider military service before college.
Go to MD. If there is a way to go to a satellite campus for the first couple of years and live at home, do it.
Since you the parent are paying for most of it, you decide.
It doesn’t matter what the young person thinks at all since they aren’t paying for it. Most kids change their majors once they get to university. Many kids take 5 years to finish college. Both my sons did.
Both my sons (now in their late 40’s) went to Penn State satellite campuses and then on the main campus after their first couple of years. One changed his major from computer science to geography. That one works for EPA (I know, I know) in mapping and is a PE and PLS. The other is a researcher at Penn State with a Ph. D and PE.
Go to harvard. Shopping week alone makes it worth it. This ability to take any class you want(none are ever full) and to design your own course of study with your advisor will give him a leg up on other students. Also the fact that he can take any course offered at MIT negates the fact that they dont offer the exact courses you want.
Congratulations on your son’s great achievements. Many on FR amaze me in that they rail against government, but have no problem sending their kids to government schools like University of MD. It is an obnoxious thought to me that we trust the government to not be self-promoting with their propaganda. And then the additional fact that you are asking your neighbor to support your expenses for education with his or her government coerced taxes. I know, I know, you paid all your life and you are finally going to get something for it. Education pays for its self, you will pay more taxes because of your education than it cost. Good for you, keep telling yourself that. Using that logic the government should be in healthcare and they should be providing health club memberships; why not? Plus it gives you a government run football team to root for. See how your same logic holds up when you apply it to other parts of government and liberty.
I did a 10-second salary survey, using indeed.com, searching for civil engineer in new york, ny. Within 25 miles, here are the number of job postings in these salary ranges:
* $60,000+ (265)
* $80,000+ (153)
* $100,000+ (57)
* $120,000+ (28)
* $140,000+ (8)
Obviously most of the jobs offer less than 100k per year salary.
Working as an engineer is where, IMHO, one does wonderful good for society and one’s employer and is paid the least of any career given the difficulty of the subject matter.
Engineering is difficult work for those with mediocre intelligence, it is a career for the very intelligent like your son.
The real money to be made for those of such intelligence is in business. The engineer who does best in life, IMHO, is the one who also learns business as well, especially finance and sales/marketing.
The Harvard brand; those folks, in terms of engineering, are useless compared to real ‘work’ types. Most folks in engineering did not go to Ivy League schools; management ranks of the most impressive companies are filled with non-IL’s. I was just looking up an old acquaintance who graduated from GA Tech (the best bang for one’s buck in engineering, IMHO) - he’s well-placed within the space program. No Harvard necessary.
When I think of the Harvard people I’ve heard speaking publicly on issues in the past 5 years - there was not one of them that was not a pompous windbag who’s talk, if I had the time, could be sentence by sentence refuted. Seems to me like Harvard is mostly about worshiping ourselves instead of learning. An Ivy League education seems to put one permanently out-of-touch with common sense, IMHO.
Harvard, Stanford and MIT are the biggies for tech venture capital firms. That’s the only place where, IMHO, the brand buys you quite a bit, and what it buys you is a ticket to the VC dance. Startups slapped together by VC, however, are what they are (a pump and dump destined for IPO). Some folks like that scene, others not so much.
IMHO, it’s far more important to have real work ability and drive than to have a brandname degree.
At the end of the day, it’s the ability to actually do things and make things that gives real, lasting staying power in one’s earning potential. It’s the mind-numbing, complex, difficult work that people really want to hand off to someone else. And if someone has the ability to tackle that stuff easily they’ll always have work if they want it.
IMHO, the first 5-10 years of one’s post-college career is where the real learning is done - and this time is what really sets the stage for big things down the road. After an intense, broad, experience during that time, if one has really focused on learning about reality, one can get into some rewarding and exciting opportunities in jobs with increasing responsibility for outcomes. In my field, most programmers coming out of college today don’t “get” programming; they know the language du jure and don’t know the fundamentals of how to work.
Too many colleges focus on too much politics and things social, and not enough on work. This is why very often great entrepreneurs quit before it’s over.
One can always further one’s education in classics, the arts, math - anything for that matter - throughout life.
For what it’s worth, my 2 cents.
Congratulations! Those are excellent schools from which to receive admission offers. Kudos to your son and your family. Be mindful that what he has in mind today for his major/career path is likely to change in the next 2 years. A whole new world is opening for him.
Very few schools will alter their initial financial aid offer, so expect Hopkins to stay where it is. That leaves you out $22K/year. Throw in his minor loans to pay off, add tuition/cost increases, it’s more like $100K+ over the four years of undergrad. Unless he were to remain enamored by Hopkins, I’d pass on it in a NY minute, given the alternatives.
It is hard to beat Harvard for prestige on a resume, and that may well be worth $16K/year to you and to your son over the course of his career. Actually, it would be a bargain. While Harvard is more on the liberal side (name a ‘prestige’ University that isn’t!), they have conservative faculty, students and alumni. They’re out there.
The $ aspect makes MD look mighty attractive. IIRC, USN&WR did a lengthy article some years ago about MD’s honors program, featuring a student who’d turned down Princeton to attend. In fairness, that was before the Ivies adopted the policy of eliminating student loans, so that could have been a factor for that student. After 4 years, you and your son would be way ahead financially.
You have obviously put a lot of time, energy and love into your son and his education. The rewards are now before him and you. Do let us know his final decision.
If Maryland will give you a free education, take it. The Free education outweighs any other consideration for an engineering program.
There are only about 2% of jobs that require a degree from a specific school. Engineering is not one of those fields. I would also submit that Maryland is superior to Harvard in the engineering department.
You should contact each school’s Career Services department. They can give you statistics on the salaries of recent graduates broken down by academic major.
We homeschool; I have graduate degrees from Harvard and Stanford; I am wary of “elite schools” generally.
NEVERTHELESS, if Harvard is offering money in a reasonable amount and your son has a strong worldview, the choice is Harvard. No question.
Here are some reasons not to worry about the relative merits of engineering programs: 1. Between 18 and 20 students often change their minds about majors. 2. the rankings of engineering and other programs mainly have to do with the strengths of the graduate programs. At the undergraduate level, students are getting a lot of math, science, and engineering basics. Given students of equal ability, the top 50 engineering programs are providing roughly equivalent engineering content to undergraduates. Worry about rankings of engineering schools for graduate school. 3. Harvard has very strong math and pure science programs. This matters for engineering because courses from these departments are a significant part of the undergraduate engineering curriculum. 4. There is increasing collaoration in programs and courses between Harvard and MIT in science and engineering. 5. More important than the ranking of a program is the intellectual “speed of the track”. Harvard students are on average much more capable intellectually than those attending Maryland (you can’t be serious about that one) or Hopkins.
Harvard also has a fine program in Classics.
Finally, rightly or wrongly, the name “Harvard” opens doors all over the world and across the US. The brand matters. Maryland adds no value in that respect, and Hopkins offers vastly less than Harvard.
Frankly, as much as I dislike elite schools, I fail to see how this can even remotely be seen as a close call.
And another thing....for those that have eyes to see and ears to hear, the next 20 years are going to see massive financial and social disruption. Any financial savings from going to Maryland will pale in value in comparison to the benefits your son will receive from the social and intellectual capital he will gain at Harvard. That social and intellectual capital will allow him to do well even when others are struggling.
I can’t believe I am helping the Harvard Admissions Office....
Remember that Harvard feminized their science courses after Larry Summers made those remarks about women not being as good at math and science as men.
Other than that, I would recommend that your son make another visit o the schools and speak to the Dept heads.
Make sure that he would be happy being an engineer, although some companies are one highering engineers for operational positions, particularly in the oil industry.
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His choice of school is not set in stone. He always has the option of transferring to another college if he doesn’t like where he starts and sometimes it’s actually easier to get where you want once you have a good start at another college.
However, starting out with a strong GPA is essential. Colleges tend to expect the first year GPA to not be so strong because kids are just getting used to college and don’t tend to do as well as they could the first semester or so. If he has a strong freshman fall semester, that will go far.
Exposure to the different courses required for his choice of major will give him an idea of whether or not he wants to pursue a particular career field. Two of my kids thought they wanted to do computer science but after the first semester, realized that that was not what they expected. My youngest was serious about biochem but landed in physics. What they want to do will change.
Since he’s undecided at this point (all my kids were sophomores before they knew what they wanted to be when they grew up) go the cheapest - or free - if you will. That way, he doesn’t end up wasting money simply trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life.
He also needs to plan out very carefully what courses to take in the event that he may transfer. Courses like calculus are pretty much the same everywhere and will count everywhere. With good planning, he can also double major. That requires being very careful in which liberal arts courses to take. He needs to take ones that will do double duty, fill the LA requirement for the engineer while being required for the major for the classics.
You're asking and I'm telling. I don't need to read any further to speak authoritatively.
Unless he is both astrally intelligent and utterly unable to physically qualify for military service, he needs to enlist now for at least two years to round off his ability to gain enough maturity to respond correctly to authority and develop leadership qualities, and have some money from it to pay most of further schooling.
If he only goes on learning how to go to school, when he is finished he will be entrapped in that system, and be as useful as teats on a boar hog, probably for the rest of his life.
Accept this opinion or reject it, but he is far past the stage when you ought to be making up his mind as to how to proceed. What's your problem that you need this FR community make up your mind?
With all truly sincere, concerned, and due respect --
Hopkins or Harvard.
Since Hopkins is the fave, let him go! You will see more of him as he will be closer.
I think you son might become burned out if he studies both classics and engineering. In fact, based on my experiences at similar top schools, I predict that there is at least a 50 percent chance that:
1. He will not graduate with both degrees from Harvard or Hopkins or any similar school.
2. If he graduates with an engineering degree from Harvard, he will not have a career as an engineer. Most of my friends, and my brothers, and me, each with a degree from an engineering school at a top ranked university, do not work as engineers.
3. If he drops the engineering degree and keeps the classics degree, he will end up at law school. Everyone I knew with a classics degree (about 5 friends or so) went to law school.
You have a tough choice, but in our family we would lean towards the reputable state school with the assumption that graduate school is on the way (medical school, business school, law school, doctorate in a technical area).
Hillsdale College in Michigan, a no nonsense private Conservative place to educate your kids......
You can go with the big names, and they look good on resume's, but if 3/4 of the stuff they teach is crap, your kid will learn exactly that.
Corporate HR depts. utilize professional recruiters when searching for supervisory, managerial and executive personnel. The recruiters provide HR with resume's and HR then gives them to the dept. manager who is tasked with selecting candidates to fill the position he is looking for.
At that point in time, the manager will likely choose any resume's that show the applicant was a graduate of his own alma mater....So the University of Michigan manager will care less if your son graduated from Harvard or Maryland.......That's not saying the manager will only hire a grad from his university but rather the applicant from his university will have a slightly better chance in getting an interview than someone from another school........that's just the way it is.
With that being said, you need to focus on the education your son is going to receive rather than the NAME of the university he decides to attend.
So in the grand scheme of career employment, it's not where you went to school but rather what you were taught.........
FWIW, I spent 25 years in HR at our manufacturing plant in Detroit then 9 more years at our corporate offices in Troy so I'm kinda aware of how these things work.
My personal choice would be Maryland, but I grew up there, plus, it’s free.