A school does not need to be prestigious or highly selective to have academic strength, resources, and opportunities.
Although I suspect we have a similar perspective on schools that have a comparable sticker price to “prestigious” colleges that offer neither significant merit aid nor generous financial aid, I think that the bulk of “hidden gems” and “life-changing” colleges do end up offering significant reductions in their sticker prices, such that one can receive offers from a hidden gem college and an in-state public flagship and make a choice based on fit rather than finances (as many non-exclusive colleges will attempt to make their out-the-door prices pretty similar to a student’s flagship price).
Of course, finances are an essential component of fit, and there are many families who cannot afford their in-state flagships. But that does not seem to be the primary group being discussed here.
Reporting outcomes is by definition backwards-looking. Not sure what term, short, medium or long would be a good predictor of the future job market in a disruptive time.
Sure, of course. But a student driven by the four factors I listed (you left out cohort group) will likely end up with a list weighted toward “prestigious” schools. That doesn’t mean they used prestige as a filter or that they care if others think they’re attending a prestigious school.
All the more reason to look at program ranking, reputation, quality of research, peer cohort, and geographical impact of school in the metros the student wants to live in. Short term recruiting trends are a lagging indicator especially since the class of 2025 has graduated and we are still looking at 2024 data from career services.
The LinkedIn rankings don’t pass the smell test and a generic ranking is useless if parents and students have a specific career in mind.
Rankings of entire schools ignore the effects of major selection and student goals, which can be important for both the learning and other experiences at the school and post graduation outcomes.
I don’t understand it well enough to quibble, but the metric that seems odd to me as they describe it is ”Career Success”. They describe that criterion as follows: “Career success tracks the percentage of alumni with post-graduate entrepreneurship or C-suite experience.” Feels like a narrow definition of success. Lots of highly successful people in many fields (sometimes even the most successful) are never entrepreneurs or “C-suite” folks.
I completely agree with this. In general, I think flagships are often a great deal AND a great fit, and I don’t want to suggest otherwise. Also “prestigious”, for that matter, particularly in the greater scheme of things, and perhaps sometimes in ways that, say, the US News rankings fail to fully capture.
But for a high numbers/full pay kid where their flagship is a great deal but only a so-so-fit (or worse) . . . it is worth knowing they might have options thanks to merit and such.
For my daughter, the flagship was a good fit academically but a terrible fit for her socially (she wanted to get away from her high school peers but also wanted Greek life and to be involved in Hillel…it was impossible to do all of those things at our flagship as a huge percentage of her classmate were going to attend and she would unquestionably see them and be forced to interact with them if she attended. (the ‘but its such a huge school’ naysayers had no idea how the social world worked at those school, especially for Jewish kids).
And prestige was EXTREMELY important to her and was a big factor for the employers she was seeking eventually.
Also, our flagship while defintiely less expensive than the top 10 school she attended was hardly a bargain.
But in theory, she could have excelled at a different flagship that hit her needs I’m assuming - no idea where you live but let’s say Chicago…she could have been ok at UVA, UNC, UCLA, etc? Maybe not a Florida, Ohio State or Wisconsin type - from the “prestige” note you mentioned?
Sounds like she landed where she wanted - in the end, if you’re happy (with what you paid) and she was happy with the experience and is with the outcome, then all is good.
I thought the talk of “ flagship “ meant one’s own state flagship….which had the benefit of a lower price. . An OOS top flagship was almost as expensive as the privates for us. We had one kid in each. . For friends kid it was more expensive or same as at OOS flagship as aid was given at higher income levels at the top 10 university than the OOS flagship.
I guess it depends. I took it as “any” but if you meant your own, then that’s what you meant.
Depending on the flagship (some would consider Florida in the 40s as elite, others not), it could be more expensive. Then there’s Michigan in the 80s. Of course, flagships vary in price too - and yet some elite students get merit.
All good - just was seeing if one could have worked (had the student chosen that direction).