The “million dollars” question is: How could you tell whether you will be a big fish in a big pond as well before attending a school, and how risk averse should a person be?
If the tolerance of risks is drastically different between the “involving” parents and their child is drastically different, it could be a source of conflict. Sometimes, it is the child who is more willing to take the risk than the parents (“I want to go to that dream school”).
Dare I add this one: Where do you have a better opportunity to meet your future SO? The dating pool at a no-name community college where most students may be almost like a part time student who commute to the school and the dating pool at an elite college or flagship state college could be quite different. The dating pool could also be AFTER you have graduate and you potentially “reconnect” when it is time to be more serious in finding the SO. (Flame away! An alumnus from Princeton got flamed last year or so, for talking publicly about this.)
Has anyone been talking about the OP’s kid going to a CC? I am also going to say… when I look back on my high school years and the young men I dated, and where they are today, the “one that got away” in my opinion (partly based on career success to date, and partly for other reasons) was one who went to a state directional right out of school, and that is where he graduated. And again… you think there are no decent SOs at Michigan, UVA, Berkely, Williams, etc.? You HAVE to go to an Ivy to get the “right” SO? Sheesh.
@mcat2, I do think that there are some predictors (not guarantees) of “being a bigger fish” such as being recipient to a very large merit scholarship, invitations into the Honors program/school, guarantees of specialized treatment such as immediate contact with faculty sponsors in your chosen field. All of these have occurred for my freshman son at a newsweek institution ranked in the 50s.
This discussion is fascinating and highly relevant for me. My son has applied to many schools, from several of Ivies to some lower-tier private schools, to several of the UCs. He has gotten acceptances from schools at each of the levels already, although of course we are still waiting for the bulk of the responses. So while the theoretical conversation about where to apply is quite interesting, we will soon have to step up and decide. It seems like a knee-jerk reaction to accept the Ivy, but that has to be weighed against possibly having a happier, yet still challenging and worthwhile, four years at a school that isn’t quite so competitive. It’s a tough one, and it isn’t as obvious a decision as some may think, at least with our family!
Having re-read the OP’s original and subsequent post, I disagree with other posters who suggest that the son should at least apply to HYPSM or any Ivies. He appears adamant in his viewpoint, and their must be a reason for it (I’d love to hear his reasons in his own words). Standing in his shoes, I’d be afraid that, should he apply and should he be accepted to any of these schools, the parental and cultural pressure, and even guilt, would be immense on him to accept said school. He should visit and apply to the schools he has a real interest in.
Non-tiger immigrant parent here. My son went to a magnet HS with very competitive admissions where every year 50-100 kids apply to Harvard, Princeton, etc. and around 10% are admitted. He ended up there by accident - his middle-school friends were all applying and he decided to outcompete them so he applied too. While attending there he got really resentful dealing with his tiger cubs classmates who sucked up to the teachers, were involved in fake ECs and recalculated their GPAs three times a day. So in the end he did not want to apply to any Ivies as he was afraid to repeat his HS experience although he did have the credentials to try. At my request he applied to one Ivy on December 31st and got duly rejected. He took a full ride to our state flagship and graduated with multiple job offers and no loans. In the process he opened the financial opportunity for his younger sister to practice a pricy EC that eventually landed her at one of the schools mentioned above as opposed to taking a free ride elsewhere. She was hell-bent to go there and we relented. The main driver again was to outdo her peers.
A lot of kids exhibit lemming-like behavior. But some of them want to be rebellious and thus become anti-lemming.
So let the kids decide what they want as they are all different. I knew an Asian-American girl who worked at Home Depot after graduating from Columbia Engineering. Her parents wanted her to be an engineer and she obliged. It took her years to decide what she really wanted to do with her life.
The main strength of the USA is that you can be a regular engineer or a regular doctor or accountant and have a comfortable life. You do not need to be a member of a special caste or be a member of a communist party or ruling elite to be successful. And you do not have to go to this Very Special College - if you are hard working and talented you will succeed anyway. I wonder where OP went to school and if he believes that he is doing well now in San Jose:). How many times the questions about your UG college came up during your recent job interviews? Do you believe that everything that you achieved or did not achieve was due to the UG college you attended?
intparent, I did get flamed by that post.
LOL. (Probably I deserve it!)
My child actually said otherwise. He said his college is not a good place to meet SO. He thinks a school like a flagship state college may be better. Two reasons he mentioned are: The students came from all over the country and will be disbursed all over the country after graduation. So few may think they can still be together after graduation. Another factor is that too many students pay too much attention to career development to the exclusion of all other endeavors like dating. Hooking up may be more acceptable than a serious commitment?
Re: “At Harvard, the professor will publish with the grad students, not with the undergrads.”
Depending on how serious and committed you are to research (and future career goal), this applies to the non-traditional side of “grad” schools too. When a grad school got the big name, it is most likely not because of their students in the lowest rank of research group. It is because they are financially capable of recruiting an army of full-time researchers (e.g., post-docs or assistant professors or professors-want-to-be who have had N years of experience under their belt.) Heck, I heard that even a researcher/professor may need to take a position several steps down the ladder if they move from one school at the a lower food chain to, say, Harvard. You are most likely “nobody” at the highest rank of the food chain, and thinking otherwise is just to fool yourself.
I do not know the pros at a LAC regarding its opportunity. I suspect it is not all that “rosy”. Like romani said in another thread about Wellesley, they (esp. not the very tippy top ones) may have more students who have more time and money than, say, their counterparts at a flagship state college would have, on average. Well, top private research colleges may be the same here.
I can relate to this family. My son is also a “high performance” kid, but does not have much interest in the Ivies - he applied to Penn, because of their top-rated Econ program. (If he didn’t hate cold weather so much, he might consider others.) Some other OOS schools on his list are Duke, UNC-CH, UVA (accepted), Georgetown, and Vanderbilt. In state, he has applied to UF, New College and FSU, both accepted. FSU is very interested and has invited him to the honors program and offered a scholarship. He’s also a NMF (but only FSU, New College and Vanderbilt participate in the NM scholarship program.) He also has the instate-only Bright Futures scholarship. As much as he would like to go OOS, he is beginning to realize that it will be very VERY hard to justify the cost of going OOS for an undergrad degree. FSU is an eight hour drive from home in Miami, so it should feel like going OOS.
This discussion should not be about what school “system” is better. It should not be about how productive the years at a HYPS school or how comforting the years at a public university were. How many anecdotes of success or regrets do we need to impose one view over the other? Can we not safely assume that there are plenty of anecdotes one could cite to make … either point.
If we made an analogy to food, should we ask which one is better … caviar or oysters? Fried calamari versus grilled shrimp? Ain’t that subjective? But what could we say about people who declare they would never eat oysters because they looked bad but also say they probably taste bad! How can one make a realistic decision by dismissing choices for reasons that might make little sense to astute observers? How many people have spent a lifetime “hating” a particular food and loved it later in life when it was served properly? Brussels sprouts anyone?
In the end, it will always revert to a choice based on fit. And a choice to be made based on acceptances versus hypothetical possibilities. What does remain a FACT is that one cannot evaluate the chances of admission and the possibility at one school without … applying!
Will OP be pleased if his S go to San Jose State college? (I do not know how “good” this particular college is in terms of its quality, as compared to UC?)
It seems there is another college called Univ. of Santa Clara (maybe a private one?) Is that one “perceived” better than San Jose State? Are both “inferior” to those UCs but “superior” to CSU in the eyes of most California students? How about USC? (I really do not know anything about these two colleges in terms of their UNDERGRADUATE program. I do know USC graduate program is relatively strong though.)
@mcat2, I was asking the OP (father) who now lives in SJ about how is he surviving without attending HYPSM for undergrad. I did not mean that his son should necessarily attend SJS
Sounds like my son. He turned down one of the dream schools you listed here (your dream). He did go to a state school though that some consider a public ivy. His reasons were same as your sons. We were willing to pay but I think he didn’t want to burden us with debt. He has not problem getting great internships. Has high grades to go to grad school. And hi is challenged and very happy. His future has lots of possibilities.
I haven’t read through the thread, so am probably repeating some comments made by others. I think your kid should be making the decision about where he goes to college, and he sounds like he is likely to achieve his career goals, regardless of whether he goes to HYPSM or not. Being obsessed with attending HYPSM type colleges is not a good thing.
That said, I wouldn’t assume it’s easy to get a 4.0 at your local flagship, and you’ll struggle to get a 3.5 at a “top school.” Most extremely selective private colleges tend to give out a lot of high grades, which partially relates to a large portion of the class doing A quality work. For example, GradeInflation.com mentions that average GPA at Brown was 3.61 in 2007. It the grade inflation trend has continued at its current pace, the mean GPA would be ~3.7 today. Stanford is on pace for a mean GPA of ~3.65 today. Harvard is on pace for mean GPA 3.55 . One does not need to be at the top of the class to get a 3.5. Instead you could get well below average grades at certain highly selective private colleges and still manage a 3.5 In contrast, some not as selective state colleges are on pace for mean GPA below 3.0. You’d need to be towards the top of the class to get a higher GPA. You also may be surprised to find a lot of high achieving and talented kids in not as selective state colleges. Some have honors colleges with average student stats that surpass HYPSM type colleges. I wouldn’t just assume you can easily be at the top of your class and get all A’s. Students also react differently to a larger portion of students doing A quality work. Some will imitate the majority and suffer if the majority are less focused on academics, some will rise to new heights when surrounded by amazing people,and some will have difficulty if they are like the majority and no longer the big fish in their class.
HYPSM colleges are good choices for some students and poor choices for others. It depends on many factors including what the student is looking for in a college experience andas the family’s financial situation. I have degrees from Stanford and have also taken classes at SUNYA, RPI, Syracuse, Wyoming, and UCSD. Personally I preferred the Stanford environment. Students seemed more interested and motivated in learning, and professors seemed more interested and motivated in teaching. I also felt like it was easier to find interesting out of class room activities, and there were a larger portion of students that I enjoyed spending time around. Job and career opportunities were focused on location. If I wanted to work in Silicon Valley, Stanford would have a large edge in opportunities and unique connectoins; and if I wanted to work in upstate NY, RPI or SUNYA would have a large edge in opportunities and unique connections.
Regarding the Malcolm Gladwell discussion, I’ve seen the Google lecture. I haven’t read the book. In the Google lecture, he shows what percentage of graduating STEM majors that have SAT percentiles in the top 3rd of their class, middle 3rd, and lower 3rd. I believe the displayed results are % graduating class rather than persistence rate for each group since the sum adds up to 100% (sum of persistence rates would not add up to 100%). He shows that at the schools he chose with different levels of selectivity, all have about 50% of the graduating STEM majors in the top 3rd of their class and only ~15% in the bottom 3rd. Students in the bottom 3rd of their class are less likely to be STEM majors, so he suggests students should choose colleges where they are in the top 3rd. There are several obvious flaws in that argument, such as not looking into why the students were not majoring in STEM. For example, I’d expect that the students who intend to major in STEM fields tend to have higher SAT scores than the students who do not intend to major in STEM at many colleges. That is, students accepted to a college’s engineering school tend to have higher SAT scores than the humanities school. If the entering STEM students have higher SAT scores, then it is not surprising that the graduating STEM students have higher scores. Similarly the lower scoring students might overreperesent hooks, such as athletes. And hooks may have a reduced chance of majoring in STEM.
It would help to see the actual studies Gladwell is referring to instead of just listening to his biased summaries. I looked up the study he mentioned with the 10 point SAT rule of the thumb. It was a study looking at persistence for URMs in life and behavioral sciences majors (includes health science and psychology; does not include math, physics, or engineering), which Gladwell neglects to mention. Other studies have come to different conclusions. For example, the study at http://public.econ.duke.edu/~psarcidi/grades_4.0.pdf found that the most influential factor for persistence in natural sciences, engineering, and economics was being male. After adding controls for similar GPA, test scores, course rigor, and other factors; women still had a notably lower persistence rate than men; so choosing a less selective college is not expected to resolve this contribution. However, the difference in persistence for black and white students was nearly fully resolved by controls for the selectivity (and other) factors, which fits with the URM study Gladwell referenced with the 10 point rule of thumb. SAT scores were identified as the 2nd least contributing factor, after not having good personal qualities (good personal qualities had negligibly negative effect), although they did have notable correlation to other selectivity-based factors.
I expect Gladwell’s general conclusion is correct, that a student is more likely to flourish in comparison to others if they choose a college where they have better stats than most. However, he presents the data in a misleading way, likely to increase book sales. There are also many exceptions to this generalization. For example, I was bored of my mind in high school, as well as in a good portion of the university classes I took at various colleges while in HS. It wasn’t until attending a selective college that I was finally challenged. That challenge allowed me to push myself further and achieve closer to my potential. I graduated from with 3 STEM degrees, including the first BS + MS in under 4 years, even though my HS GPA and combined SAT were near the bottom of my class. I’d expect that the bulk of excellent students are likely to be successful in college and beyond, regardless of whether they choose a more or less selective 4-year college.
You just gave far more press to Gladwell then I ever would… as you sort of said, he is all about book sales and generalizations. I wish we wouldn’t give him any more credit or attention.
“Or your child could take an intro science class at Harvard with 350 other students where the professor never learns his name”
As a professor, I find it objectionable to think that it is the professor’s job to know your name - HE is being paid, and YOU are paying. A customer needs to get the maximum value out of what they pay for - he just needs to do his job and go home. It is the student’s job to talk to the professor, to go to office hours, to make the effort to communicate. That is exactly what sets apart a handful of students from the other 345. And that’s how you try to get into a research group with some famous guy, you talk to professors.
In my psych class, there were at least 300 if not more students. The guy wrote the book, used by many colleges around the world, and gave great lectures even with 300 kids.
(I would be more cynical about Harvard having 75% of their classes taught by non-tenured instructors, which includes full-time instructors and adjuncts, and possibly grad students. It is useful to look into specific departments as the policy where I work is that each department determines how much contact tenured professors must have with students.)
I was at an Ivy with 10,000 undergrads. However, I was in a small major so although I did have a few very large classes, my major classes were 20 to 30 students freshman year, and fewer as the years went on. I had a few classes with 10 students or so. I and my friends had amazing work study jobs, doing cutting edge research, programming, etc.
Post #152 shows what my concern is for my son: I want him on a campus where “Students seemed more interested and motivated in learning,” He is going to a competitive school that has name recognition in the Northeast for a lot more money that a middling school where he would be one of the top 1% of students.
You have a very smart son who thinks very logically and realistically. I agree with him 100%. Let him go where he fells he will shine and stand out and then he can apply to an Ivy League grad school and you can borrow money and help him pay for that.
I’ll tell you something, going to the best school is not what gets you the job. Its who you are and how driven and hard working you are. My husband is an engineer in the position to hire young graduates. He has often told me that engineering graduates from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in California and University of Texas in Austin (both state schools) are often times more prepared and competent than engineering graduates from Ivy League schools, or even top UC’s. This is not the case all the time but pretty often. He is shocked.
So let him choose his own path. Don’t try to live your dreams through him.
That is not shocking to me. Most Ivies are not highly ranked in engineering, and Ivies are known to give a well-rounded education, even engineers. State schools which started with agricultural and land management bases transitioned easily to engineering, and often co-op experience is stressed more than most Ivies do.
You have raised a son with a good head on his shoulders and he has sound reasons for not doing the Ivy. I’d be proud to support my kid in whatever endeavor he chooses. He has his whole life ahead of him and he will be successful wherever he attends–but he also needs to be happy. I’d rather have a happy and un-stressed kid in a very good State university than one who feels constant pressure from his academics.