High Academic Private [$80k] vs. In-state Mid-Major [$0-30k] (recruited athlete) [pre-MS/PhD (bio?)statistics major]

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My kid has two options - a UAA school where they would be a recruited athlete with coach’s support at a cost of only room & board fees due to an affiliation with the school (~$80k total for 4 years) or a mid-level, in-state, not-flagship, school that happens to be my husband’s alma mater where between scholarships and tuition benefits the cost would be between $0 to $30k for 4 years. When they told a friend they were considering this school, the reply was “you’re going to be the smartest person on campus!” which, while I am sure is not true and that they could find other high academic kids there, their SAT score is 230 points higher than the 75% on the common data set as a test optional school.

We are able and willing to pay for either school, but the catch is this kid wants to get at least an MS and possibly a PhD. We really do not want to fund an expensive private graduate degree and we do not want loans. Does it make sense to do a private for undergrad and then a state school for graduate level work or would the better undergrad school help him to secure a graduate assistantship, which would hopefully come with tuition benefits, and a better graduate school? Go with the inexpensive public option and assume high GREs will allow student to go to a higher level graduate program?

Also, the student fits the profile of the UAA school, so this is not a stretch. School requires an ED application. Student is going on official visits to both schools next month so that could change things. We’ve mostly stayed out of trying to sway them one way or the other, but I am wondering if we are missing key pieces of information that we should know about.

Lastly, kid wants to do their sport and we support that. Right now, these are the two schools in play; they’re not good enough for Power 4 conferences, which would provide a lot more high quality public options. Another high academic private school doesn’t make sense because our net cost would be more than double the cost of this school.

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Does the student have a preference? Are you able to share the major and/or what the MS would be in?

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Student doesn’t have a preference they are willing to voice yet!

MS/PhD would be something math or science related, possibly statistics or biostatistics. Student wants to do research, originally wanted a biochemistry undergrad, but now is leaning towards an applied math/statistics undergrad with a biology minor (or possibly biology undergrad with math minor).

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PhD programs worth attending should be funded.

For pre-PhD students, an important factor is the offering of upper level (and possibly graduate level) courses in the major and undergraduate research opportunities. I.e. there are department specific considerations that general college prestige and selectivity do not capture.

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I think you need to take grad school off the table as a concern for now.

If he wants a PhD, there is no logic in going for an unfunded degree. That is the universe telling him not to do it.

re: getting into a “better” grad program- that’s highly department and sub-topic specific. You’ve got kids going from undergrad at Harvard to grad school at UIUC or U Chicago to U Mass because they are hyper focused on “the best” lab, researcher, faculty mentor, and so that’s where they go. Your son will too- if grad school is in his future, it’s all about the “who” and not about the “where”. And in some fields- the “where” is going to be a state flagship somewhere with tons of research dollars and named faculty chairs which allows them to buy the best of the best.

How much does your son know about the actual faculty and the vibe in the fields he’s interested in at both schools? Having a faculty mentor, advisor or just a professor who is highly invested in him who can pick up the phone to a colleague at another university to say “You’ve got to snag this student for your doctoral program” likely means more than a GRE score!

And to your no-loans policy- loans are a tool, no more, no less. Don’t use a hammer when you need a wrench. If modest loans (your son taking up to the federal limit) means he makes a better choice for college, I’d leave that possibility on the table. His decision. And for a prospective applied math/stats student, working through a loan repayment table to see the consequences of that decision should be easy-peasy.

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I just looked at 3 highly regarded universities and none of them require the GRE for an MS/MPH/PhD in biostatistics. Two schools will not even look at scores, and one states scores are optional.

You should also know that graduate degrees are different- it’s more about the specific degree, who/research etc. Lots attend public flagships.

Right now I would focus on the school that is the better fit for four years of undergrad.

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Definitely. You shouldn’t have to pay for a PhD program.

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Isn’t academia fairly prestige focused?

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Yes, prestige focused. Going to work with the top people in the field-- whether they are at Stanford or at U Maine…

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Thank you! Grad school is only on the table due to the cost - the less we spend now, the more we have to spend later.

My husband actually has a PhD and is a professor - oddly enough, getting his undergrad/masters at the lower-level school (although well regarded for his particular field) and then a PhD and doing a fellowship at the UAA school. He currently has a funded PhD student and would totally agree about only doing a PhD that is funded. We are working under the assumption of grad school being a given because we know our children and I would say the odds of it not happening are very low. The PhD could go either way.

To your comment about knowing the actual faculty and vibe of either school is that the student knows nothing about either. One of our state’s flagship schools was the goal, but with that off the table due to athletics, the student won’t get their head out of the sand and truly consider options. I’m a bit concerned that personality is going to prevent the student from getting to know faculty like they should and fully embracing opportunities provided.

So maybe a better way to phrase my question is: how much is the prestige of a school worth for an undergraduate degree? Or is that even answerable?

FWIW, our other child is at an in-state school where we are basically paying them to attend school due to scholarships received, plus the parental help that we committed to giving regardless of actual cost. They have been saving all extra funds with the intention of self funding continuing education.

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This is the reason for my concern - child is thinking academia is the goal.

I realize for grad/post grad that it might be a specific department or faculty member you are looking for, but what about undergrad?

Obviously, if cost were not an issue, it might be an easy choice, but with cost being a factor, how do you make that call?

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On the athletic side, your child needs to understand the workability of their major in tandem with their sport. Talk to other athletes on the team in their intended major, are their restrictions, what does travel look like, does practice time conflict with lab times, any restrictions etc…

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Assuming that “UAA” is " University Athletic Association" then these are all very good universities and maybe close enough in (high) quality that we do not need to know which one.

Not knowing which school this is might hamper our ability to make a recommendation. I might just wildly guess that we are talking about a school at roughly the level of U.Mass Lowell just to have something in my mind to think about.

I do not think that this is an easy decision.

As others have mentioned a PhD is usually fully funded. However, a master’s degree usually is not.

Often yes. This may depend upon many issues. Some state schools are superb for some majors. UC Berkeley for math comes to mind, but there are of course many other examples of this. We also have some experience in my immediate family (everyone except me) of getting a bachelor’s at a university that is either ranked in the 100 to 130 range or at a small university in Canada that almost no one in the US has heard of, and then going to a very good and highly ranked university for a graduate program. In each case getting into a very good graduate program seemed to be based on what the student had done, rather than where they did it. Good research or clinical or internship experience (depending upon a person’s field) can be obtained at a wide range of universities, and in a wide range of jobs after getting a bachelor’s degree.

I do not know if this is answerable. Finding a good fit is more important, even though it is also probably significantly more difficult (US News rankings will tell you nothing about which school will be a good fit).

Generally speaking for a bachelor’s degree there is a huge number of universities that are very good, and for a graduate degree which university is the best for you is going to depend upon what you want to study. For a graduate program the overall ranking and “prestige” of the university as a whole does not matter.

I think that there are tradeoffs all over the place, and we each just try to keep and open mind and eventually go with whatever feels right.

This is excellent. Hopefully this will be clearer after two visits. Have you signed up to sit in on a class or to talk to a professor in your son’s field? This can be valuable and is available at least at some schools.

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Thank you, we are comfortable with the athletic side at both schools. The UAA school has made it very clear that academics are the priority. There are no restrictions on majors at either school and both have high retention rates for their athletes, which I consider to be a good sign of happy student-athletes.

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It can be hard to answer. For a pre-PhD student, often the prestige of the department rather than the school matters, and in a specific way (i.e. does the PhD program department consider the undergraduate school’s department good in preparing students for PhD study in the subject?) that public rankings can fail to capture.

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So quick background. I went to a very “prestigious” private college that at least at the time was not considered particularly strong in what ended up my field, and then to a PhD program more or less considered the best in the world for my field, but which happened to be at a good but not nearly as “prestigious” public university. Obviously I went through PhD admissions at the former, and I had discussions at the latter with faculty and sometimes undergrads about admissions to top PhD programs. I still have professor friends and acquaintances and sometimes we talk about these things, and I also will read a little in publications and such.

Anyway, my two cents is the single most important thing to know is that for top PhD programs, you should be aiming to end up with the full support of the faculty in your department as one of their top undergrad students. So whatever you choose in a college, make sure you feel confident about your prospects for that happening, and know it is the goal.

And then in addition to that–well, I think it is a bit complicated. I do think if your college is known to be a generally very selective one with a lot of good students, then maybe the number of “top” students that a department can credibly support in a given year will be higher. Then again, actually being one of those top students is going to be hard because that college has a lot of good students! And in fact in theory, grad programs should be adjusting for all this in a way where it more or less balances out.

But my personal feeling is all else equal, there is in fact a POSSIBLE benefit to going to the more selective overall college, which is what I think of as a larger margin for error. As in, maybe your adjustment to college is a little rough, maybe it takes you a little longer to really figure out which discipline is the best fit for your developing interests and abilities, and so on. I think in cases like this, maybe–maybe–PhD programs will be a little more flexible if you went to a much more selective college than a much less selective college.

So that is a lot of ifs and maybes, but I do think overall if you have the opportunity to go to a more generally selective college AND feel confident in your ability to be a top student there, that is not a bad idea. But if for some reason that isn’t a good idea, including that it would be a uncomfortably expensive, for sure there are other paths.

I would just be aware that on some of those paths, maybe your margin for error is narrower.

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There are lots of kids who don’t get invested in the research/process until October or so when it starts to feel “real”. Once the teammates and classmates start buzzing about college, your son is likely to get his “head out of the sand” pretty quickly!

In your discussions, have you had the “broken leg” conversation yet, i.e. if (god forbid) he injures himself, which of these options would be his choice knowing that he couldn’t play his sport? For many kids, that’s the clarifying conversation- and it’s not out of the bounds of reality. A young woman in my town- a phenomenal athlete and student (and all around terrific person) went through the whole cycle- minor injury due to overuse, recommendation ice and a few sessions of PT, to “oh, it’s worse than we thought”, to “you need surgery over winter break” to “we thought it would take 12 weeks to recover but we may need to go back in and correct something”. So freshman year was over before she was cleared to resume “normal activity” which was NOT performing in her sport at her former level. Stuff happens even to healthy young people.

If he couldn’t play- where would he want to be?

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