Honestly, I never understood the theory that someone who could get into an elite school will do just as well at their public flagship. What does that mean? That they can get the same jobs or make the same amount of money? ok. Yes, that’s probably true. But they are not getting the same experience during their four years of undergrad. They just aren’t. And we are paying for that four years as well as the potential it helps our kids develop.
Our niece is at UIUC and is she making the most of it? I don’t know. She’s doing some things to make the school smaller for herself. BUT, she’s in giant classes that she admits make no sense to attend. She can get an A just by doing the reading and the homework. Her calc class isn’t too big but she cannot understand her professor or her TA and has given up and is learning the material via the extra help section of her digital textbook. She’s made a few friends because she joined a sorority but doesn’t feel a big sense of community yet. Also, it’s actually hard to be a part of some things she’d like to join. One has to interview and be accepted for even some volunteer activities. And everyone she’s meeting is from Illinois. Not exactly stretching her socially. Our niece is a strong student but being at a large state school makes it very easy to be somewhat complacent.
Compare that classroom experience at a more elite school where kids are challenged in class and discussion is a real thing. They can meet kids from all over the world. Students have more guidance, more time with professors who can help them discover interests they didn’t have before college. These schools probably get more interesting speakers who visit and speak to the students from all walks of life - government, business, non-profits, entertainment, etc.
I’m not saying that bright kids can’t make a public school work for them. Of course they can, but the actual experience on campus is not the same. And, in our book anyway, college is not just about the end game.
And ouch. Yes this can cost more. We will be full pay at an expensive LAC and it indeed will cost us $200k more. But we have saved and this is what we want to spend our money on. Not fancy cars or a house bigger than we need. I don’t like it when anyone says it’s not worth it because we’re pretty sure it’s worth it to us.
I don’t think the arguments of @PurpleTitan and @socaldad2002 / @homerdog are mutually inconsistent. Earnings potential is much more about the qualities of the kid than those of the college, so you can save the money you’d pay to Harvard and go to your state flagship if money is that important to you. You can also save college tuition money and travel the world, as @PurpleTitan suggests, if that unique experience, which will stay with you the rest of your life is really important to you. Or you can pay it to Harvard because you want that particular, enduring experience.
A private college education is a luxury good, which people are willing to purchase because they believe it improves the quality of their kid’s life. Given the choice on how to spend $300k, some people will buy a second home, others a Ferrari. DJ Khaled has a $300,000 Patek Philippe Nautilus (https://www.gq.com/story/dj-kaled-patek-philippe-nautilus-watch). You don’t need a second home, you can drive a beater and a $30 quartz watch will tell the time more precisely than a mechanical marvel like a Patek. Some people will want to spend that money on a Harvard education for their kid, if they have the option, because they believe that that experience will be life-changing for them. But, if the kid has the personal qualities, he/she can make a nice living with a state-college education, or maybe doesn’t need to go to college at all, if the non-financial aspects of the college experience don’t matter much to them or their parents.
Personally, given the choice, I’d pick Harvard for my kid over the second home, Ferrari, Patek or the cash, but that’s just a reflection of what I feel I can afford, what I feel my kid might need, and my individual priorities.
“A private college education is a luxury good, which people are willing to purchase because they believe it improves the quality of their kid’s life. Given the choice on how to spend $300k, some people will buy a second home, others a Ferrari. DJ Khaled has a $300,000 Patek Philippe Nautilus”
One major difference, anyone with $300K to burn can buy a second home, Ferrari, or Patek Philippe watch. Your kid has to get into Harvard before it will take your money.
DS19 tested as gifted in elementary school but initially wasn’t particularly high achieving as he found school unchallenging and boring. He was fortunate to be placed in a small in-school program for gifted/high achievers for middle school. There he was fortunate to develop a small tight knit peer group with whom he really bonded. The majority are Chinese-Canadian girls (mostly first generation) with strong work ethics and are universally high achieving. I believe that this peer group is in large part responsible for his successes to date. They all applied and were accepted into a competitive admissions regional magnet program for high school and continued to work together and support one another. Many of DS19’s EC achievements in high school are a result of the encouragement, coaching, and modelling of behaviours by this peer group and academically he has been working much more to his potential since meeting them. Fast forward to this year and they all applied to university programs. The majority of them applied to highly competitive admissions programs requiring supplemental applications and interviews. They were universally successful in achieving admittance. One particularly ambitious friend, a med school hopeful, applied to Harvard (waitlisted), Stanford (denied), UCLA (accepted), UCB (accepted), and a very selective program at McMaster University here in Ontario (accepted). Of the programs DS19 applied to 2 were reaches: one moderate and the other one a very high reach. Both required supplemental applications. He received 4 early offers to his match programs at selective schools, but he was denied by the super reach program and is still pending to hear from his other reach. When it came to the supplemental applications he chose not to let me review them before he submitted them. I have since seen them and they really weren’t of the caliber that would be necessary to be competitive, but he chose not to seek my assistance even though I offered. I think this demonstrates the inherent difference between him and his friends. His ship has risen because of his association with them but in terms of ambition and drive there is only so much that that association can do to overcome his intrinsic personality. Modelling and mentorship have certainly helped him but he requires much more handholding and encouragement then they do. They are motivated and ambitious. DS19 is as well to a point but not to the same extent as they are despite probably having more innate intelligence. These girls will go far whatever path they chose to follow. I worry that DS19 won’t achieve as highly without continuing to have a similar peer group and work colleagues.
UIUC is a great school that my dear friends swore by. They did very well there. One got a Harvard MBA there. They saw absolutely no reason to send their kids anywhere else when they moved back to Illinois.
And so was a wonderful school for their DD who turned down WU-SL and Northwestern for UIUC without a regret. Had a sterling academic experience there and is doing as well anyone these days. UIUC, by the way, has a tremendous rep on the international circuit. Right up there on those lists.
But when it came to one of the kids, suddenly UIUC didn’t look so good. He was one of those kids that left things to the last minute. Needed some pushing, prodding and attention. The things that sharpened the other kids’ and my friends’ acumens Looked like it could lead to a very short stay, (or a too long stay) at the big state schools. If he coukd even get in, but then he did.
So they doled out the money for a small private LAC. It wasn’t easy going there but he got through. As strong of advocates as they are for state schools, there are times when they are not the way to go.
@TheBigChef “One major difference, anyone with $300K to burn can buy a second home, Ferrari, or Patek Philippe watch. Your kid has to get into Harvard before it will take your money.”
Ahhh, if only this were true… Takes a bit more than $300K, but I think DJ Khaled can swing it.
Stated another way: it depends. On a number of factors. Kid involved. Goals. Interests. Options on the table. Etc. With that, the thread could end. But it never does here. And it won’t in the numerous renditions of this same discussion that is pretty much constantly ongoing on this site. Was interesting for a while to watch; then it become more comical than anything. Same groups of people making the same arguments. Over and over. Must be getting something out of it I guess.
@saillakeerie “With that, the thread could end. But it never does here.”
Or if you are “bored” with this thread, you can go visit some of the other thousands of threads that are on CC. Frankly, there are a lot of new members and non-members who are recent visitors and/or contributors to this site who enjoy hearing differing opinions, even if stated in different ways, multiple times. I know personally, it has made me think twice about long-held opinions and beliefs about college admissions that I have had in the past.
Lastly, it’s rude to try to shut down a thread because YOU think it should be shut down. There are moderators for that…
Ha, ha. Harvard will take your money before your kid is in there. Long before. They’ll cut you off if you try to connect admissions of your kid with the money. But if you get involved with Harvard development and start donating without a kid with a year or so of college search, and no mentioning admissions of any kid, you’ll be on the donors list. Get invited to dinners, events, hit up for more money, get to know the Development department.
In a few years time, when you have a kid applying to college, if said kid is within parameter of the Harvard pool, chances good that he’ll be accepted. His app will get a Development tag and assessed accordingly.
@socaldad2002 As I said, I find this type of thread comical. Not sure where you get “bored” from that.
And to be clear, I wasn’t asking or suggesting this thread be closed. Never asked for one to be closed.
At some point this thread will slow down and effectively stop (history here would indicate its not likely it will be formally closed). But have no fear as before that happens, there will be at least one (but likely multiple) similar threads and the debate will continue there. Don’t think you can chalk that up to new posters on the site though.
For fun, you can play something of a 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon game to see how long it takes for a thread with a different subject to morph into the current discussion. Or block the names of posters and see if you can guess who it is based on the words of the post. Spend some time here and you might be surprised how many times you get it right.
Somewhere in this type of thread there is a graduate dissertation I am sure.
Asking as a real question, not sarcastically or rhetorically: what’s wrong with going to school mostly with kids from Illinois (or Missouri, or California, or Tennessee, or New York, or…)? Illinois is a big state; it has everyone from students at Chicago’s preppiest prep schools to kids who woke up at dawn to milk cows since elementary school. Surely the students at UIUC have a wide range of personalities, interests, backgrounds, futures, etc?
On one hand, I get that some states are less diverse than others, and there’s a certain value to learning in a diverse environment. But almost every college has a diversity office and an international students office and a study abroad office, so there must be diversity of some sort, somewhere.
Kids from my HS seem to have a big problem with this and agonize over going to “the same school that everyone else goes to.” I don’t see what the big deal is – sure, there’s lots of kids from my area/city at our flagship, but there’s still plenty of new people to meet.
I will say, I’m guilty of not going to my state’s flagship, but I’m going to a school that’s mostly students from one state, and I don’t mind, although maybe I would secretly mind it more if I were staying in state. But I don’t have a problem with people from my state…after all, I’ve been living there myself for 18 years, and I’ve been going to school for 13 years with kids from, at best, a 10-mile radius – so why is college so different?
@SuperSenior19
Because location is a distinct element of diversity, that’s why. It doesn’t mean someone who wants to leave a state of 18 years is rejecting the state or his classmates. When one looks at neighboring states, they can be considerably different from each other, even within the same region. We tend to absorb and adopt, unconsciously, the dominant perspective of our state, even if we travel a lot. One of the major points of college is to open one’s mind to the ideas of people from other areas, as well as other cultures, races, ethnicities. I’m not saying you cannot do that in-state, but some students yearn for broader horizons and want maximum exposure.
Hispanics from Peru are different from those in Honduras, who are different from those in Mexico. Jews from Canada have a different viewpoint than Jews in Israel, who are different from Jews in Los Angeles. Blacks from the islands are different from those in Ethiopia, who are different from those in Detroit. Etc. Therefore, simply “having a diversity office” on campus, or looking at a state with its diversity within it, is not equivalent to adding geography to the factor of diversity.
@SuperSenior19. I think your asking a great question actually. Short answer is there is nothing wrong at all with going to your local flagship especially UIUC. But being local to Chicago many see it as just that their local flagship and nothing special not realizing all the Out of state or country kids fighting to get in… Lol… The grass is always greener…
Another thing is UIUC is expensive for a local flagship expecially for engineering… Many go out of state like Alabama for merit that UIUC doesn’t provide.
Lastly I just think students want the allure of going away and trying something new. My kids instate school like 85% of the kids get accepted to Illinois. For some reason that’s not as special as being accepted somewhere else. Many would actually see the same kids they went to high school with and others they had outside activities with and just want something that feels new to them. During my sons visit a few years back he actually ran into several people from his school that graduated a few year before him. Not a bad thing at all but just wanted a newer experience type of thing.
There are huge differences in different parts of the country. A good portion of my son’s education was simply from leaving the northeast and living in Texas!
I think you would be hard pressed (outside a small handful of issues and even then it will often be difficult) to identify the dominant perspective on many issues/matters of any state. As such I am not sure how you can know if people living in any given state absorb and adopt the dominant perspective of their state. I also don’t think its true in any event.
Different kids have different reasons for picking different schools. What works for one won’t work for all. Simple concept but one with which many here seem to struggle.
Some kids go to a distant college for geographic diversity. Other kids go simply because its not something their high school classmates are doing (sometimes its really the parents seeking bumper sticker diversity). Some kids are seeking $$ that isn’t available closer to home.
Also matters what you do when you get there. You can reverse much of diversity potential by surrounding yourself with people like yourself. Can be harder to do that at some places but still can be done particularly with respect to a majority of matters.
I grew up in Chicago and went to Northwestern. Not one other person on my floor freshman year was from Illinois. My roommate was from Long Island. My best friend down the hall was from Kentucky. There were prep school kids from Exeter, kids from SoCal, one from D.C., one from Idaho. It was awesome. This was just on one floor! Not one of those kids was much like the kids I went to high school with in the Chicago suburbs. It was exciting and out of my comfort zone. It stretched me. It was a very good thing.
It’s quite obvious to me when I visit other states, and apparently it’s quite obvious to some other posters here, as well. Not always can one articulate differences, although often one can. Sometimes it’s a matter of style and approach (to a problem, a topic.) Just because you might not have encountered geographical variants does not mean that others cannot and have not.
Here’s an example. I attended grad school in the Massachusetts town where I was already living so when I met a new classmate from a deep Southern state I offered to give her information on local resources-where to buy fresh veggies, the closest dry cleaners, etc. As we were parting she asked me for one favor, “Can you introduce me to your Bible study group?”
Coming from her community in a state with a low single digit percentage of non-religiosity (ie, atheism) I think she assumed because I seemed like a nice, normal person I must be in a Bible study group.
I, on the other hand, an Atheist from a state with quadruple her state’s percentage of non-believers, not only wasn’t in a Bible study group, I didn’t know anyone who was. That doesn’t mean there weren’t Bible study groups in Massachusetts, just that no one would ever make the assumption that a new friend in MA was a Christian, much less a member of a Bible study group.
We each got to know someone with a different perspective from our own, and IMO that’s a good thing.
Takes a bit more than $300K, but I think DJ Khaled can swing it.