Posted on 05/17/2015 7:13:00 PM PDT by Kaslin
Ronald Nelson from Memphis, Tennessee, is a senior at Houston High School. He was accepted to all eight Ivy League schools--that's Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Columbia, Brown, Cornell, and UPenn--along with Johns Hopkins, Stanford, and Vanderbilt, among a few other schools. While any of these schools are fantastic options, Nelson made headlines for another reason: he turned them all down. Nelson will be attending the University of Alabama this fall, as a member of the school's honors program.
While it may seem shocking that a student would turn down a prestigious university for a state school, Nelson actually showed impressive maturity and financial foresight with his college choice. Unlike every other school he was accepted to, Alabama offered him a full merit scholarship and waived his out-of-state fees. None of the Ivies offer merit scholarships. As Nelson plans on attending medical school, he figured that he'd rather get a head start on saving money for that rather than take on student loans for undergrad.
From Business Insider:
After some thought and consideration of all the schools' offers, Nelson decided it wouldn't be worth the financial strain to use this money on his undergraduate education. He plans on going to medical school after college, and knows he'll be faced with more tuition costs.
"With people being in debt for years and years, it wasn't a burden that Ronald wanted to take on and it wasn't a burden that we wanted to deal with for a number of years after undergraduate," Ronald Sr. said. "We can put that money away and spend it on his medical school, or any other graduate school."
Bravo. If a person has aspirations of a graduate school, there is absolutely no reason to go in to debt during undergrad if it can be avoided. If Nelson is able to maintain the level of academic success he had in high school, he'll have no problem getting in to a quality medical school.
Additionally, Nelson is likely doing himself a favor by removing himself from the Ivy League's notorious pressure-filled atmosphere. College is a place to learn, yes, but America's elite schools have turned students in to, as one Yale professor called it,"Excellent Sheep."
The average member of the class of 2015 is graduating from college with over $35,000 in debt, which is a number that continues to rise with each graduating class. It's incredibly wise for Nelson (and, well, any student entering undergrad this year) to avoid that debt if at all possible.
She’s doing Alabama Action. She’ll be active in the honors college. It’s one of the reasons she picked Alabama. She’s also going to do Cru or another campus ministry. I think she’s going to join one of the choirs.
She’s not rushing. Not her thing.
I’m excited for her.
Nelson is from my hometown. I prayed for him after hearing his story on the local talk show. He’s from a middle class family and didn’t even have the money to visit the Ivy league schools. Glad he chose the state school. Hope he does volunteer medical work. My sister who’s a UT med school discovered med schools look at not just grades but also the volunteer work one has done in the medical community.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rz2jRHA9fo
Brandon Marsalis briefly touches on that subject in this clip (Warning - some mild profanity)
No, I’m not. Average financial aid at Harvard is about $50k per year.
Ping
I've heard he prefers Austrian.
Not to mention he probably had to take out a loan to pay all the application fees to that many institutions.
I am surprised that he named Michelle first and not himself, most Americans do that.
“He’ll experience an instant conversion.”
Not a chance. Once you are a Vol you are a Vol for life.
Why wouldn’t “than me.” be correct?
It depends on what you’re studying. My son just got an engineering degree from a very large University (that happened to beat Alabama in football this year). He didn’t have time to be indoctrinated in one way or the other in anything political... he was too busy learning how to build REAL things.
Combination of affirmative action admissions and families so rich that another extra $50K in tuition doesn’t phase them?
The correct sentence in English would be “President Bush invited Michelle and me to the White House.”
Correct - self is reflexive, ie the subject and object of the sentence is the same person.
For example, I hurt myself. I can’t hurt yourself, because two people are involved.
the schools generally waive the tuition fee for top performing students.
It’s more about time. If they have to write extra essays, but the Ivies use the Common Ap, so maybe no new essays.
“than I” is correct. If you were to finish the sentence, it would be “than I AM or WAS” or whichever verb ya want in there. :)
It was not about bragging rights but about smart shopping.
He needed to see all the offers so he could compare them to see which was the best fit for him.
(btw...I use this all the time with my boss. He loves to say, “she thinks she is smarter than me”. *sigh* I say, “than *I*”...and he is in a bad mood for an hour or so.) :)
Your last post is a little incoherent.
College can be very expensive. More expensive than most folks can handle without borrowing money.
For most people, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale are exceptions. These three schools are known to have generous financial aid programs, relatively speaking.
The overall effect of the financial aid programs of these three schools is that average indebtedness for someone who graduates from Harvard is about $12K, total, over four years. Many students graduate debt-free.
sitetest
Although they use the Common App, each Ivy also requires its own supplemental application. This is especially the case if you're applying for financial aid (which, of course, is a separate issue from application for admission). Even though everyone uses the FAFSA, they all have a separate set of requirements to go along with what's required by the FAFSA. In my memory, Princeton was the worst. Hell.
Harvard requires less supplemental material than some other schools, but allows more, if you want to send it. Washington University at St. Louis is the easiest major university to apply to - a straight Common App, and check the box for fee waiver, and you've applied. But they goose application numbers with heavy marketing and making the process as easy and inexpensive as possible, and then manipulate their admissions and waitlist to boost yield to game the USNWR rankings (although most all schools do this to a degree).
sitetest
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