"The problem with this thinking is state flagships might not be the best fit for many students. I know several CA students who didn’t even apply to any in-state colleges even though we have some for the “best” college systems in the US.
That can only be for the people that can afford it. 85% of CA grads that go to college are at a UC, CSU or a C/C. 11% are at an OOS, majority of which are public flaghsips (Wash, Ari, Oregons). That leaves 4% that go instate private, the high SES students tha can get in to Cal Tech and Harvey Mudd say, and afford it.
“For example, if your a student who wants a liberal arts education, no Greek system, and a smaller undergrad population in an urban environment, than UM would not be a good fit, no matter what the cost.”
Again, if you can afford a Pomona or Claremont, sure that applies, otherwise it’s we can’t afford it, no matter how great the college is.
On the other hand, the assumption that an Ivy or a private “elite” is always the best fit for any kid who is accepted is just as false. The advantage of a large flagship is that is a good fit for a much wider range of students than any smaller college, including the private ones.
My second child was accepted to a number of highly-ranked engineering programs, and ended up going to a state flagship in a region of the country that is openly regarded with disdain by a number of people here on CC.
I’d be lying to say finances played no role—it wasn’t the financially best offer, but it was a sneeze away from it—but the thing that really tipped it was the sort of research the faculty in her intended program (industrial engineering) were doing. She wasn’t even worried about “fit”—not classifiable on a spreadsheet, so to her mind it’s a made-up factor, and she’s managed to convince me that for her, yeah, it would have been.
I mean, I do think she’s the sort of person who could have been happy anywhere (well, maybe not the place where effectively all of the IE research was aerospace-related), but she made the right choice for her, and I honestly don’t think prestige—getting fully back to the question in the original post—ever began to enter into it for her. She’s good enough at math that she could tell that the results of all the prestigiosity lists can be predicted not by the characteristics of the schools themselves but rather by the weighting given each factor, so she discarded it as unimportant. (ABET accreditation, on the other hand, she wasn’t going without. And honestly, if a program is ABET accredited, it’s ABET accredited—Georgia Tech and Northeastern don’t get a special extra-prestigious seal of approval from ABET, after all.)
We’ve always thought of it in terms of “value added.”
We don’t necessarily always look for a bargain, but when we do pay top dollar it has to be “worth it” for us. I have a coworker who payed $2500 for a prom dress and shoes. I would never. My daughter got her dress at the Thrift store. I did pay $200 for the shoes, which I thought was too much. My daughter is going to Spain for her senior trip with her class, and I bought her front row tickets for her fav performer. These are the things we value as a family.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, different people value different things. I have no problem paying for the things WE value. Sometimes the difficulty is figuring it out.
With colleges we are super lucky to have Michigan and MSU, both I consider top notch schools…for different reasons. Im just glad my DD has come around to our way of thinking, Her school really pushes the top schools…both for admissions and attending. They have students at almost all the top schools, and UofM loves apps from her school…25% of the graduating classes end up there.
You can only hope that if you instill the right values in yer kid, they will make the rights decisions most of the time…even when you’re are not looking.
A few years before graduating HS my DS came home raving about Cornell, after a teacher told him how great Cornell was. We tried to support him through the application process and he was admitted. He went there on an admitted students tour then he decided to go with friends to an admitted students session at UVA. He came home saying he decided to go to UVA, somewhat to my dismay. He had an excellent job offer with signing bonus after his Jr year internship and had paid off his college debt in about 1 year. He never regretted his decision for a minute.
For me the lesson is that these High Reaches are really good for all the schools, especially the public flag ships, because they motivate ambitious students and get accross the message that college is not easy, you don’t take it for granted, and it is expensive. If these High Reaches have less than 10% admit rate and assuming most of the applicants are qualified, where are all these “rejects” going?
The “rejects” who are perfectly qualified for Cornell are going to other very good schools. They are working hard, getting internships, developing relationships, doing research, etc.
This holds true whether they are at Ohio State honors, Tulane, or Colgate…
I heard the rumor that, on moonless nights, they stand next to the Goldman Sachs Corporate Office in NY, and stare up at the windows, dreaming of what could have been…
Original post is about an insignificant number of families who actually face this dilemma (having high EFC & ivy acceptations both is quite rare) and they aren’t well-represented here.
Your question is flawed as it’s not unpopular but the most popular decision to pick most affordable college.
@CupCakeMuffins - I believe your interpretation of my question may be “flawed” as it says nothing about affordability though the discussion at points did take that direction. My question is inquiring about whether a family made the decision, why, and if there are regrets. While affordability may have been one of the reasons why, it was not necessarily the only reason.
But then the question is, what type of choice is the “unpopular” one? (Based on the original thread title, not the changed one when it was made a featured thread.)
“unpopular to some”, were the original words that I posted but it’s not really important at this point because so many have understood my intent and answered my question which was very helpful.
You know, “to some” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, innit?
I mean, I can think of a number of college attendance decisions that are unpopular to some, based on both observation here on CC and national opinion polling:
[ul][]Going to an “undermatch” college
[]Choosing the most selective college available
[]Making a college decision based purely on finances
[]Choosing a college that requires a sizable loan burden
[]Going to a college far from home
[]Going to a college close to home
[]Not going to college
[]Going to college[/ul]
…et cetera.
Number of families with no affordability issue and Ivy acceptances yet rejecting Ivies are very very small niche group. You won’t get many of them on Internet forums.
We are not discussing picking comparable schools like MIT, Stanford, U Chicago, Hopkins, Oxford, Amherst or CalTech over Ivies but picking schools which aren’t comparable and doing it for non final reasons.
I can see few reasons like family enmeshment, mental or physical health issues, fear of not being good enough, getting recruited by a college whose football team can help go pro etc but still no more than .0001% of college applicants.
Answers you are getting here are from a different group with different college choices than yours and almost all based on affordability.
Harvard has one of the highest yield rates out there, hovering around 80% or just higher. That means 1 in 5 students (just a touch under 400) admitted to Harvard doesn’t go there. Presumably many of those went to prestigiosity peers and near-peers, but I doubt all of them did.
The remaining Ivies have lower yield rates. Add them all up (accounting for duplicates and such, which we don’t have the data for, unfortunately) and you’ve still got a relatively small pool of people, but then again the pool of people admitted to the Ivies is pretty small to begin with.
However, I strongly suspect the number of admittees who enroll in less “elite” colleges is seriously higher than 0.0001%—I mean, all you need is 4 from Harvard alone to get yourself four orders of magnitude higher than that for that population.