Wow, great post. Lots of good stuff in both directions. We're all thinking a lot of the same stuff here.
Maryland is now a pretty selective school to get into. And the Honors College, which comprises roughly a quarter of incoming freshmen, is even tougher - average CR + M SAT (out of 1600) - 1410. And the engineering school is a separate admission and tough to get into.
If he goes to Maryland (or Hopkins), he'll stay a fifth year, even if I have to pay for it, and cop his engineering masters. If he continues beyond that, I'd probably advise for an MBA, to assist in the climb up to senior management. He'd like the corner office, some day.
If he makes very great gobs of money someday, he'll go back and get a Ph.D. in classics. ;-)
Wooing - You're right. And Hopkins ain't doin’ it. Maryland and Harvard are turning on the afterburners. The thing is, Harvard's been great with very polite folks on the phone, personal phone calls, personal letters, etc., but Maryland has been really, really good presenting actual programs that would make a difference to him, academically and career-wise.
Harvard cachet, etc. All true.
Yes, there's a younger son, too, who will be off to college in two more years. He's just as darned smart as his older brother, but more math-science than languages. He's actually probably a better fit for Harvard, as he's interested in theoretical physics or math, not engineering.
I think I'll be handle the cost of his education, too, especially as while they're both in school, the financial aid for each will be more generous (assuming the older doesn't go to Maryland, which creates a separate circumstance).
Glass ceilings - Yes. My son, not wishing to be an investment banker, has no thoughts of making upper seven-figure or low eight-figure incomes as an engineer. But he has an uncle who became president of an established Atlanta-based civil engineering firm, and who made well into six figures during his career. And that would do nicely.
Happy Easter to you, too!
Thanks,
sitetest
You have no choice but to send him to Harvard.
If your son is at all an amicable, gregarious character, send him to Harvard. The future will be now, the future “real world” will start the first week of freshman year.
As compared to Maryland where his future starts after 3.5 years of partying on campus and then finally reality sets in his senior year as he starts job hunting.
That 65k will be nothing as soon as Ben Bernanke and the Fed Reserve unleashes inflation sometime 2014ish, Grabbing loans at low interest rates now, in a pre-high inflationary period is a no-brainer.
UMaryland, even the honors college, does not have a long standing Alumni network??, it was a party school as you remember it, all the way up to when I applied there in the late-90s.
If your son can work the floor gladhanding at Harvard it’ll pay for itself in under five years.
Don’t think of Harvard as a 100k debt as much as it’s incremental cost over Hopkins, which puts it as a 28k additional expense.
Your son will walk out of Maryland with substantially less life experience compared to the student life in Boston, substantially lower “Rolodex” access, substantially less understanding of how the machinations of this country’s ruling cadres actually work on a daily basis.
I didn’t attend Brown U for the same reservations of “being behind enemy lines”... and the first five years out of Uni were definitely tougher than it should have been.
I do hear tell that Syracuse University has quite the theoretical physics program and while not Ivy league, is just one step below them in all areas.
However, it is NOT cheap and although it has quite a reputation as a party school, has quite a number of strong religious campus ministries. It's not hard to avoid all the liberal nuts there.
But then again, it is CNY. If he likes snow, there's no better place to be. If he doesn't, look somewhere else.