"My classmates who couldn’t afford Greek life were totally ignored by their wealthier high school classmates who went Greek. "
I completely believe this. I’ve found that the Greek system at State U is a way for average people to feel above average somehow. A chance to feel like they are elite somehow. There is a lot of posturing on Greek Row everywhere.
Cost, that is how it would differ. I can only speak about NY, but SUNY schools do not have financial aid beyond federal and state programs. NY has TAP which is the state equivalent of PELL. A student eligible for max PELL and TAP would still have to pay in the neighborhood of $7500-8000 just for DIRECT costs. Miscellaneous expenses, books and transportation are on top of that. I would like to read an article from some low income kids at SUNY schools and what their struggles entail. That would be a great reality check-I am pretty sure they won’t be complaining about lattes.
I toured SUNY Albany with my S last fall and I asked an admissions officer why the graduation rate was low. I received an unexpected answer. She said that they lose more students due to the inability to pay than to academic issues.
I think this statement is not quite true. I can definitely say there’s a much higher lower bound on the quality of students at an elite school like Columbia. But there are unambitious slackers in the ranks of high-ranked universities. They might have gotten in by connections, by luck (adcoms aren’t infallible and they can make bad calls), or they just straight up decided to stop trying (I’ve seen this happen to many people who would have been capable of far, far more than they actually achieved). But I don’t disagree that this would be rarer in the top schools.
I’d argue that it’s more along the lines of this: Columbia is a track team with 10 fast athletes. Wash State is a team with 20 fat athletes and 10 fast ones (or whatever numbers you choose - Columbia is the smaller school by a significant margin). Someone who was maybe #10 in skill level may not fare particularly well being last place, because that tends to be a demoralizing bummer. But being in the 70th percentile could be a motivator to improve and become better, and I know a lot of people who are motivated by the perception that they are among the best. And as far as the top tier goes, the #1 runner, I think those would probably find their way in either scenario.
Of course there are plenty of scenarios other than that where you would be better off arguing in favor of Elite U, but I don’t see it as quite so clear cut. I further disagree with the notion that it’s necessarily a life-changing experience that cannot be replaced and that those who don’t have it, tend to fall behind. That is a perception many seem to propagate that seems not to hold particularly well in reality.
@NeoDymium , I think you’re reaching now. I didn’t attend Columbia, nor any Ivy League school as an undergrad, so I’m not defending my turf here. But I think my statement is quite accurate. If you meet and have a chance to work with 100 kids who graduated from WSU, the quality you’ll encounter is probably close to that of the general population: it’s all over the place. If you meet and have a chance to work with 100 kids from Columbia, they will not at all reflect the general population. Now, I’m not talking about things like having a winning personality, being nice or even social intelligence. I’m talking about all the indicators of a well educated person.
And I think you are quite wrong about getting into Columbia. 30 or more years ago? Probably a different story. But slackers, unless they are so gifted that they just don’t have to work to land in the 98th percentile, don’t get in. Connections - the days of buying your way in are also more or less gone. Your family has to build a library or endow a professorship to get that kind of play in admissions.
You can modify my analogy to a track team however you wish, as long as you keep it with no fat kids on the Columbia track team and several on the WSU track team. That there are 10 kids at WSU who could have been admitted to Columbia doesn’t help, because they’re spread out over 35,000 people. The key is that at Columbia all of your classmates can run fast. Nobody is slow. You can find fat and slow every 20 seconds at WSU.
Yeah, I think it’s pretty clear cut. Given the choice, assuming away unusual externalities or undue financial burden, you’d have to be, in my clear opinion, an idiot to attend WSU over Columbia.
“I further disagree with the notion that it’s necessarily a life-changing experience that cannot be replaced and that those who don’t have it, tend to fall behind.”
I didn’t say or suggest that … I assume that’s directed elsewhere. I did say, and will reiterate, that you’re not going to have the same educational opportunity running track with fat kids as you would running track with contenders. The last place thing is interesting, and there are those who think that it’s better to be top quartile at Mediocre State than it is to be bottom quartile at Elite College. I don’t know. I tend to think it’s a loser mentality to go in and assume you can’t work hard enough to be competitive. Maybe not the top, but hard work and grit are a huge variable in how someone fares in school. Yeah, if you suck at math, perhaps MIT ought not to be a place you force yourself into. But that’s an extreme example.
My experience was completely different, so as they say, your mileage may vary.
I attended my state flagship, as did many of my high school classmates, some of whom went Greek (I did not). But only one close friend went Greek, and we remained friends, although we certainly weren’t as close as we were in high school.
Perhaps the Greeks had outstanding parties that I missed out, but our parties were just fine–one of my roommates one year was on the football team, and another roommate was good friends with a member of the basketball team. We had no shortage of pretty girls attending. 
And if my high school friends were to ignore me, so what? There were thousands of others that I could be friends with. College is not a continuation of high school.
“You can find fat and slow every 20 seconds at WSU.” Unbelievably insulting and clueless.
Part of the sales pitch at colleges, ALL colleges, is the wonderful, fascinating opportunities at the school and around it. I’m sure Columbia touts the fun at Broadway shows with cheap tickets, and how close all the museums are (just a few subways stops). Everyone at accepted students weekend was walking around with a cup of coffee and the entire purpose of accepted students weekend if for the applicant to picture himself as a student, so they do see themselves with a $5 cup of coffee and a pile of books and all the things they see everyone with. My kids did, and they are not even middle class and weren’t raised getting all the extras in high school (they did not have a car, even one to share). All the article is saying is that it is not quite like the picture. Students at Yale picture themselves going into NUC or Boston regularly to take advantage of all those things, but do they have time to do it even twice a semester, even if they have the money?
Curious that you use Columbia specifically as an example. I generally prefer the more generic term “Elite U” to avoid any need for irrelevant connections to a specific university of elite Ivy-caliber status.
I don’t disagree. The problem is you made a bit too strong of a statement - “not even one person” - which is unjustified and contrary to what I have seen. In general I agree that you will find a pretty consistent high quality of educated individuals among the Columbia graduates, and though you will find that a lot of the very best did not go to Elite U at all, they are much more diffuse and harder to find.
Sure, it’s pretty hard to buy your way in, as it should be. However, the other problem is that you don’t always get what you bargained for when, as the admissions team, you choose to admit someone. Maybe they had a connection that got them in. Maybe they weren’t as smart as you thought they were, and some of their good stats were a mix of an easy school system and well-targeted preparation. Maybe admissions decided to take a chance on someone who looked promising yet not conforming to the traditionally gifted mold, and that didn’t work out as well as planned. Maybe people change, not always for the better, and become unambitious losers. All sorts of things happen.
I will also mention that most people aren’t really all that good at determining who the most talented people are within a short period of time. Over many years, I think it does become clear who is the best and who is not. But within an essay and interview (or a second-hand account of an interview)? It’s tough, and the people who can reliably do that are in short supply and generally well-compensated by talent-seeking communities (companies, schools, organizations of all sorts really). Point is that admissions could easily make a mistake, and take someone who doesn’t work out as well as you’d hope. Happens all the time in business.
I think you understate the quality at a large state school. I’d say it’s more along the lines of that the top 10-20 percent at a large, well-run state school are comparable to the class of Elite U. Though Elite U would probably edge out the top of the class of State U by a small margin by virtue of the fact that it will attract national superstars while State U probably will not.
Yeah, I just mean that in general. Not sure if it was clear, that point was really an aside.
It really is a bummer to be in last place in a high-ranked team. It makes you feel like you don’t belong. I know a lot of talented people, who really could have risen to the top of whatever they were doing, who were momentarily merely better than average among the general population and not really “elite caliber” at the moment. People don’t have egos made of steel, and being among the worst is a demotivator. Being in a position where you’re clearly better than average, with a path to the top but not a guarantee, is often a strong and beneficial motivator that pushes people to improve.
If you really aren’t MIT caliber, you shouldn’t be at MIT. That’s really not a controversial statement, I’d say.
If you are MIT caliber but resent MIT’s rather unsympathetic approach to learning (it can often be a place that implicitly says “you may have been a hotshot back on your farm back home but here you are worthless by default, you have to prove otherwise”) is not for everyone. A lot of talented and ultimately successful people need nurturing in their formative years. Granted, college is probably a bit on the late side for that, but the point still stands. Not that this is an Elite U/State U divide, but more of a cultural one. I know that a lot of Elite U schools are, in fact, pretty nurturing. For some people, being among weaker peers is a strong motivator to feel that you can achieve more.
@MiddleburyDad2 I think you’re exaggerating here: “If you meet and have a chance to work with 100 kids from Columbia, they will not at all reflect the general population.”
You don’t think the Wash U grads are equal “quality” to the Columbia grads, but you do not define what you mean by quality. There is no evidence that graduates of prestigious schools on the whole are smarter, better-adjusted or more successful (as defined by career or money) over the long haul. The correlation between life outcomes and the college you attended is not well-established, if at all. Obviously, there is a strong distinction between college grads and high school grads. But the distinction between grads of various colleges? I have yet to see that.
In any case, looking at where people earned their degrees is a crappy way to judge someone’s “quality.”
@PragmaticMom firstly, I did. I specifically referenced the indicators of how well educated a person is and how much they had invested in it. I specifically excluded from my point any other personal qualities, like how nice or moral or generous or caring or anything else that would be impossible to asses. Come on; you’re being dramatic here.
Secondly, Washington University is a highly selective and elite university in St. Louis. Washington State University is a very very different place. If you don’t know the difference then we probably don’t need to go into the weeds on this. I venture to bet that there are many people like me who would well expect to find a big difference in the two populations (WSU and Columbia). If you have yet to see a difference between college grads of various schools then I’m guessing you’re seeing a lot of people from the same general type of school. Which is fine.
There is no evidence? Well I don’t know about “well adjusted” nor do I understand what that has to do with what we’re discussing here, which is education. This isn’t the child psychology forum. But are you sure about the other things? I’m betting there is evidence.
If you don’t think that a random sample of 100 kids from WSU and 100 kids from Columbia would not reveal siginifcant differences then I don’t know what else to say.
On the other hand, there are many state universities where the fraternities and sororities are only marginal presences which are not important to and do not get in the way of the social life of students who are not interested in them.
@ ucbalumnus that’s my understanding of how it is at Berkeley.
My son is at UChicago and I think we are pretty much right in the middle financially. He has a room mate on full scholarship and though he has to be more thoughtful about expenses than the others he has no trouble making it on what the university offers. He didn’t go home for Thanksgiving but their break is super short and many kids did not plus there were planned activities through the residence halls with no cost. The FA covers the unlimited meal plan where they can go in and out of every dining hall they want as many times as they want from 6a-midnight every day except Saturday night plus they get discretionary bucks each quarter they can use in all the fun coffee shops. They even offer funding to buy dinner out for Saturday nights if a student is running low though I think they account for that cost in the amount given for incidentals each quarter. My son says the biggest difference he sees with his wealthier friends is that they do eat off campus more. Does full FA offer enough $ to send money home or join a frat—no but there is enough to live reasonably if a student knows how to manage finances and I’m guessing that is a problem for many of these kids. I think the schools that don’t hand kids a check for the housing/dining plan but shift money for them have far less of these types of problems. UChicago definitely wants everyone to have a similar experience and puts lots of money towards making that happen for the kids who need it. There were few activities that had fees and those that did always offered aid including things like summer internship grants, study abroad (covered at the same rate as regular on campus), and even certain group job search trips are fully funded. My son never felt bad when wealthy friends did crazy expensive stuff but his group of friends was very economically diverse and thoughtful of one another so they typically did stuff that was inexpensive. I guess it depends on how self conscious your child is as to whether or not being on FA would be an issue for them. It doesn’t bother my son.
Yes, and it seems similar in other public universities in California.
I should add that my son’s room mate was far more worried about being behind academically than financially. He went to a HS where most kids did not care at all about school and had limited access to AP classes. He definitely was really challenged academically but the school provided free tutoring every night for anyone who wanted it and that made a huge difference.
@sevmom you clearly are not familiar with WSU.
It’s arguably insulting, but hardly clueless, to say that WSU is full of kids who are not serious about academics. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it is relevant to point out when comparing educational opportunities at various types of schools.
WSU is a large research university and Washington’s land grant college. There will be plenty of serious students there, in addition to those that you feel are “not serious about academics.”
@sevmom I’ve lived in Washington for 30+ years and raised three kids through high school in Seattle area schools.
What is your familiarity with WSU besides what Google tells you?
Anyone can look up the school’s historical designation. I suspect you don’t know much more than that because no body familiar with the school ever calls WSU “wash u”. Ever. Aside from that, it is a particular type of public university drawing in large measure from a particular sector of the PNW student population.
I specifically made the obvious point (because on this forum the obvious isn’t obvious to many) that there are smart kids at WSU. Doesn’t that really go without saying???
Are you tracking this thread or popping in on one post? The point of this sub-topic is that the other population of students you acknowledged are there at WSU in ample supply. Not so much at Columbia.
Who said wash u? Certainly not me. I have no personal familiarity with WSU. I popped in to react to your statement that “you can find fat and slow every 20 seconds at WSU.” which you yourself said was insulting. I find it sad that you, as a Washington resident, would denigrate one of your own universities in that kind of way.
@sevmom , you’re right. Another poster right above you. Ignore that.
But if you have no familiarity with WSU, and were tracking the context of the discussion, then I gotta tell ya, I don’t really care what you think.
I said it was arguably insulting, but that depends on whether you attended WSU and take these things personally. The facts are the facts. And just to be crystal clear, since you said you popped in and have admitted you don’t know really know anything about WSU other than your quick internet search, the “fat and slow” comment was an analogy that was thrown back and forth between me and another poster. I presume you got that far, but then again, maybe you didn’t.
I’m not “denigrating” WSU, and it shouldn’t matter whether I am or am not a resident if I were. There are things to study there … if you want to be a vet or a number of other things in which they specialize, have it - go. But it is indisputable among those of us who know the school that it is also a place where a very significant number of kids attend to rush the Greek system, get drunk 4 days a week and slide by academically so as to, as I said, check the Bachelors box. It is by and large the place kids go when they don’t get in to the University of Washington and its reputation as a party school precedes it and is very very well established.
It is what it is. That you are disputing the facts, throwing out words like “clueless”, when you admit you don’t know what you’re talking about, is pretty rich.