It is hard to go into education policy without being in the classroom first and having that first hand, up close experience. You will have that at Vandy, Wash U etc (for free!).
You can certainly get there from Harvard, but it is not a direct path….and it is not free.
yeah, that’s the plan–to teach for a while and then hopefully end up somewhere in ed policy in the long run. my mom apparently “figured i’d be the secretary of education or a superintendent or something,” so the fact that the teacher shortage is significant enough that no one cares where one goes to undergrad doesn’t really matter to her. “there’s no way i end up being a teacher forever” is her thoughts. i’m not sure how much of a boost going to a big name for undergrad would even do for “bigger” positions like edsec or superintendent or whatever, but there are definitely some people i can ask. harvard does have a public policy major but looking at it seems to have a more criminal justice reform focus.
yeah–i have an advantage in terms of knowing a couple of people already there who can introduce me to people and stuff, but that’s definitely something i’m a little nervous about. my high school skews wealthy and white and somewhat cliquey, so i feel like i already have a bit of experience with navigating that sort of thing, but i guess i wouldn’t know for sure until i get there, and that would be a not fun realization if i’d made a mistake.
The superintendents that I know did not go to Harvard. They attended state schools.
Personally, as amazing as your Harvard acceptance is, I would take the money to Vandy or Wash U and go to Columbia for policy.
It seems that your mother feels like teaching is not prestigious enough. That’s not uncommon.
You can teach in a Title 1 school and write grants, get funding to set up stem labs or writing programs. You can even apply for funding to set up a publishing center. To me…that is a prestigious accomplishment.
You can certainly go into politics or become a superintendent…but that doesn’t typically happen without years of experience under your belt. Elizabeth Warren started off as a special education teacher.
Just FYI – I’m a former high school teacher (now a history professor – so I, too, wanted to teach but not forever). These days, as part of my job, I work with students in our teaching certification program. A few insights I can share:
You can get an undergrad degree in an academic discipline of interest and then do a post-BA or MA certification program. This is what I did (undergrad in history and American studies, one-year MA program in education with certification). This isn’t the best option for everyone, but it was for me, because I wanted an undergrad education that would allow me to pivot to a different career if I decided later that was best. I didn’t even know I wanted to teach until pretty late in the game. With my undergrad majors, I could have gone in any number of directions, and I wasn’t locked into teaching. So that’s one argument against an undergrad education major (though you could double-major).
You can’t (and shouldn’t) do anything in the upper ranks of K-12 education (admin, policy, etc.) if you haven’t spent several years in the classroom, preferably a public school classroom. So if you think you want to go into ed policy or admin, absolutely plan to get certified to teach first. You have different paths for doing that (see above), but you should plan to get certified one way or another.
A prestigious college degree is not what gets you hired as a K-12 teacher. You can get a prestigious degree (I did, and I got a job), but that’s not what hiring schools value, for the most part. They tend to trust well-known, vetted, local teacher ed programs. So if your ultimate goal is classroom teaching, you don’t need a big-name, expensive education to do that.
You can go to college wherever you want, but ultimately, you’ll need to be certified in the state where you want to teach. So you can do that in many ways. The simplest way is to get a BA in education with certification in the state where you plan to teach. Or you can get a BA where you want, in whatever discipline you want, then do certification post-BA program (cheaper and quicker than an MA). I did it in possibly the post complicated way: BA in my college and majors of choice (Ivy), MA in education in a T15 public in another state, actual certification (by exam, because I’d completed the course requirements in my MA) in the state where I actually taught. It worked for me because the degrees I got allowed for more options when I decided to move on from HS teaching. But it was more complicated than it needed to be. It would have been even more complicated had I chosen a state with more extensive certification requirements – in that case, I would have had more coursework to complete. (In fact – when I went to get my Ph.D. after a few years of teaching HS, I thought I could teach to earn some extra money, but the best I could do in my new state was a sub license, because despite my education, degrees, and certified teaching experience, that state had a such an extensive and atypical list of required courses for certification that I would have had to have taken a couple of years of classes before getting a full teaching certificate. Fortunately, that wasn’t what I wanted, but the point in telling this part of the story is to underscore the advantages of getting certified in the state where you plan to teach.)
What you should not do is get an undergrad degree in Ed Policy and expect to go into classroom teaching, unless you also major in a relevant discipline for classroom teaching (math, something related to social studies, or whatever). The EPS major alone will not qualify you for teaching certification, and you won’t have the content-area background, either.
All of this is to say – pick the school that’s best for you right now. You have wonderful acceptances, and many options and pathways to get you into the field of education, and you don’t need to pick the most expensive brand-name degree to do that. Harvard won’t provide opportunities that you can’t get from your other acceptances, so if you’re not absolutely feeling it, don’t choose it. If you want to get into education, probably eliminate the international schools, too.
wow, thank you for all of this!
definitely something i’ve thought about and will probably double major in. i guess i’m not totally set on what subject i’d like to teach (english, psychology, and potentially latin/classics all appeal to me) and if i’m honest i prefer the idea of taking education-related courses to english literature (example) classes. my interest in psychology skews more abnormal psych (diagnosis and treatment) and i’m also keeping in mind that psych classes tend to be much bigger than ed classes, and i’d prefer smaller/more discussion-based classes.
yes, that’s the plan–to go back and teach in a public school. maybe eventually ed policy, maybe higher ed (?), but the first step has always been teaching high school in my brain for the same reasons.
yep. and that’s what i told my parents. one of my mentors (latin teacher who wrote a letter of rec) did the ivy undergrad → teachers college pathway, but she didn’t give me the impression that the brand name degree really did much for her in that respect? although i will probably ask her more explicitly.
yes, that’s something i plan to consider! i’m not totally set on any particular state but it’s something i’m going to think about when choosing. i have a friend at harvard looking to go into ed, and am planning to pick their brain about their experiences.
yes, that’s what i was thinking–either major in secondary ___ education or dual major in an educational studies type program and english/psychology/classics/whatever. i like the idea of studying education through a systematic ed studies type lens, but i know it’s not necessarily practical for certification, so i plan to go by that as well.
thanks again for all the advice!
OP my daughter did Teach for America and spent close to 3 years in an inner city Title 1 school. Until you spend time in the classroom, it is really hard (and not recommended) to go into policy. She has an acquaintance who is in a totally unrelated field and is now in an Ed policy grad program- this doesn’t make any sense (not suggesting you will do this). You (not you specifically) really need to put in the time so that you understand the issues.
Not only is this true for policy, but it is also true for school admin roles etc.
Just as a data point - I have a good friend with a Harvard undergrad degree (25 years ago) who works in education. She started after graduation as a high school classroom teacher, moved up to administration, then consulting, now runs an educational nonprofit/thinktank. She would say she got a great education even if it wasn’t specifically focused on teaching, and the contacts she made at Harvard for high-dollar donors and networking have served her very well.
I agree with everyone that the opportunity to get free tuition is huge, and you should definitely go where you can see yourself engaging in the community and finding your just right fit socially and academically. But that doesn’t mean the prestige of the Harvard name and connections, even for a career in education, would be a bad idea either.
Well, to get certified, you will have to take a lot of ed studies courses – not policy, necessarily, but ed psych, maybe curriculum, methods, culturally responsive teaching, etc., in addition to field work (which includes student teaching).
If you can handle it (and based on your HS record it would seem you are), I would recommend a full major in whatever you find interesting (Psychology, Classics…) AND something like Secondary Ed or K-12 Social science or English/ELA/Humanities Teaching. Check that the 2nd curriculum includes a lot of classes that involve thinking and reading about education. See if they have a study abroad program where you’re immersed in a local university and their success in placing students in the Fullbright teaching program (where you spend a year as an assistant in a school abroad): both would allow you to discover a new education system from the inside with its good ideas, idiosyncrasies, and problems.
yes that’s the plan! always always always wanted to teach before touching admin work
Not sure what all others experience, but it seems in my county (Williamson TN which is a top school district) - many of our future administrators seem to go to Trevecca Nazarene - a school few have heard of. You see some MTSU and Tennessee State (a local HBCU that serves more than African American students).
I don’t know about your counties (other posters/readers) but for principals and administrators - I see a ton, especially of Trevecca Nazarene. I’m guessing they have a flexible for teachers who want to become administrator programs.
And I have a niece that went to a small LAC in Oregon and did graduate school at a flagship in the Pacific Northwest.
She’s now employed by a big flagship in the Southwest and doing her EdD degree at another public Arizona school.
She always says - I just need the degree - in any way I can afford it but the where won’t matter. I met one of her colleagues - he did undergrad at W&M, got his Masters at the flagship she’s employed by, and stayed on there with the Honors College. He didn’t have an EdD and I don’t think had plans.
There are likely a lot of ways to get where you want.
Dr. Mike Looney used to be the head of our district. He is now the super in Fulton County Alabama, a huge district with 90K kids.
Dr. Looney received his Educational Specialist degree and Doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Alabama and his bachelor’s degree in Business Management and master’s degree in Education from Jacksonville State University in Alabama.
Oh yeah, he was was a high school dropout.
Such an inspiration to me - and many where I live and I’m sure now in Atlanta.
The point - there are so many paths to take on your journey. You have 3 elite schools that have offered you a free ride - and that’s awesome.
The only constant here of all these full pay, merit and free tuition schools is you.
You will get your career where it needs to be, no matter which you choose to attend.
But my guess is the where doesn’t matter for your career goals, but you do - and that’s the ace you have up your sleeve.
Best of luck.
We are in a suburban NJ school district and the young teachers all went to local NJ schools. The ones who went to other schools almost uniformly did something else for many years and then decided to teach in their 30s or 40s
I am also hopeful that you choose Harvard. More opportunities in school and after than any institution in the world. Congratulations!
Given how you have described yourself, your interests and your goals, you should give another hard look at the Smith acceptance and scholarship. It sounds like a great fit for you. good luck.
This is key. I’m a professor at a liberal arts college that has an education major, and students are required to spend a full semester “student teaching” in a local elementary, middle, or high school as part of the major requirements. They are all placed with a veteran teacher and spend the semester shadowing, preparing lessons, and helping teach some classes. They get credit for this and have a reduced course load that semester because they’re expected in the classroom for several hours 3 days/week. Well, after 16 years of witnessing students go through the program, I can tell you that some of them decide to switch career plans. A full semester in the classroom is sometimes enough to know this is decidedly not what they want to do when they graduate. I regularly tell my colleagues over in the Ed department that this is one of the best aspects of their program.
Now of course people can discover this after graduating and teaching for a few years, but I think it’s invaluable experience for undergrads interested in education. I would choose a school that has your major.
i was going to do a reply to the schools that moved up/down but i’m not sure i have the energy right now so–a bullet pointed summary in no particular order:
washu:
vanderbilt:
harvard:
i’m feeling kind of weird about the fact that i haven’t toured upenn/northwestern/any of the other schools i got into and will probably start looking more into those as well, as i don’t want to run the risk of ignoring a school i would have been really excited about. my mom doesn’t think fit is necessarily worth sacrificing a “higher tier” of school for, and my dad just really doesn’t want to pay full price for a non-harvard school (he would, but he would grumble a little about it; my mom doesn’t care so much about the price). still have no idea what decision i’m going to make.
Keep in touch with students you’ve met, ask admissions and/or the relevant Depts to put you in touch with more 
I must say your comments about Vanderbilt make it sound like you felt it was a poor fit but you don’texactly know why, ie., you didn’t like a building’s location or that other students whom you may not like could major in the same college as you (but not the same major) and you worry the students who hosted you aren’t representative of the student body as a whole because you…liked them.
For Harvard and WashU the summary of the summary could be “no spark” 
I lived in Cambridge and Somerville for a few years and yeah – Harvard campus does have a lot of tourists, and never (to me) felt as cohesive as other campuses (e.g. Brown, Princeton, both of which I fell in love with).
I’m sensing that your parents would have a tough time seeing you turn down Harvard for any other full-pay school. That’s too bad – there are some great women’s colleges on that list, for example. I also think honestly that you’re probably the kind of person who could bloom wherever you choose to plant yourself. I did love living in the metro Boston area. We never needed a car. There is so much happening there in the ed/nonprofit space, so you’d probably have amazing internship opportunities. I personally never warmed to Harvard. Those recent articles that people are writing about how competitive a lot of the extracurriculars are on elite campuses? I think that was already true of Harvard in the 90s, at least according to my friend who was an undergraduate RA there. They were like the OG get-in-and-then-still-feel-like-you’re-competing-for-space school. But on the flip side…so many great volunteer opportunities. I got to work as an ESL/GED tutor in Chinatown, for example! And that Harvard name really does open doors – there might only be 3-4 other schools in the world that can claim the same level of name recognition (and you got into one of them).
I’ve thought that Wash U sounded amazing for you and am now wondering what kind of spark you were looking for. I did hear from a friend who visited recently that their math department was pretty awesome. I like that they aren’t making you justify your medication needs. (■■■, Vandy?) Have you done any head-to-head comparisons to see what your instincts are telling you? Also wondering if you’ve connected with other admits via social media and gotten a broader sense of who’s out there. (maybe you mentioned that you have, above; I’m too lazy to scroll.)
You definitely ruled out Cambridge due to ADHD, right? That must have been a tough one to let go of…