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I always thought I was debt averse, then I was staring at an acceptance email from Columbia. It would be a tougher decision if I had big $$ at a T14, but I don't. Is Columbia the clear winner here?

gizmo1024 wrote:I always thought I was debt averse, then I was staring at an acceptance email from Columbia. It would be a tougher decision if I had big $$ at a T14, but I don't. Is Columbia the clear winner here?

Damn....that's awesome!! Congrats!

You might have written this elsewhere but it depends on your career goals.

Thomas Hagan, ESQ. wrote:

gizmo1024 wrote:I always thought I was debt averse, then I was staring at an acceptance email from Columbia. It would be a tougher decision if I had big $$ at a T14, but I don't. Is Columbia the clear winner here?

Damn....that's awesome!! Congrats!

You might have written this elsewhere but it depends on your career goals.

Thanks!! Smh...just saw the correct forum to post. Taking it over there.

Neither is a great option. What are your numbers and career goals?

I imagine you could negotiate vandy close to full by leveraging your Columbia admission, but idk. Worth a shot

Rubbishdump wrote:I imagine you could negotiate vandy close to full by leveraging your Columbia admission, but idk. Worth a shot

Vandy is pretty dead-set against negotiating at all. Maybe they might make an exception if OP came with another scholarship offer, but I can't reasonably see them upping their bid for only an acceptance at a higher ranked school, even CLS.

OP what are your stats? Any chance of retaking? Sticker at CLS would really suck, Vandy at 1/2 is still close to $200,000.

are all your other T15 offers at sticker too, or did you not bother to spam the T15?

Cogburn1984 wrote:

Rubbishdump wrote:I imagine you could negotiate vandy close to full by leveraging your Columbia admission, but idk. Worth a shot

Vandy is pretty dead-set against negotiating at all. Maybe they might make an exception if OP came with another scholarship offer, but I can't reasonably see them upping their bid for only an acceptance at a higher ranked school, even CLS.

OP what are your stats? Any chance of retaking? Sticker at CLS would really suck, Vandy at 1/2 is still close to $200,000.

I got Vandy at 1/2 this year, and it's closer ~$160,000.

RedPurpleBlue wrote:

Cogburn1984 wrote:

Rubbishdump wrote:I imagine you could negotiate vandy close to full by leveraging your Columbia admission, but idk. Worth a shot

Vandy is pretty dead-set against negotiating at all. Maybe they might make an exception if OP came with another scholarship offer, but I can't reasonably see them upping their bid for only an acceptance at a higher ranked school, even CLS.

OP what are your stats? Any chance of retaking? Sticker at CLS would really suck, Vandy at 1/2 is still close to $200,000.

I got Vandy at 1/2 this year, and it's closer ~$160,000.

Not trying to be pedantic, but LST estimates ~190,000 for 50% scholly https://www.lstreports.com/schools/vanderbilt/costs/

Maybe their COL is off, I only briefly looked into the prospect of living in Nashville.

Cogburn1984 wrote:

RedPurpleBlue wrote:

Cogburn1984 wrote:

Rubbishdump wrote:I imagine you could negotiate vandy close to full by leveraging your Columbia admission, but idk. Worth a shot

Vandy is pretty dead-set against negotiating at all. Maybe they might make an exception if OP came with another scholarship offer, but I can't reasonably see them upping their bid for only an acceptance at a higher ranked school, even CLS.

OP what are your stats? Any chance of retaking? Sticker at CLS would really suck, Vandy at 1/2 is still close to $200,000.

I got Vandy at 1/2 this year, and it's closer ~$160,000.

Not trying to be pedantic, but LST estimates ~190,000 for 50% scholly https://www.lstreports.com/schools/vanderbilt/costs/

Maybe their COL is off, I only briefly looked into the prospect of living in Nashville.

Full disclosure, I don't include "personal expenses," because I always paid those w/o loans as an undergrad. It's usually needlessly high and 100% luxury spending. I went entire years spending $200 on "personal expenses" in UG, when it was estimated at $5,000. I also removed 75% of transportation and 25% for meals, because of my historical spending/scaling to Nashville. Maybe I'm just too used to the ramen life and bare minimum to understand why someone would actually max out their loans or pay a penny more than they need to. Gotta pay that shit back eventually. Rather live frugally now than later. Maybe $180k at 1/2 scholly is a reasonable middle ground where a normal person would reside.

I think an application to WUSTL is in order. Get accepted, tell them you got accepted to Columbia and they will likely throw a very generous (100%?) scholarship your way. Use that to negotiate with Vandy.

However, if you got accepted to Columbia I would like to believe you have options between them and Vandy that would offer you money. Northwestern, Duke, Cornell, Berkeley, UVA, Michigan - Did you apply to any of those? I think it's worth while, even if you paid the application cost.