@Eve: after some tears and a good amount of spreadsheeting/anxiety, I ended up turning down Penn... been a dream to go to SLS for a while and want to "bet on myself" to use my mentor's words :-)
still waiting on financial aid! but upon initial conversations I'd be taking out $170k. so I did a lot of worst case scenarios about salaries/LRAP/ what it would look like to pay it off this morning and decided I can live with those worst-case (and unlikely) options so it seems worth it
@Pongleton: CEHS already expired lmao. But realistically if I choose HLS now that's my final decision unless UChicago gives me a Ruby or I hear back from YLS.
ohhh gotcha! one other thing is I figured I'm most likely going to be median wherever I go. And I'm more risk-averse than debt-averse, so want to give myself my best shot to chase any crazy dreams I come up with and it seems like H/S would allow that a bit more than Penn
Agreed. And part of my rationalization for HLS is that when I’m years into my career making good money, I would look back wondering why I stressed so much over this decision that I paid back relatively quickly.
like if you have any unique or secret goals that would be your big passion if they happened, I think it's worth it to make that bet and give yourself the chance. as my lovely pal geauxblue said "dreams are worth a lot"
I'd definitely recommend looking at what your monthly loan repayment would be after HLS and maybe doing like a spreadsheet/budget. that helped me a lot this morning to kind of make a fake plan with different salaries and go through the whole process of making a monthly budget while paying off loans/using LRAP/not using LRAP/ etc. Clarifying the "what-ifs" really really helped (and seeing that I CAN live comfortably -albeit a bit tight - even when paying off the loans)
Also might be worth sitting in both the decisions for a bit of time. like split the evening (or split tonight/tomorrow, not sure when your deadline is) to "commit" yourself to both options internally. do a little play pretend of what life would look like/what classes you'd take/etc. and see how you feel with that decision "made"... might maybe help to provide clarity about which option feels best?
good luck with making the choice <3 I'm sure you'll make the best decision for yourself & feel free to message me on discord (if you have it) (@pongleton) if you wanna chat it out any more :-)