UGA Honors v. Oxford/Emory

Hapworth
Mon, 12 Mar 2018 22:07:06 +0000

OP,

elena13 is right. Take a very close look at Oxford/Emory. Emory overall a fine school, but it is not an LAC, despite its relatively smaller size (7,000-plus undergrads), though the Oxford half would help with this. Still, even in upper level courses, do not assume that it will be the sort of place where she’ll enjoy intimate classes and form close friendships/mentor-mentee relationships with professors (she will with some professors, I’m sure, but do not assume that this will be the norm). The atmosphere will be more like the Ivies and Ivy-likes (Vanderbilt, Duke, Johns Hopkins). There will be more mixed results with teaching effectiveness and teacher accessibility.

I am not trying to knock Emory. Not at all! Again, it’s a terrific school. I just issue this caution because even though plenty of students head off to Ivies and Ivy-likes and have great experiences, there are those few who will suffer from buyer’s remorse, almost always because they didn’t look closely enough at the school. They figured that the university’s brand name and the low acceptance rate signaled a perfect fit.

Of course, the issues I mentioned above will (hopefully) be only occasional concerns, and, of course, if your daughter’s choices have been narrowed down to UGA or Emory, well, those issues will also be present at both schools. But there is a significant price difference to consider.