College Selection Advice

atucker

I, and a lot of other people my age, are currently facing a pretty big life decision -- where to go to college. Since this is probably going to have a pretty big impact on my life, I'd like to get some more information on this.

Seeing as a lot of people here have probably made this choice already, gone through with some of the consequences of it, and are rational, I decided to ask here.

My current considerations are:

Academic rigor
Money (i.e. if a school gives me a full ride, should I go there rather than plunk down $250k over 4 years)
Ability to do undergrad research
Flexibility
Likelihood to meet cool people
Novelty (this one's a lot weaker though)

My current situation is:

Accepted to MIT, University of Southern California, University of Maryland, Swarthmore, Harvey Mudd, Harvard, and CMU
Getting some form of scholarships at USC and UMD, amount TBD
Not likely to receive that much need-based financial aid
Probably going to start in Engineering, might double major with Comp Sci, Statistics, or maybe Math. If I go to CMU, probably Engineering and Public Policy
I also like and am competent in Economics, History, and English (though, definitely not getting a degree in the last 2)
Maryland is my home state, and I would know a lot of people at UMD

So if you have any advice, for me or in general, I'd love to hear it. If you have any questions yourself, feel free to ask them.

Seeing as a lot of people here have probably made this choice already, gone through with some of the consequences of it, and are rational, I decided to ask here.

My current considerations are:

Academic rigor
Money (i.e. if a school gives me a full ride, should I go there rather than plunk down $250k over 4 years)
Ability to do undergrad research
Flexibility
Likelihood to meet cool people
Novelty (this one's a lot weaker though)

My current situation is:

Accepted to MIT, University of Southern California, University of Maryland, Swarthmore, Harvey Mudd, Harvard, and CMU
Getting some form of scholarships at USC and UMD, amount TBD
Not likely to receive that much need-based financial aid
Probably going to start in Engineering, might double major with Comp Sci, Statistics, or maybe Math. If I go to CMU, probably Engineering and Public Policy
I also like and am competent in Economics, History, and English (though, definitely not getting a degree in the last 2)
Maryland is my home state, and I would know a lot of people at UMD

So if you have any advice, for me or in general, I'd love to hear it. If you have any questions yourself, feel free to ask them.

In college I participated heavily on cypherpunks and extropians, so it's possible to benefit from such communities without necessarily going to MIT or Harvard. Of course this depends on whether such online communities exist in the areas that atucker is or will be interested in, and how much he values physical vs. virtual social contact...

This is great advice for other people in the same situation.

I personally greatly prefer physical to virtual contact, at least for friendships. Not so sure about for general intellectual pursuits. Online communities have been great in terms of getting me to read things, but physical communities have so far been much more effective at getting me to actually do things other than read specific books, or write things.

I might be able to change this, maybe not. I haven't particularly tried to.

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