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UChicago 2011 here as well, except actually class of 2010 because I couldn't afford to keep paying the tuition as my parents were both unemployed due to the financial crisis. I remember the financial aid office saying they could use the last two or three years of prior income rather than consider unemployment as a current and urgent condition. They literally said something along the lines of, "Your parents are smart, they will find a job soon, statistically speaking." They also capped my work at 20 hours a week as an employee of the University, which made it really fun for various departments to pay me via bonuses instead.

I feel you, and had a very similar experience academically and socially. It's not easy to get by minimal GPA filters when math professors declared that a C would be a great grade worthy of a good recommendation to a PhD in math. There's no easy way to tell that to an HR screener! I also found to great sadness by the end of my first year that I had more online friends than classmate friends. Looking back, it seems this was the time when the university just started to realize that it needed to prepare students for practical work. And that sort of experience can be gained at a lot of different universities.

That is absolutely horrible.

I got in to University of Chicago, but the finances were rough. They expected my parents to pay around 30% of their (combined) income in tuition after scholarships and loans. Presumably this would have dropped when my brother entered college a year after me, but given that I got into other schools that cost less than half as much it wasn't really a question.

My parents didn't really know what to tell me because on one hand they felt like they were being punished for not making profligate decisions like going into debt for a fancy car or buying a bigger house, but on they other hand they didn't really want to outright tell me not to go somewhere like U of Chicago.

Made me feel like college admissions spiels saying not to worry about finances were a lip-service scam designed to make college look accessible while mostly benefiting the rich and very poor and screwing those in-between.

Went to a state university instead, but never really fit in there. Too much alcohol, greek life, and sports.

In any case, I don't mean to imply that my parents didn't have a decent income, just that the way things worked made them feel like they were being punished for trying to be financially responsible, and being asked to pay the equivalent of a 2nd mortgage for your kid's college only for them to be in debt on top of it anyway, and not knowing how things would work once they had a 2nd kid in college wasn't a strong sell. Even though they didn't say not to go there, I would have felt super super guilty about saying yes.

Fun fact: the scholarship U of Chicago offered would have covered the cost of attendance at each other college I got into and then some, but still didn't cover even half of the cost of attendance there.

just that the way things worked made them feel like they were being punished for trying to be financially responsible

100% feel you, as I my son just started UCSD. He was looking at a bunch of private colleges and I did the financial aid (for early decision) and it was really shitty. I felt that because I had so much equity in my house and no debt, I was screwed. And, when the numbers came back, it was true. Very little help.

I have a work friend who has a very close friend. They're both Dr's pulling down > $500k/yr, but with huge debt. Their kid got into Princeton and they paid $15k/yr. I was more than double that for some equivalent schools, but I make far, far less than $500k/yr.

Very glad he decided on UCSD.

So is the life advice to go massively in debt (and jack up your income) before your kids apply to colleges? How far in advance do you have to go massively in debt?

EDIT: Looking at Princeton's financial needs calculator, assuming a constant income, to maximize your financial aid you should: - Reduce your assets: Buy a really expensive house, have nothing in savings/investments/other equity - Reduce your income: Pay a ton for private school tuition, medical expenses, or child support.

EDIT 2: Looking around some more, apparently FAFSA doesn't consider: Your primary residence Your car A boat you may own or furniture in your home Untaxed Social Security as income

Here comes my big house / Bugatti / yacht!

>mostly benefiting the rich and very poor

Not quite just the very poor: U Chicago gives free full tuition to students from families making under $125k.

But as for the very poor at nearly every other private college, the picture is more bleak: The average private is in the ballpark of $35k. Maximum grants from the feds and state of Illinois total about $16k. That's not enough. However, it is generally plenty for attending any public state school.

The most squeezed bracket financially are families making around $65k a year. They earn too much and so lose a large portion of need based grant eligibility, and have and "estimated family contribution" (EFC) 3 or 4 times higher than families making not too much less. Even state schools are difficult here. My recommendation to such families is to begin by getting an associate's degree for 1/3 the cost for those 2 years, then only pay the higher rate to finish the bachelor's degree in the last 2 years.

It's true families making > $100k a year are expected to contribute the lion's share, absent merit scholarships, but they also tend to be families with assets, including houses with equity they can leverage, to help pay. Yes, it sucks to have to do that, but many thousands of families in the $65k bracket are much worse off without even that option.

To be clear, I'm not really disputing what you said on that topic: I just wanted to add more detail and nuance.

Source: I work in Higher Ed analytics.

When I was accepted that ($125k) policy didn't exist or we'd have been included, though in the upper half. I'd likely have chosen to go there if it had existed then.

That said it sounds like the general situation I described is somewhat true overall.

Yep, your comments were largely correct. I just wanted to add a bit more context and detail. I didn't intend it to come across as a disagreement.

I didn't take it as disagreement!

No, you guys need to quit the platitudes.

You need to do something about your “fixed” meritocratic society where your future is largely determined by your parents’ wealth.

You need tax reform, healthcare, cheaper education. I had a discussion with an American friend recently, he offered that the American society has produced marvels such as Google and Facebook and Tesla and countless others, fair point.

Can you imagine a new social media today competing with Facebook? A new search engine? Wanna open a retail online store? AWS will eat you alive.

I grew up thinking America was the greatest country on earth, truly. You know who also had some absolutely amazing achievements? The Egyptian pharaohs.

Non American here. They seem to be the greatest country on earth. They have a big problem with the gap between the rich and the poor but have huge upward mobility.

The education system is too expensive and a bit of a scam but does that cause the problems people think it does. Can you make it in the US without a degree?

Social mobility in the USA is actually much lower than in other developed countries.

Social mobility is basically invariant across societies, with a heritability of about 0.7 according to Gregory Clark’s research (A Farewell to Alms, The Son Also Rises, the upcoming For Whom the Bell Curve Tolls). The difference is explained by the number of generations covered.

It's not the best in the USA but I understand it's not terrible. https://www.oecd.org/centrodemexico/medios/44582910.pdf

It's also incredibly complex so perhaps it was a silly thing for me to comment on as I don't think it's that easy to define or measure.

upward mobility doesn't scale well. USA is doing epic for the scale on the upward mobility. If you were born here or get to become a citizen you've won a lottery compared to the bottom 50% of the world. To claim much worse and to be a US citizen is to say you've 'earned winning the lottery' .. Not to build up the US or put down any other country just the way it is imo

They do measure it though, and the best measurements show that the USA does not compare favourably to other developed nations at all.

I think the line commentators tend to use is “the American Dream is alive and well, in Denmark”

> Can you make it in the US without a degree?

Absolutely.

* This being HN, I should point you can make it in IT/software without a degree though you must start at the low-end and climb from there.

* Skilled blue collar work has its limits but provides an accessible career more than capable of supporting a family.

* Military service has its drawbacks but has quite cushy benefits.

* For the ambitious, service-based small businesses are easier than ever.

While it's possible to make it in the US without a degree, I'd recommend more of a middle ground of a 2 or 4-year degree from a local college or state school.

Americais and always has been fantastic place if you're part of the upper 20% and dog shit for everyone else. We just have great propaganda.

The Thirteen Colonies were the richest group of states under the British and as the US grew it continued to be land rich and labour poor. Americans were noticeably taller than Europeans until week after WWII. The rest of the world has caught up some but the US is without a doubt in the top ten by GDP per capita though competing with city states and what would be individual states there. Measured by average individual consumption it’s probably number 1. The US may not be a good place to be in the bottom 10%, possibly even the bottom 20% but by standards of living for normal people nowhere else compares.

> The US may not be a good place to be in the bottom 10%, possibly even the bottom 20% but by standards of living for normal people nowhere else compares.

Arguably, not even the bottom 50%. Even a minor medical issue can tank middle-class families.

OTOH, you're in the top 30% of the bell curve there is nowhere else better than the US.

I mean, imagine telling that to people living in poor countries.

Please travel or read about the world to get some perspective.

Seriously, if you were born in a country like the U.S. in modern times, you won the birth lottery.

Nah. Winning the lottery is being born in a country with free health care and education. Being born in the US is OK at best.

>Seriously, if you were born in a country like the U.S. in modern times, you won the birth lottery.

Agreed. The lottery won is for starting position in a game where participation is not choosen and objective you choose determines position ranking.

I totally disagree. I was raised in a family of 8 kids, we didn't have any money. All my siblings and friends have had a good shot at the American dream, most of us have done quite well.

I've also lived in several different states. Haven't seen anything even close to 80% dog crap. Not even close.

> No, you guys need to quit the platitudes.

Uh-huh

> You need to do something about your “fixed” meritocratic society where your future is largely determined by your parents’ wealth.

> You need tax reform, healthcare, cheaper education.

Please continue your nuanced argument with a straw-man.

I'm a graduate of Uchicago (from shortly after you), and to offer a different perspective, I'm still paying off my loans (and will be for another 6 years), but I'm incredibly glad I went. I thought the undergraduate experience was perfect, and about half of my friends from around the world are people I met while I was there. I did get much worse marks that I had ever gotten before, but the University being very difficult is part of the package.

One question: I think a large part of the social experience for me was based around the house system. Even though I moved out of my house when I was a second-year, the house and dorm I was in provided a big chunk of my social network. Did you not have a good experience with your house? And if so, were you placed in the house you wanted to be in?

So how does having more realistic grades (i.e. not everyone gets B or above) feel when it comes to graduate admissions?

I went to the university with the hardest admissions score for EE, some of the brightest people I've met, graded on a curve, and yet for graduate admissions I'm competing with people who took much easier classes and ALL have much better marks. The GPA system is just insane really.

It helps a lot if the university you're coming from had a reputation for difficulty and grade deflation. Academia is incestuous enough that people will usually be clued into that.

Barring that, having excellent rec letters and GRE scores, having been published or done research in a lab, having written an undergraduate thesis etc can all help provide signal that you'll make a good candidate for the department you're applying to. I don't know much about EE departments, but generally grad school admissions will be more holistic and thoughtful than undergrad admissions.

Well, I found UdeM pretty awful, difficult to talke to anyone, took a long time and really screwed me around. In retrospect I would say hard avoid based on the incompetence of the admin (DIRO specifically). It seems like if you're coming from overseas they really don't know what to do, and its impossible to get past the admin. In retrospect, talk to professors first, do admin process second, and allow at least 12 months for the process.

I don't know what's happened in the last 25 years since I last went. But my college started testing the snot out of incoming freshmen. Basically they didn't trust the students GPA or the classes they took in high school to tell whether they were ready for college level classes.

Ace the GRE and get letters of recommendation and it doesn't matter.

Different schools do the sibling calculation differently. I had the same experience you describe in my third year at Swarthmore, which jacked up the "parental contribution" after my brother graduated from Carleton College. But Carleton does things differently, with the same parental contribution each year. They know going in how many siblings you have and just come up with a flat rate that you pay each year.

Each method has its pros and cons: the flat-rate method gives certainty, and the adjustable method is more appropriate if you don't know whether siblings will actually go to college. It seems the most important thing is for each institution to communicate which method they are using, so nobody gets a rude awakening.

caveat: my data points are 15 yrs old

I'm curious what you think could have convinced you to attend a state school as opposed to where you went? Did you know the state school was a viable option at the time? Did your parents push you toward a state school, were they upfront with you about the cost difference?

I agree with your last line, but am unsure how we would best implement that as a practicality. Young people tend not to always think in the most efficient ways, and parents aren't always knowledgeable nor around to help.

One thing I remember from my college admission process years ago was how overhyped it all was, especially the soap opera aspect. Everything was about numbers, and where you would get in, and where you would 'fit,' which was far more ambiguous, sinister, and completely unrooted in any logic or reasoning because you just aren't going to ever understand what your personal experience will be like until you get there.

Fretting about 'fit' keeps schools like u chicago alive. A radically unwise decision in pursuit of some romantic youthful ideal. Otherwise, everyone would just go to a state school, have largely the same college experience, end up with largely the same career outcomes, but with far less debt.

Sorry to hear that. I graduated the same year as you but had an incredibly positive experience, and one I look on more and more fondly over time. Having said that, I immediately recognize that IT IS NOT for everybody. There are a few peculiarities about the school that can really make it or break it for you, even beyond simply the matter of fit. To me the house system was the epicenter of my social life, and I know full well that had I simply been assigned to a different random group of people my experience could have been significantly different and possible way worse.

What’s the reasoning behind the discount for siblings? Seems strange to me that this would affect the cost of tuition.

They squeeze everybody for as much as they’ve got.

More kids in school translates to greater financial need per kid.

Ah, any school. I thought this was about siblings attending the same school.

What do you mean by grade deflation? I've heard of grade inflation (mostly in the context of college admissions), but not deflation.

Grades are determined by curves. There's no absolute scoring in most university classes, especially in engineering and science programs.

Professors usually draw something similar to a bell curve along the grade distribution and set the average to be a particular grade. Grade inflation would be setting the average to something high (as practiced at Harvard this is usually an A-).

Grade deflation which both U Chicago and my alma mater Johns Hopkins are notorious for has professors set the average grade to a B-/C+. In classrooms full of students who have excelled their entire life, where the average represents a pretty high standard of work and achievement, setting the average to a B- is grade deflation.

Did your parents not know that your sibling would graduate college before you did. Strange thing to be livid about.