<h1>3 is extremely important… about the perceived level of social interaction among similarly intelligent peers. is it weird that i want to party with all smart kids? seems like it’s the slackers who always get the cops called… haha. i greatly prefer partying with my IB friends to my honors friends.</h1>
<p>OK, so maybe it’s easy for most to choose between, say, Univ of Florida and Harvard…or MIT and Ohio State. It gets a lot murkier when you go a rung down. So, will Boston College make a huge difference over University of Illinois? Or Lehigh vs Ohio State? Or Wake Forest vs Univ of Texas? Or Bucknell vs Penn State? Is there a huge difference here in future earning potential, prestige, bragging rights, educational quality? These may be easy choices for those with lots of cash…but most folks have to weigh the differences and make a tough choice…</p>
<p>Well, I can honestly say that earnings potential and prestige were not biggies in my S choosing an Ivy. If that were the case, he probably wouldn’t have dropped out (with a fine GPA) in the middle of his eighth semester.</p>
<p>He was looking for intellectual challenge from his classes and fellow students. Had no interest in any kind of career, much less a high paying one (that might be his bad upbringing kicking in, oops.) He stayed when he felt he was getting that challenge; he left when he didn’t. Whether he judged that correctly I can’t say.</p>
<p>garland- that’s interesting. My son felt the way your son did in his first year, but feels second year is a lot more intellectually challenging and his classes are a lot more stimulating. I hope it doesn’t get worse again!</p>
<p>S loved first year. Apparently, he felt different little by little, but not in a way he acknowledged to himself, and certainly not to us, until this year. Wish he’ d gotten it out in the open earlier, like WC.</p>
<p>Though truly, I think it is a great school; just not, in retropsect, the right one for him.</p>
<p>I’m not sure about the validity of this as a study. But certainly, #3 was huge for me. I could have found fellow smart kids at most schools, but being somewhere where we were the norm instead of a socially isolated minority was priceless.</p>
<p>Potential to earn a bunch of money, I didn’t care as much about. I mean, I entered college thinking I was going to be premed, and doctors get paid well no matter where they did their undergrad. Employability in general (will this school name on my diploma help me get a decent job if all my original plans fall through?) was a big one.</p>
<p>Mollie interesting list. I like seeing MIT described as “small”. And I have to say seeing “Institute” as part of the name being a disadvantage made me laugh.</p>
<p>StitchInTime, those OOS tuitions costs may be expensive, but they’re still considerably less than the costs at top private universities, especially for those families not eligible for need-based aid. And it’s not just tuition that matters. Room and board costs at state universities (which don’t vary with in-state/out-of-state status) also tend to be lower at state universities.</p>
<p>UVa was my daughter’s second choice. Had she ended up there, rather than at the private university that was her first choice, we would have saved $10,000 a year. <em>sigh</em></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Hate to burst your bubble but I’ve been to 3 schools: One outside the top 100, one top 25, and another that’s on par with HYPS etc. The “quality of education” at all 3 were the same. There’s no “secret formula” that the top schools teach that gives you a better academic experience.</p>
<p>
I always wondered where this myth was propagated. The books are the same, the theories are the same. The teaching quality is most likely the same.</p>
<p>The biggest difference, as always, is the quality of the competition. I would think this is generally accounted for already in grade inflation. At UCs there is a drift upwards in GPA the closer you get to Berkeley.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Why is this?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Numerous reasons. How many PHD’s does hypsb churn out each year? You think there are tons of openings @ the top schools? At my school ranked outside the 100 I took a total of 7 teachers, 5 of which held PHD from ivies or berkeley. At any credible university you are going to have tons of research money (Ohio St qualifies) and that’s what draws the teachers. I’m not saying you’ll get the same instruction at Mississippi Valley St that you will at Princeton but the quality of teaching for any major school is on par with any other school. Location also plays a roll in things…I had a professor who got his phd from stanford, taught for over 26 years (had won teacher of the year in the United States ~10 years ago) yet still decided to teach at a non top 100 state because he loved the location. </p>
<p>“teaching” is very subjective too. I have a friend @ Columbia who took a history course taught by Brinkley, one of the worlds most renowned historians. My friend said for all the hoopla about him being a great historian he was a pretty s****y teacher.</p>
<p>
For engineering:</p>
<p>People tend to discount how difficult it is to get through even a midranked PhD program. The level of knowledge in the average PhD is quite thorough. This level of knowledge certainly exceeds what is required for teaching an undergraduate level course.</p>
<p>Virtually all engineering schools put an emphasis on research - so they attempt to get the best researchers they can. I believe the teaching ability is non-correlated to research ability. This would naturally mean that schools go for the best researchers and the teaching is a wash, virtually across the board.</p>
<p>Non-research universities generally pick teachers based on teaching ability (how else would they select teachers?) and not research ability. I tend to think this means that non-PhD granting institutions are significantly better from a pure teaching perspective. However, there are caveats as always. Generally the facilities are not as well funded, the undergraduate student quality is lower, the prestige of the school is lower on a national level. MIT vs. Harvey Mudd. Purdue vs. Rose Hulman. UCSB vs. Cal Poly.</p>
<p>I see many unsubstantiated, very broad generalizations in the posts above.</p>
<p>To one of the issues:
I can speak about only one of the Universities included in the title of this thread. And its engineering school certainly does not suffer from grade inflation.</p>
<p>Saying all top schools inflate grades is certainly a generalization, however it is a widely known fact that the ivies inflate grades.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Do you think the quality of instruction is independent of the quality of the students?</p>
<p>
I don’t think “quality of education” means only “quality of teaching”, and I did feel that I had it better at MIT than at Ohio State, where most of my friends were.</p>
<p>For one thing, I was in smaller classes with more difficult tests. I was required to take classes that were not required for my major at OSU (and which I therefore would have avoided taking). I had no difficulty finding a research position by the end of freshman year where I was a real participant in the research and eventually was published. I was able to take graduate classes starting in my sophomore year. I had several professors whose offices I could bound into at a moment’s notice to discuss graduate school options.</p>
<p>That’s all included in “quality of education” for me, and I think rightfully so.</p>
<p>^^^^^
Honors programs at most major state Us will let you (in fact, encourage you to) do all of the above (smaller classes, research in early years, graduate classes, access to top professors). In fact, you could do all this w/o being in an honors program…you just have to motivated and seek out opportunities. But then, if you tend to “run with the pack” and sink to the lowest level - then maybe the state u is not a good choice.
One other item to consider is how you can invest the money that you don’t spend on an expensive private. Study abroad during the summer. A grad school fund. A retirement fund (a great idea). I can’t understand how someone can make a decision like this without considering the $.</p>
<p>
The average GPAs are higher Cal than they are at Riverside. Now, are they what they should be? Who knows.</p>
<p>However, that indicates a common grading scale between schools of differing abilities. Which is how it should be done.</p>
<p>Anyone who believes that Berkeley is grade-inflated as a whole is someone who knows little about Berkeley and its various majors & divisions.</p>
<p>Anyone who thinks that all Ivies are grade-inflated is not acquainted with Princeton’s grade deflation policy.</p>