One of my kids was thinking about a bio major at one point while still in high school, with the thought of getting a PhD and doing research eventually. We have a family acquaintance who is a long time bio prof at a top “pre-med school”, so we went to visit the school and had an appointment to talk to her. She was THRILLED to talk to a student who really loved bio for the sake of bio, and wasn’t just taking it to gun for an A for medical school admissions. I don’t think she sees very many kids like that… 
It is common for colleges to offer multiple physics sequences. Physics with calculus (for physics and engineering majors) and physics without calculus or with less calculus (for biology majors and pre-meds) are extremely common. Physics for poets is not rare either. An honors or advanced version of physics with calculus exists at many schools as well.
It is true that waiting until the fourth semester to take intermediate microeconomics after calculus 3 (when the high-math version is desired or is the only version offered) does mean making the decision to major in the subject relatively late if one wants to take intermediate microeconomics before deciding (as opposed to deciding after taking just the introductory economics course(s)). However, this also applies to other majors like math, statistics, engineering, etc. where one does not get a flavor of advanced course work that early (especially if one enters non-advanced in math). But the course plans for such majors are generally structured so that a non-advanced student can complete the major in 8 semesters.
It saddens me that this apparently talented kid wants to take classes with kids who he has chosen not to be intellectual peers so that he can bolster his GPA with as little effort as possible. Nevertheless, this is his life and if he deems the potential effort required to compete against peers something he doesn’t want to give, then that is his decision. Most kids at those HYPSM schools or equivalent relish the idea of being in a community of like minded overachievers but you could replicate some of that in a state honors college.
As for piling up debt going to one of these most selective schools before professional school, I just don’t see that in reality. You probably need an AGI exceeding $200K where it can begin to cost as much at a HYPSM school as a top tier state school. Yes you can choose to drop down a couple of tiers to get a merit scholarship. Unless you are a Pell Grant recipient getting a full-ride, the Ivy’s are never the best choice if the lowest cost of attendance is the primary factor in choosing a college since any kid good enough to get into an Ivy is good enough to get a full merit ride somewhere.
OP mentions finances only vaguely in the three posts so far, but does mention expecting to be full pay based on income levels. Unfortunately, the OP also makes references to potentially large debt.
The number one priority for the OP is to figure out a financial plan for how much they can contribute to the son’s college costs without preventing them from contributing to their younger daughter’s college costs and having enough for their own retirement.
We don’t even know if this kid is truly a top student – we have seen parents out here before who are delusional about their snowflake’s chances. And puh-lease… don’t tell me this kid would not be among intellectual peers at Berkeley, UVA, Michigan, Duke, U of Chicago, Mudd, Swat, Williams, Amherst, MIT, etc if he chose one of them over an Ivy.
@sanjayinsanjose,
Again, I agree with your kid’s points, and here is why:
- Of the kids who attend tippy top colleges, many of them are in for a shocker which makes them depressed. They go from being top of the HS class to bottom of the college class. My D (at Yale) has seen it and sees how it really makes some kids feel down. You, as a parent, might say “well if the kid works really hard, they can move up,” but the reality is that there will always be a bottom half of a class. My D is proudly in the bottom half of the college class, but she is totally fine with it because she is not stressed with graduate school plans (and she wasn’t at top of HS class either).
- Many of the kids who attend tippy top colleges did NOT have to be “pushed” by their parents. If you had to push, then it’s likely that your kid will be one of the kids who is coming in behind and will land at the bottom of the class
- Yes, there is grade inflation at many of the tippy top college, with averages being maybe B+ or A-, but that tends to be in the humanities majors rather than the STEM majors.
- Attending a college such as UC Davis, UC Irvine, for example, your kid will NOT be surrounded by dummies.
- A flaw in your kid’s argument is that kid thinks that will auto get good grades at a place such as a UC. These colleges have really smart kiddos, especially if taking a STEM major. Might not be as easy and kiddo thinks. Public colleges have less grade inflation than the private colleges. However, might be different if kiddo attends a private college such as Santa Clara University or USC.
If your kid does not want to attend medical school or law school, or if just a vague thought that is unlikely, then would be great to go for the tippy top for undergrad, then do his best, and let the chips fall where they may.
It’s funny. Most of the posters here on cc usually recommend that a kid attends a college with little debt and that choice of undergrad college matters less that grad college which usually point away from HYPSM, but on this thread, it seems to be leaning the other way (at least for the few posts that I have read). How unusual.
Wow. I think it has been almost 400 years since anyone has declared New Haven, heaven. It 's really a bit of a dodgy and violent city. Cambridge is affectionately known as the People Republic of Cambridge by locals for the abundance of champagne socialists. I think you might have a fantasy view of these colleges and your son has the more evolved view. Also consider the very different weather. It’s going to be a long, cold winter in the east if you are not used to it. Visit the schools in the winter. Also check out “A day in the life of an MIT student” on YouTube to get a perspective on student life. If your son can get great merit at a top UC, you may be able to put away money for his grad school before his sister attends college. His choice of major will impact his college choice and need for a ‘prestige’ choice but in the end, he needs to live his life for himself and not to impress the neighbors.
I get really annoyed at the nonsense posted on this board about how grade inflated the Ivies allegedly are.
That is wholly false.
Lots of people at Ivies get Bs, especially their first couple of years in college. Your junior and senior years, most people take a higher percentage or even all of their classes in the areas which are their academic strengths In these classes, the average grade may be an A-. That doesn’t mean it is easy to earn an A-. Most juniors and seniors work fairly hard and are well prepared for and knowledgeable about their majors and closely related subjects. It’s understandable that they get good grades in these subjects. That doesn’t mean that if Jane Doe, an average high school student, were accepted to and enrolled at an Ivy, she too would get A-s in her major. It also does not mean that she would get better grades at Harvard or Cornell or Brown than she would at UMass-Lowell or Ball State.
Some people seem to think that the grade distribution should be the same at every college. The same percentage of students should get As at Harvard as at UMass-Lowell. The same percentage should get Bs, etc. In the AGGREGATE–there may well be some brilliant students at UMass-Lowell and Ball State–the students at these two schools are not as academically qualified as those at Harvard. So, why should the grade distribution be the same?
If we take the high school students who earned As in high school, got 2300s on the SAT and did lots of ECs to Harvard and the kids who got B/B+s, scored 1700 on the SAT and did very few ECs to UMass-Lowell and Ball State, why do we think that the kids at Ball State and UMass-Lowell should end up with the same median GPAs as those at Harvard?
Law schools gather data about colleges. It’s based on the actual transcripts of applicants. The data compiled includes the median GPA of students applying to law school that year from each college and the median LSAT score of the applicants from each college. To get a rough idea of the amount of grade inflation at a given college, law schools compare the median GPA and the median LSAT. Assume the median GPA of law school applicants at Harvard is a 3.6–I don’t know the actual current #. The median LSAT is a 167–it’s usually about that. At big state U, the median GPA of law school applicants is a 3.2. However, the median LSAT is 149. (And that’s what the numbers were a couple of years ago at a Midwest flagship.)
Is Harvard more grade inflated than big state U? I don’t think so. Neither do law schools. They do NOT think that a 3.8 at H is automatically better than a 3.8 at Ball State, but neither do they look at their transcripts and think “Oh, the average grade at H is an A-, and this guy has a 3.8, so he’s just an average Joe, but wow! this guy has a 3.8 at Ball State, which has a median gpa of 3.1 (I’m making up numbers and have NOT A CLUE as to the real ones) so he must really be special!!!”
Again, I’m making up #s for Ball State and UMass-Lowell. I’ve no idea of the real ones. I’m NOT knocking these colleges. I’m only saying that for someone to think that you could take the kid in the middle of the class at Ball State or UMass and put him at Harvard and he would still be in the middle of the class is silly. Claiming that Harvard is more grade inflated than Ball State or UMass-Lowell because the median GPA is higher is just as silly.
I could relate to this.
Sometimes I feel that some top colleges put so much emphasis on ECs in addition to the usual academic stuff is because it helps these schools to select those students who do not need to grind so much (at least at the high school level) but can still do academics well.
Once these students set their foot on the college campus, they tend to continue to spend a lot of time on other activities in addition to academic work, too. Although I am not 100% sure, I believe DS, like many other kids there, was likely quite “busy” on non-academic-related activities at least 2 evenings every week. At one time, one or two days before the mid-term of an important science class, he traveled several states away with a group of his friends (for a retreat - he thought it was a good opportunity for him to have this experience at that time.) He said he could just prepare the test before the trip and then he did not have to study over that (long?) weekend. He did manage to study enough before the trip.
However, not everything is rosy. During the 2nd look event (named after some animal whose name begins with the letter “b”, LOL), we happened to sit next to several current students in the large freshmen’s cafeteria whose name begins with the letter “C”. When one student asked another student what he is up to recently. His reply: “struggling” as if he had a lot of troubles in academics that semester. When DS was a student there, he had his shares of worries regarding whether he could “make the grade.” At one time he heard that the mid-term class average was like 46 out of 100, for a class which he happened to have taken one year prior. He said he was glad he had taken this same class the year before, otherwise he would not know he would fare in such a “brutal” exam (and it is just an intro class. Also, more than 40% of orgo I students in his class decided to skip a semester before taking the orgo II because the professor was rumored to give out very few test items (exactly 3 test items for a mid-term and not a lot test items for a final either!) and grade the test very harshly. some CCers (one of them was on this thread, I think) would claim that the most popular grade is A- at such a “grade inflation” school.
I think students at U Mass Lowell and Harvard, to use the previous poster’s examples, should have the same grade distribution because Harvard should be much harder. In our high school they don’t have honors until sophomore year. Students who earned A’s as freshmen are eligible, but when they get into the honors or AP track, they no longer all earn A’s. The bar is much higher and not everyone can clear it. This is good because the students who belong there thrive on the increased intellectual challenge, even if that means earning, gasp, a B. Why would Harvard be any different? A B from Harvard should be a grade one can be proud of. When I hear that the most common grade is an A-, it makes me wonder a bit.
@mcat2,
I agree with you about ECs. DD spends over 40 hours per week on ECs (including work) in similar fashion that your Yalie does (yes, I’m outing you). She remains happily in the bottom half of the class. And the grade inflation is in the humanities, but not the STEM classes.
@YoHoYoHo,
OK, I guess you could easily tell the animal with a name beginning with “b” is bulldog, and the cafeteria (for freshmen) with the name beginning with “C” is The Commons. LOL.
Like a previous CCer norcalguy said at one time: There is not much secret left after you have had thousands of posts.
Deleted - My dumbphone somehow managed to post the same twice.
“Even in the honors sections of state schools, very few ever make it to medical school. I’d value the connections, the brand power and a lowly 3.5 GPA at an Ivy over a 3.9 GPA at Tailgate State.”
The majority of doctors in this country are graduates of a state university.
And not every state u is Tailgate State. You might have even heard that some state schools are actually good!
For who? For what?
Are you serious? Michigan, UVA, Berkeley, U of T- Austin, Wisconsin are examples of very strong public universities whether you are in honors or not, with many strong majors at each. Also… looking back at D1’s high school class of 60, 4 are in med school now. Their undergrad schools? Carleton, St. Olaf (2 of them), and U of MN. There is so much misinformation flying on this thread…
@concernedMum Yes, as @Pizzagirl states, the majority of doctors in this country are graduaates of a state university.
So what exactly is grade inflation? Sorry, I haven’t really heard that before.
It is the slow uptick in average grades given in classes. When my dad was in school, C was average, and a lot of them were given out. Now average grades are higher at most colleges. Some are trying to hold the line (Mudd, for example, has had only 7 or 8 grads in their whole history graduate with a 4.0). Generally it seems that STEM courses have had less grade inflation… maybe because the material is less subjective.
Your so is a smart boy and has a good head on his shoulders.
I think it all depends on what he wants to study. If he’s interested in a STEM subject, then MIT, Stanford or a flagship state university in-state are all good options, but be prepared to study to the bones at MIT! Stanford is now the dream school for many would be computer science majors, but I can imagine how competitive it must be. There are billionaire Silicon Valley startup founders who went to San Jose State, Santa Clara Univ. etc. MIT/Stanford is not at all necessary, especially at the Undergrad level. Both founders of Google went to State schools for undergrad (Maryland and Michigan) before going on to Stanford for grad school. Ivy League schools, except for Cornell, are not known for their STEM programs. They are mostly known for liberal arts subjects such as English, History or Political Science.
On the other hand, if he wants to go work on Wall Street at an investment bank, or go on to Law School, Business School, or go into Politics, then he should go to an Ivy League school. The connections he could make there will greatly help him. But I should caution you about this point: Daniel Golden, in his famous book “Price of Admissions” about admission to Ivy League schools, said that a lot of people think Ivy League schools are great for making connections. Then they arrive on campus and realize that that only applies to those who are already well connected. The middle class kids on campus tend to socialize with the rich kids, who have their own social clubs that exclude those who aren’t rich/good looking enough.
It looks like you live in CA. The UC schools, especially Berkeley and UCLA, are as good as any Ivy League school and cost a lot less. If we live in CA, these 2 schools would be top choices for our kids, both are excellent students as well.