[jrj3rd]

Talk to the Tech Support folks at the school. Listen to their recommendations. When my son was getting his Mechanical Engineering degree a couple of years ago the school's tech store sold both Macs and PCs. His Macbook Pro 15 was sold at a discount and came with 4 years of Apple Care at no cost (plus at the time a free Canon printer and Ipod Touch). By buying through the Techstore he got on campus Apple care support and the one time he needed a repair the store handed him another machine to use while his was out being worked. Also do not buy software before he gets there to check out what the school offers. School my daughter is now attending gives free licenses to software (online downloads of MS Office and most Adobe products as well as lots of specialized software) I recently downloaded the full Adobe Photoshop suite when she was home....zero cost, and carries full license. Lots of special programs for students - take advantage of them and save lots of $$$