<p>I also think a lot of people need to justify their choice of a state school. For that matter, people feel the need to justify ALL their choices. Nothing new there.
I don’t see why anyone should have to justify picking a state university. I like them. There are many reasons for making choices. I guess if everyone felt that state universities were a better choice than the selective privates, we wouldn’t have this forum!</p>
<p>I haven’t seen many folks here arguing that states are a “better” choice. Just that the quality of education at a good state schools might be similar to elite privates in many cases.
Your right about justifying choices though…just look how we line up on the matter given the choices our children made 
That’s why I like hearing from those who’ve been exposed to a lot of different environments…they seem a bit more objective.</p>
<p>I grew up in the Midwest and we considered all of the Big 10 schools to be good …because, well they are all good schools.</p>
<p>im going to MSU next year, though I’ve been told by an admissions officer at Cornell that I should be nearly guaranteed to get in…so why did I choose? the students at Ivy Leagues often are bright and make for a great academic environment, but students of my caliber (not freakish geniuses or suck-ups) have few outside-the-classroom opportunities just open to them
at msu, i will help a professor with research and be paid during my freshman and sophmore year (and I get to choose the research project) and i get a pretty much full ride, though it comes through a whole bunch of diff. scholarships PLUS i can go see awesome football, basketball, and hockey games and have a great time</p>
<p>for me it was an easy choice-BIG TEN BABY!!!</p>
<p>When I was growing up UIUC was by far the most prestigious school one could attend. I remember overhearing a conversation in a grocery store when I was a kid in Illinois. Two women were talking about a student who had been accepted to Harvard from our local HS. After hearing that the kid was going to Harvard, the woman looked puzzled and asked, “Couldn’t he get into the U of I?” </p>
<p>I remember attending a conference at UIUC and wandered around campus eavesdropping on an occasional student conversation from time-to-time. I came away very impressed with the level and quality of student intellectual engagement. I would be proud to have a kid at UIUC or a Big 10 peer school.</p>
<p>I went to UIUC over Chicago, Northwestern, WUSTL, Carnegie Mellon, Swarthmore, Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth, Penn, Cornell, and YES even Harvard.</p>
<p>In-state, full tuition and stipend was worth more to me than an “elite” education. It helped a lot that my parents weren’t prestige-obsessed nimrods with too much time on their hands.</p>
<p>Both H and I graduated from a Big 10. We were lucky to have a great flagship U to attend. We received great educations and graduated with no debt. (In those days, by working alot a student could earn enough money during the summer to pay for most of college.) We both landed lucrative jobs by graduation. Over the years, we have enjoyed the pleasure of no loan repayments which have resulted in increased savings and a comfortable lifestyle.</p>
<p>S was a recruited athlete at several Ivies (he had one written likely letter and a couple of verbals) and other more ‘prestigious’ schools at which we would have had to pay full freight. He was in a situation that most students would envy. Guess what? He chose a Big 10 school with academic and athletic merit money and will graduate debt free. He says if he had to do it again, he would without a second thought.</p>
<p>Ashamed of going to a Big Ten University? NOT on your life, NOT in this family.</p>
<p>Actually…the title of this thread is REALLY annoying - although it sure does grab your attention. Anyway, it seems to perfectly describe the “CC bubble.” Yeah there are lots of super-smart kids and their parents hanging out on these boards. But it’s clear to me that the group is not even close to reflecting the larger world out there. And believe it or not (as detailed in the responses here), some super-smart kids are actually proud of their Big Ten choice.
It’s NOT normal to be ashamed to go to a Big Ten!</p>
<p>well put, toneranger!!</p>
<p>Plainsman,
Re post#91,
We are well aware that Ohio University is not part of the Big10, but many of the universities on our tour were. You show the same contempt for OU that some posters on this thread show for the Big10. Very sad! As it turns out, my DD absolutely loved OU. She said, “Mom, I can really see myself going here and being happy.” I was elated! She wanted a big school with school spirit located in a rural area next to a nice college town. She likes the Midwest because she feels people there are more pleasant and friendlier than in Northern Virginia. And OU seemed like a great match for her. We are not concerned with rankings but rather how a college environment fits her personality and interests.</p>
<p>On another note, she acquired a bright red Ohio State Buckeye sweatshirt on our tour that she wore to school today. (she attends a competitive public high school in Northern Virginia).
She was surrounded by a bunch of excited kids who thought she was going there. Evidently our kids think pretty highly of Big10 schools and many do apply. They are thrilled when they are accepted!</p>
<p>I think Big Ten schools have gotten to be very popular outside the midwest. I know a lot of Texas kids apply to Indiana now. Same thing is happening with SEC. Lots more appreciation for fun, state universities OUT of one’s home state which offer a different experience, a great education and a reasonable chance of acceptance. Who needs the stress of agonizing over what your future will hold if, God forbid, you are rejected from your reach school.</p>
<p>“Who needs the stress of agonizing over what your future will hold if, God forbid, you are rejected from your reach school.”</p>
<p>Are you saying that Big Ten and state schools can’t be reach schools?</p>
<p>I thought I would contribute to this thread because I was just accepted to a big ten school.</p>
<p>Before about six months ago, I would say I never really considered going to a big ten school, or really any schools outside the west coast. I live in CA and was content with applying to basically only UCs and maybe Washington and picking from those. However, when I began my college search process, a number of big ten schools fell under my criteria. Also, I looked at a map of the demographics of alumni from the school, (Wisconsin) and was pleasantly surprised to see tons of alumni all over the US. Anyways, I don’t see Big ten schools as bad at all. I love their school spirit, great academics, and different climate than what I experience here in CA. </p>
<p>I will add some people’s views I have encountered in my area however. When I say, “I just got into Wisconsin”, a number of people say things along the lines of, “Why Wisconsin?” “You want to be a farmer?” Why not just a UC?"</p>
<p>Based on these comments, it seems a number of people do not really respect the Big Ten schools as much or are just ignorant and reference stereotypes about rural americana. Anyways, this was sort of a long post, but I personally really respect the Big Ten and would (will) be thrilled to attend this coming fall.</p>
<p>Cryto: people are just ignorant and provincial. My D1 chose Penn State over Michigan State and Wisconsin-Madison. For some inexplicable reason, she was rejected at U. of Minnesota, and she grew up there! My D2 just sent in her deposit after being accepted at Penn State-University Park for next fall. She was accepted earlier this week. </p>
<p>yorkyfan: #130 I have nothing but love for the Big Ten universities. Ohio just isn’t one of them. It’s not a put down to say OU isn’t at the same level as the Big Ten schools. It’s true. Two of my family members were profs and deans at OU. I know the place. That’s not the same thing as saying it’s a bad school. It’s not. It’s a good school. It just doesn’t “rank” with the Big Ten schools.</p>
<p>We here in the Midwest are very territorial about our Big Ten schools, and in five years of ■■■■■■■■ CC, this is the first thread I remember extolling their virtues, even if it took a negative subject line to do it!</p>
<p>Four years ago, D1 picked a Big Ten school over UMiami/Coral Gables, Boston U. & St. Louis U. D2 is in the process of choosing between two Big Ten schools, although she has the stats to be accepted at many high-end Eastern privates, and probably a couple of Ivies as well. One of them is UW-Madison, and on their thread here I’m seeing OOS acceptances from CA and NY, all over, a wide variety. It appears that in many cases Madison has been chosen as their ‘safety’ for the HYPS rejects–they’ll find out quick that Wisconsin can give them all they can handle!</p>
<p>Above everything else, it’s a value thing. Not personal values, but cost=education value. I don’t want to hijack this thread, but even OOS, Big Ten costs (except N’Western, the only private in the bunch) clock in at a maximum of $37K/year out the door. And that’s for Michigan, the most expensive of the publics. You can look it up, but most of them are in the low 30’s OOS and low 20’s in-state. A very prudent alternative to those parents who can’t rationalize a year of undergraduate education at $40-50K.</p>
<p>The travel thing is another factor in the Midwest. Believe me, with the winter we’re having, it’s hard enough to get your kid home by car from a school 200 miles away, rather than scheduling costly, time-sapping flights from 1000+ miles away.</p>
<p>Go Boilermakers! :)</p>
<p>Everything else has already been said. <g></g></p>
<p>zebes, (H: M.S. and Ph.D. and M.S. for me)</p>
<p>I have some personal experience about the quality of education at a Big 10 university compared to an Ivy league university having attended both, OSU as an undergrad and Cornell as a grad student. My experience indicated that the calibre of education was very, very similar. I was as well or better prepared to begin grad level courses as my Cornell peers base on classroom performance and informal group study.</p>
<p>In addition I had 2 hs buddies who attended Cornell(we were all engineering majors) and the course work seemed to be almost identical, down to the math, chem and physics texts assigned(Fisher&Zieber, Sienko&Plane, Resnick&Halliday respectively). In fact my general chem primary text was University Chem by Mahan, a far more meaty text than S&P, which we used as a supplemental.</p>
<p>PS-I have no idea why I remember such useless information as frosh texts of 44 years ago.</p>
<p>re above-I do- I was in the Honors/accelerated freshman Chemistry at UW and we had a fantastic professor but he used a more colorful, not Mahan, text that year (just recalled- it was Pimentel and Spratley), I remember that fact, but it’s only been 35 plus years for me. UW friend from NJ went to Cornell for his PhD.</p>
<p>I think no school you should shame to,every school is good .The most important is what you learn from the school.</p>