Universities

One of the reason I made the trip to US was to visit the top Universities. Yaya will be in Grade 11 this year and I felt she needed an opportunity to see the University campus and talk to students and staff. We visited all the Uni’s in her list. Stanford, UCLA, Princeton, Harvard and Columbia. My son only wanted to visit MIT and we visited MIT as well.

Before I made the trip, I contacted my cousin to ask him about arranging campus visits. He has been living in US for the past 25 years and was under the impression that Ivy League colleges are very expensive. It isn’t true. If your child is an all rounder and got a pretty good SAT score and managed to be in  the top 5% of the applicants, the chances are pretty good that he or she will get the admission and you will only pay the fees according to your annual income.

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/ivy-league-schools-are-surprisingly-cheap-net-tuition-2013-8.

Of all the Universities we visited, I loved Princeton the best. I felt a tinge of jealousy when we did the campus tour at Princeton. I wished  I was given a chance to study there.. ( if only wishes were horses….).

Yaya loved Harvard and Princeton the most.

Yaya also loved the fact that she doesn’t have to choose her subjects in the first year as she has no idea ( yet) to what she wants to study and is allowed to change her subjects any time in the first two years.

My son met with the admissions officer at MIT. He was told that he is on the right track by virtue of him doing the maths acceleration program, his interests in robotics and his community involvement. They also highly value the IB diploma. Last year 18,000 students applied to MIT and 1500 got the admission. As we were leaving after the interview,my son told the admissions officer that he is not interested in applying to any other colleges and that he will see her in 4 years time.

The million dollar question is, will my children get the admission in one of the top Uni’s? and the honest answer is, I don’t know. What I do know is that if you are determined, there is nothing that stops you from achieving your dreams.

5 thoughts on “Universities

  1. Agree with you wholeheartedly!
    Princeton and Harvard campuses are beautiful!
    Merit scholarships are highly competitive. I am sure your kids will do well and get into schools of their choice!

    • MS: There is a difference in Merit Scholarship and grant. Princeton and other Ivy league schools do not offer Merit Scholarships. What they offer is a grant, which is linked to your annual income. No child admitted to Princeton will ever have to give up their seat because they can’t afford the fees. The grants are not a loan and do not have to be paid back.

    • Santhia: Indian schools believe in churning out clones.. they neither have the time, nor the interest in developing creativity or individualism. So there is no way they would offer a student options.

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