Deciding between schools

School admission
#1

Hello, I’ve seen some topics/responses relating to this but was just wondering if you had more specific insight on how to decide on a school.
I was accepted into several schools and narrowed it down to my top two choices. One of them is within the top 10 rankings listed on this site, the other is in the early 20’s ranking.

I looked through both curriculums and they seem really good/fairly equal. I am fine with the location for both to temporarily live in. Really the only real differences are Reputation and Cost. (I’m also not really considering career assistance because I don’t plan to live in either state after graduating, so I didn’t think that mattered?)

The overall cost of the higher ranked one will be approximately 20,000 more than the lower ranked one.
I am leaning more towards the higher ranked one because, even before seeing your list, I knew it had a higher reputation and it felt like my hard work paid off being accepted there and I don’t want to pass up what feels like a great opportunity. At the same time, I don’t know if it’s worth that much more if companies don’t really care where you got your degree, and if it doesn’t make a difference in salary.

I’m wondering, from your experience, your classmates experience/where they have jobs, and your coworkers, how important is a school’s reputation? Could it be worth that extra money?
Do you have any coworkers who were from the mid or lower ranked schools or did a bootcamp?

Thanks for any advice.

#2

Hi,

Congrats on your offers! To answer your questions:

How important is a school’s reputation? Could it be worth that extra money?
It’s really hard to put a price tag on the “reputation”. It’ll depend on so many random factors (e.g. your financial situation, your peers, connection you establish, courses you take…etc) Perhaps you can ask yourself if you would have any regret if you pick the lower ranking one and end up having an underwhelming experience? The same can happen if you pick the higher ranking one though, but I think it might be easier to come to term with it since you’ve picked the best you could.

Do you have any coworkers who were from the mid or lower ranked schools or did a bootcamp?
Based on my observation among coworkers under 30, most of them come from reputable HCI/UX programs, but of course there’re always exceptions.