I’ve been giving it a great deal of thought this weekend, and I’m starting to lean toward skipping the schools that don’t give out merit based financial aid. In other words, Harvard and Stanford. My reasoning goes as follows:
- If I am qualified for Harvard and Stanford, I should also be qualified for Kellogg, Yale and Columbia, which are all good names and I would never have to apologize or explain the decision to go to any of them.
- I want to work in the non-profit sector after graduation, so I will not see the large salaries that my peers will.
- This is a $150,000 venture. If I qualify for a scholarship or fellowship and can graduate with less debt then I seriously need to consider it.
I have been starting to have doubts about whether I actually want to go to H & S (for various reasons) and I’m aware that I need to keep my applications targeted and keep the number down to a reasonable minimum so that this process does not burn out me or my recommenders, and really so that none of us are wasting our time. So this may not be final, but for now my revised list of target schools is:
- Columbia
- Yale SOM
- Kellogg
- Georgetown
- Haas
This is in order of preference, although I don’t want to apply for Columbia’s early decision because of the crazy “I’m not interested in any school but you” oath that you have to take – and financial aid offerings could have an impact on my order of preference.
Sigh… Sometimes this seems far too complicated. I’m hoping that my trip to Boston brings some answers. Just three more days till I leave!
