| I certainly agree with #4, more money is always better.
#1 depends. The best college for an individual student is the one where that student will thrive. This not necessarily the college with the most talented student body. It can be difficult, to say the least, to be at the bottom of the entering class in academic talent. Here fit is very important, and fit might mean passing up the college with the best students in favor of one where a student would be near the mean.
2. Depends on the student. Some really need to get to know their professors. However, there are lots of people who went to stereotypical huge state universities and loved it. They got great educations, but not the personal attention. The challenge is for each student to figure out how important this is.
3. I agree this is important, but it is almost impossible to measure. About the best one can do is seek individual testimonials from students in the broad fields that interest someone, since this can vary across departments within one college.
To extend the coach analogy, there are fundamental differences in the job of a coach of a club team for young kids, playing the game for the first time, and that of the coach in a major professional sport. The professional coach can assume an extraordinarily high level of commitment and developed skill in the players, and the job is to focus on further improvement. Much of the athlete's time outside of practice is devoted to the sport, and that level of outside engagement is simply assumed at the pro level. A high school athlete at a pro practice might not even understand what the coach was talking about. This would not mean the coach is bad, just that what is needed at the pro level is different. Similarly, many of the characteristics that make for a great elementary school teacher are simply different from what is required for advanced undergrad teaching. |