Yeah, you can’t stack discounts. As long you got the best deal available!

Awesome! Did you use the education discount? I forgot to mention that.

Here’s my advice as a Senior Undergraduate Computer Science student and Tier II Service Technician at Apple (a bit biased, I know): get a Mac. If you have the money, a 14" MacBook Pro with M3 Pro, 18 GB of memory, and 512 GB SSD. You won’t regret it. Coming from a Windows PC (a high-end one), I’ve never once thought about switching back. The Mac will outlive the PC in many ways and last a full day of moderate to heavy use. The number of peers in my program who tell me they’re considering a Mac but never buy one and yet complain about how slow or buggy their PC is is astounding.

If you can’t afford a MacBook Pro, buy a MacBook Air with the M3 chip (at least M2) and 16GB of memory (DO NOT buy 8GB).

You can thank me after you graduate with a 3.5+ GPA :)

There’s a 90-day warranty on Genius Bar repairs. Also, in your situation, it’s best to call the store directly and arrange a repair reservation for your Mac. Don’t expect technicians to agree because it would be an exception but if you’re kind and explain your situation I don’t see why they might say no. The only issue is that if the repair is completed in-store, there’s a 3-5 day turnaround time. The other option is to have an Apple repair center complete the repair and ship your computer back straight to you.

For me, it’s about the weight. The 16" is that much heavier that I chose to go with a 14". For reference, I am a developer and also have a 27" monitor (Studio Display). I think 14" is the right size for almost everyone.