<p>The BackStep Project could only send you back 7 days.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>BC was $3,500 - they were generous with grants, at least for me.</p>
<p>At our suburban MA high school there are about 50 seniors in National Honor Society. 11 of them are going to UMass-Amherst. Nearly a dozen of the best, brightest, and most involved students have chosen UMass. So Schmaltz, thatâs not exactly ânobody.â</p>
<p>In my experience UMass has always been a wonderful school. I graduated from there 25 years ago and enjoyed every minute. It opened a new world for me. I graduated in engineering and currently work with many other successful UMass grads. all of whom are equally pleased with having gone there. My daughter recently transferred there from a very prestigious (top 10) LAC and she much prefers UMass for the openness of its social atmosphere. She finds the courses equally challanging. And, although it seems miraculous, judging from many of the posters here, my son actually chose UMass this year over many other more prestigous colleges because he liked the big college atmosphere, the cute town of Amherst, and the very caring professors he met. By the way, he got into Isenberg school of business which claims that last year its accepted students had an average 3.7 GPA and 1200+ on SATs.</p>
<p>Lafalum, my time in Mass. was a while ago (when the UMass tuition was $300). I was trying to put a historical context on this issue, to show that UMassâs image problems are long-standing and deep-rooted. Iâm glad there seems to be some improvement. </p>
<p>But I agree with others who say that UMass needs a bigtime sports program (especially football). It needs to have SOMETHING that differentiates it from the sea of elite private schools all around it. Nobody in Louisiana thinks LSU is better than Tulane, but at least they can wallow in the success of the LSU football team. When rationalizing something, people will grasp onto ANYTHINGâŠwhen rationalizing college choice, people will likewise grasp onto the beauty of the campus, the town around it, the academic qualityâŠANYTHING. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, UMass finds itself at almost the geographic center of elite NorthEast higher education, each campus more beautiful than the last, in an area where quaint towns are around every cornerâso making a big splash with academic quality,campus beauty and/or town quaintness is almost unthinkable. So unless they get the UConn guy with the time machine, and it WORKS, a football team thatâs respectable is perhaps the next best option.</p>
<p>What about the UMass professor working on the invisibility cloak?</p>
<p>Schmaltz - well stated. I agree.</p>
<p>As someone who chose Syracuse over UMass, I for one can tell you the allure of a private U (That isnât even that prestigious comparative to many others) over the free education I wouldâve gotten at UMass. The allure is better facilities, a more stretched out alumni network (UMassâs alumni is very largely dominated by Mass residents, I might not want to stay here after I graduate), and better programs (UMass boasts its business program as its best, Cuseâs is better). Unless UMass can put more money into its facilities and programs, which isnât happening with the budget cuts the university is experiencing, I would never go there over a decent private U or better public U (With a more geographically diverse student body, like a 60/40), money permitting.</p>
<p>The reputation of UMass also hurts it. I know for a fact that many crazy partiers still attend in large numbers (Many from my HS got in). Although many Uâs including Syracuse have a similar reputation, at least it isnât to the point that UMass is the most violent school in the nation (est. 2003) with a almost majority of students that shouldnât be attending (Low GPA, test scores). There are many smart kids, some who Iâm sure go crazy as well on weekends that attend UMass, but selectivity definitely needs to go up to lose the Zoomass monicker.</p>
<p>The concentration of historic elite colleges in New England is the highest anywhere in the country. Most of the top 40 liberal arts colleges are within New England and this ready supply of excellent schools lessens the need for a great state school. There is also a long standing bias and tradition to go to these elite schools in the NE. Makes college a lot more expensive than elsewhere in the nation.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Is that the same percentage of kids as in the past? I know our local high school (where the typical graduating class is 95-105 )generally sends about 5 or 6 kids to UMass each year. This year there are 12 kids going to UMassâand thatâs a function of bad economic times, not that UMass has gained wide-spread acceptance among upper middle-class high school students in MA.</p>
<p>It def has to be the depth of good schools in the New England area and the emphasis on getting into the many good private schools. In my school UMass was seen as just a giant CC. As some of the other posts said some of the other states, mainly the midwestern and southern ones that have two or three dominant state schools with a few smaller schools where there isnât as much pressure to go to a Ivy up north. The state schools usually have vry good buildings/resources and amazingly good incentives for top students to attend. UMass aid is dismal. I choose to go to a public OOS for a year before transferring to a private b.c it was as cheap to go there as UMass. Plus UMass is butt ugly, why go there if your a top student if Amherst is across town?</p>
<p>There just isnât a good reason for a college to be ugly. They seem to know this in the South. A lot know it in the Midwest. Too bad nobody at UMass got the memo.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Seriously, whatâs your point?</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>It was essentially a discussion with another pointer and the point should be obvious in the context of that discussion.</p>
<p>
It wasnât bad economic times for us. We all still have our jobs. We still have a lot of equity in our house. College costs have just reached a tipping point for us, where it becomes obvious that the value equation doesnât work.</p>
<p>Hopkins for $229K for four years? Sorry, kid, Iâm not jeopardizing my retirement or letting you take on the $15K-$20K/year in debt that would be needed. Cornell at $222K? URoch for $221K? Lehigh for $212K? Sorry, sorry, and sorry. These numbers assume the 4% inflation that these schools proudly limited themselves to this year will remain at only 4%, which is half of what theyâve been doing the last 20 years.</p>
<p>My kid got some merit aid from a number of private schools that made attendance financially feasible. Of these schools, he wound up liking UMass the best. What a shock! And for what he wants to major in, their program is very competitive. Another shock! The fact that it was the cheapest by $15K/year was just a win/win for all of us.</p>
<p>Do I wish I could afford to send my kid to Hopkins? Sure. Who doesnât? But we donât feel like he âsettledâ either.</p>
<p>I have to laugh at the people who turn their nose up at UMass because it is âuglyâ. How shallow can you get? Itâs college, not Disneyland. Maybe you should focus on the education⊠btw, UMass is not even close to the ugliest campus we visited.</p>
<p>//There just isnât a good reason for a college to be ugly. They seem to know this in the South. A lot know it in the Midwest. Too bad nobody at UMass got the memo.//</p>
<p>I suspect that this has a lot to do with chronology. Most of the buildings on the various UMass campuses were built 1950-1980. Were <em>any</em> attractive college campuses built during this periodâeven in the Midwest and South?</p>
<p>
Wake Forest University moved from Wake Forest, NC to Winston-Salem NC in the 1950s. The campus is lovely.</p>
<p>Just trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What discussion? This geospatial thingy you served up and then when you got a joking response had the nerve to snip off the joking part and misquote him and then give him a hard time? That discussion? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>To prove someone has a strong program in a specific major is not by using data that shows that someone got a cash discount by attending that school. That has all the validity of deciding that a movie is Oscar worthy because it is at a half-priced theatre. </p>
<p>When a kid from CT who did not get into UCONN - Storrs can go to URI on a tuition break to study Creative Literature and graduates OR studies general liberal arts courses for two years (so that Creative Literature barely enters the picture) and then transfers out ⊠what has been really been successfully gleaned from inflow and outflow summary data?</p>
<p>âWhat discussion? This geospatial thingy you served up and then when you got a joking response had the nerve to snip off the joking part and misquote him and then give him a hard time? That discussion?â</p>
<p>It has weaved around in the thread.</p>
<p>âTo prove someone has a strong program in a specific major is not by using data that shows that someone got a cash discount by attending that school. That has all the validity of deciding that a movie is Oscar worthy because it is at a half-priced theatre.â</p>
<p>Iâd suggest studying the NERSP program. You still pay more than in-state students.</p>
<p>âTo prove someone has a strong program in a specific major is not by using data that shows that someone got a cash discount by attending that school.â</p>
<p>See above.</p>
<p>âWhen a kid from CT who did not get into UCONN - Storrs can go to URI on a tuition break to study Creative Literature and graduates OR studies general liberal arts courses for two years (so that Creative Literature barely enters the picture) and then transfers out ⊠what has been really been successfully gleaned from inflow and outflow summary data?â</p>
<p>NERSP has two discounts: those for majors not offered by your state system and those for students that live closer to an out-of-state school. The price is still more than in-state but less than out-of-state.</p>
<p>I think UMass should strengthen, or at least publicize, its honors college more. I live 20 minutes from Amherst and I didnât even know Commonwealth College existed until this year, and it doesnât sound that special anyway.</p>
<p>Wake up, Jarsilver. Commonwealth College isnât exactly a secret. I live 2 hours from Amherst and Iâve known about it for years (and no Iâm not an alum or related to anyone who attends UMass).</p>
<p>Does UMass = Ugly? Depends on your point of view. When we toured with Sâ07, he thought the cement Student Union was hideous - it reminded us all of a basement or a dungeon. But I returned this spring with Dâ10, and she loved the student union - she said it felt âurban.â And when I looked at it that way, I could see her point. She also loved the 28 story library, which my son had termed âridiculous.â So itâ a matter of taste.</p>
<p>But I wonât argue that the place couldnât use some more landscaping and updating.</p>