Student Stories
Jijun Chow ’09
Flushing, N.Y.
Major: Nuclear engineering
MIT has been my first choice for as long as I can remember. For me, the decision wasn’t based on applying to a lot of schools and seeing which one gave me the most money. I simply wanted to come to MIT, and if accepted I was going to make it work financially.
Coming from a traditional Chinese family, my education has always been a huge priority for my parents. They’ve always told me, “Apply wherever you want to; we’ll support you and work as hard as necessary to be able to send you there.”
But I felt badly asking my parents to do all the work, so I started looking into additional sources of aid on my own, such as outside scholarships.
My high school has a great alumni network that serves as a valuable resource to current students when they apply to college. At one of their meetings, the alumni coordinator handed out information about a scholarship that was sponsored by The New York Times. I applied, not really expecting anything to come of it.
When I got the call telling me I’d been chosen to receive the scholarship, I couldn’t believe it. It would cover my self-help offer, so I wouldn’t have to take loans or work during the school year.
The icing on the cake was that the scholarship included a summer internship component. It was great! I worked for the financial director of the Systems and Technology department, who was actually an MIT alum. I developed models for predicting printing costs at the many New York Times locations around the country.
| Financial aid package (2005-06) | |
| MIT scholarship and federal grants | $35,700 |
| Outside scholarship | $7,500 |
| Total aid package | $43,200 |
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