Momo that is great for your son.
May I ask what was the thought on picking a land grant school for your S?
@dadof3and1dog He decided on a land grant school for their strong and long history in agriculture. A lot of their funding, facilities and emphasis have gone into these programs over the years. Many of them also have veterinary colleges attached and all we looked at had great knowledge of what vet schools were looking for. They also had broad knowledge of other jobs with the degree in case vet school didn’t work out or he changed his mind.
When he did his initial look at the schools online he noticed he was drawn to those schools. The ones he narrowed it down to also had excellent scholarships for Animal Science, excellent Biology departments (his classwork was almost closer to a Bio major because of the choices he had), Honors colleges, and study abroad. He wanted a larger school but it was ok if it was in a smaller town.
The key I feel is find the school that fits you and your child. Our thought process was a little different than a lot of people here but our son knew what he wanted.
Research was fantastic at our school. My son was able to be hired by research center at the school and his gf has won so many scholarships due to her cancer research it isn’t even funny. (She is a bio major and pre-med with a 4.0 average finishing her Junior year). He never felt the school was too large. For him the key was the visit. He felt at home there the moment he walked on campus even though he wasn’t sure he would like it. Early admit to vet school was a BIG plus for us too.
Good luck and just look at the program, look where the graduates are hired, look at what graduate programs they go to, look where she will be happy! And of course look at cost.
Thanks for the feedback momof
Several years ago, after picking 2 backups and several matches per our request, my kid picked just one college out of HYPSM (no rankings for us) that fit him the best and applied there as a very long shot. He got into his long shot college and is going there. But because of COVID-19, all colleges seem same to me because almost all courses are offered via online. IMO, whatever “value” of attending “top” college has gone down due to effects of COVID-19. Personally, I don’t think there is all that much difference between online course offered from a community college via ZOOM and online course offered by HYPSM. What made it worth for my kid to attend one of HYPSM was the internships, opportunities to study in other countries and cities, learning activities offered outside classroms and the physical exchanges with professors and other students – all the things that are not possible via online.
I feel COVID-19 is just a beginning of virus diseases to come due to over-population and growing developments encroaching into animals’ thousand years old living spaces. I truly hope I am wrong.
OP - sorry I may have posted earlier without actually answering the question. I think rankings are useful in the beginning, but with a few caveats because context is pretty important when using rankings. You definitely have to know what they’re based on and you should use them for general ideas not to say that #21 is definitely than #22, which kids will do of course. Once you get further in the college admissions process, they’re probably not as useful.
A lot of surveys rankings use are garbage in garbage out too, so you have to watch for that.
What about the actual content of the online program, subject matter expertise, and experience of the professor. Is there no difference from a part-time community college professor and a full-time tenured professor at an elite college who has won numerous national and international awards or has excellent work experience in the field?
For example, last year Duke had a journalism class with a professor from the NY Times whom they flew down to campus each week to teach the class. Even if the class was taught online now, don’t you think the expertise and real world experience would be more beneficial to the Duke students than a similar online class at middle East Missouri junior college taught by a part-time professor who works at the local Ozark tribune?
In general, top colleges have the money, technology, and faculty expertise to make the undergrad education top notch whether it’s in-person or online. In addition, getting a world-class education is much, much more than how you “attend” a class.
As for the specific question on how useful is ranking, I don’t think ranking matters at all because after you come up with several matches and backups, a long reach is just that, a long reach. You just pick one school you want to attend over any other school and go for it. I don’t believe in applying to 5 long reach colleges because I feel it’s better to spend more time and effort on one long reach application.
I mean there are always exceptions, but I feel there is a limit to what you can do online; definitely narrows the gap. A lot of what my kid learned at college, i.e., real world experience came from his participation in student organizations of special interests, projects of his own choosing based on motivation and summer internships abroad. I don’t think what we are saying is all that different. It’s my personal opinion that if all courses are taught online for 4 years, it’s not worth the difference in money to go to top colleges. Perhaps not a small local community college but any top 150 ranked college in USA.
" more beneficial to the Duke students than a similar online class at middle East Missouri junior college
Sure, I think even the students and administration at East Missouri college would agree with you, but you shouldn’t be condescending about it and denigrate community colleges. Note - I didn’t attend one but know many people who did that I’m not going to let a comment like that pass.
I think the subject rankings are somehow useful with certain degree. I do check them from time to time. Not much difference, in my opinion, among top five schools at least, for any subject.