Easy. Cooper Union.
…and it’s not free anymore.
Someone above wrote:
" As far as I know there are only two schools in Cambridge- Harvard and MIT so either way they are attending one of the top universities in the world…"
There’s at least one more… Lesley College, which like Harvard Yard is located on Mass Ave but closer to somerville. I think it’s a college devoted to teaching.
Wiki says “Lesley University is a private, coeducational university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, well known for its education, expressive therapies, creative writing, counseling, and fine arts programs.”
SIL got her masters in education at Lesley University. She doesn’t live anywhere near Boston, and I am not sure why the heck she chose the school … not sure if it was all online or if she did a low-res program.
Kelsmom, does she speak fondly of it? I wonder how much difference different Ma programs in education make-especially since public schools pay teachers to attend and it is mandated sometimes-so they must offer a consistent curriculum.
She does speak fondly of it. It just seems so odd to me that she chose to go to a school that is an airplane ride from her home … I would have thought a program in her home state made more sense. For some reason, she thought it would help her in her career. As it turned out, I’m not sure she broke even between tuition, the raise she received for having a master’s degree, and an early retirement. But she doesn’t seem to regret it.
Perhaps the experience alone was worth it for her.
D attends Mount Holyoke. We get 3 types of comment:
- Where IS it? Never heard of it.
- Oh.
- Great school! (varying positive comments about the Seven Sisters schools, the beautiful area, etc)
I’ve found that the people who seem to know more about it tend to be older. One of the people most impressed by my daughter attending there was my own mother, who is 78. And a 90 year old asked if I had a younger child and warned me that after sending the older one to a private LAC, the younger one would not be content with going to our state schools.
We have one kid at an in state school, and one at an OOS school. I am asked all the time if the kid at the in state school feels resentment because she is in state. I tell them no, which is the truth. The one who is in state liked that school better than any OOS school we visited, and she is very happy. She made the right decision for her. I also get annoyed because it implies that our in state school that she chose is inferior in some way. Lastly, I am asked if I plan to spend more money for grad school for the younger kid to make it “fair.” I think things are “fair” now- both of my kids are attending the school that they wanted to attend. Not once has my in state kid expressed resentment about staying in state. And the kid who attends the in state school has an interview for grad school at a top 10 university (not that top 10 matters, but I am proving a point that our state schools are more than just “eh”). The questions I get are unbelievable.
@twogirls – One of the best pieces of parenting advice I got when I was pregnant with my second child was that “Being fair to your children does not mean that you need to do the same exact thing for each child – being fair means that you do what is best for each child.” I have found that advice to be both useful and true throughout the years and your post shows that once again to be correct!
We were actually having this discussion with our kids after a conversation with another parent whose older daughter is a freshman at Cornell, full pay. (I know this because we talked last year about our being NY state residents and her being entitled to in-state tuition rates at Cornell’s land-grant colleges, but she’s in the College of Arts and Sciences doing Computer Science and it doesn’t have that in-state rate)
The next kid is a HS senior and when I asked how his applications are going, she said that he was limited to applying to our state schools. I said that I’d be fine with our younger kid going to one of our state schools, but I’d been warned (as I said in the post above) that after sending the older one to a private LAC, the younger one would not be content with going to our state schools. She laughed and said “Well, he doesn’t have a choice, we’ve run out of money because of paying Cornell tuition.”
My kids were indignant on behalf of the younger kid, not so much because they dislike our state schools but more because they felt that this family should have thought about their financial limits earlier. They said that it wasn’t fair to the younger kid and that the family should have looked ahead. If the older kid was really set on going to Cornell she could have applied to one of the land grant schools like the College of Human Ecology or Industrial and Labor Relations and had her double major in CS from there.
Going back to “where does your kid go to school,” one friend of my kid goes to Manhattanville College and another goes to Manhattan College. I was talking to the parents who say that people always get those 2 schools mixed up, or also mixed up with Marymount Manhattan and Borough of Manhattan Community College.
Brown: usually just an “oh”. If they have heard of it, then its “Oh, I’ve heard that’s a really liberal school…”
Son is attending tOSU and all we hear when we tell them is, “Go Bucks”. Son is not a sports fan…LOL
Talk about blank expressions…D goes to Olin. I usually just acknowledge its obscurity when I’m answering the question by saying something like “she goes to a tiny little engineering school you’ve probably never heard of called Olin College of Engineering.” Every once in a while I get a “Oh! I’ve heard that’s a terrific school!”, and, while those moments are nice, I’ve long since come to terms with rarely experiencing them 
@rayrick,
Among those who don’t know the school the “Oh, wow!” will come later when they return home and look up Olin.
@rayrick, I’m used to the blank expressions myself by now so want to send a virtual “oh wow!” your way. I read Olin’s mailings during my daughter’s college search and was very impressed.
Right back at ya, @crepes – Mount Holyoke is a great school!
Olin had the most amazing viewbook I’ve ever seen. Even the wrapping was spectacular!
Would love to see that. Think I’ll try to get on the list. Did they send that out to you with an invitation to apply, or just dropped it in the mail?