Ask HN: Does College Choice Matter (And What Choice Would Be Best)

Hi, I'm currently a senior in high school who is looking at a number of choices for colleges:

* High-end, potentially competitive -- Stanford U.

* Great atmosphere, very fun, no engineering -- Reed College

* Potentially cheapest (not sure on this yet) -- Gonzaga U.

I plan on majoring in electrical engineering and I love really academic, non-competitive environments where I can freely philosophize and espouse my crazy ideas without them being stolen or whatnot. Does anyone with experience with these colleges (or not) have any advice or information for me?

Specific things that I wonder are: Would I probably get a better job if I went to Stanford? Is Stanford competitive or impersonal (think lots of grad students teaching classes)? Can anyone recommend any of those three colleges, and why? Is Reed or Stanford worth paying more over Gonzaga?

Let me know if you want clarification or whatnot. Thanks a lot!

4 comments

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msencenb 16y ago ↗

I am a current sophomore at Stanford University so my comment is going to be biased :p

So far I love the Stanford atmosphere (I am a CS student). Is it competitive? Yes, but I have found that CS isn't as competitive as pre-med. I only have ok grades (3.0 GPA at the moment) but the classes themselves I am learning a lot in, so grades aren't too much of a concern to me.

As far as jobs, Stanford engineering does a very good job putting together career fairs. We have 2-3 a year, plus a start-up fair, and a nonprofit fair. I have accepted an internship for the summer so I think internship placement is fairly good.

Also Stanford has a very good financial aid program, how much are your parents making?

If you have any more questions about Stanford I will do my best to answer!

delluminatus 16y ago ↗

I know Stanford's financial aid is excellent, but unfortunately we are basically making like $64,000 a year; just over the $60,000 limit for no parent contribution. =(

msencenb 16y ago ↗

My family makes about 100k a year and the parent contribution is only 17k (about the same I would have been paying for a state school).

What I'm saying is that it's a graduated scale so even though you are over the 60k limit you won't be expected to pay much

gexla 16y ago ↗

I had a little college but never graduated. Everything I do as a developer has been self taught. I would do the school thing to get the grades but spend as much time as possible outside of school.

Work on projects which will get people to take notice of what you are doing. Participate in open source projects. Perhaps start a business you can do on the side.

One of the things I found most interesting about my school were the projects that the schools researchers were working on which they could spin off as businesses. These researchers were willing to take students as interns and even eventual hires.

Many (most?) of this work is an interesting mix of tech and medical / natural / whatever sciences which went beyond my imagination. You might look for these sorts of opportunities at your prospective schools and start networking early. Offer to do grunt work (somebody has to do it) as a volunteer and work your way up from there.