Undergrad Options for Grad School

juillet
Thu, 06 Oct 2016 00:18:59 +0000

I am suspicious of personal anecdotes from people, for a variety of reasons. As psychologists, we learn about the availability heuristic and confirmation bias: people tend to attend more to data that is easily available to them, and they remember data that confirms what they already believe and forget what doesn’t. So for the above post, we need to consider WHY there are fewer people from regional public colleges than from elite colleges at top PhD programs. A big factor is simple exposure and socioeconomic class: Students who go to Harvard and Amherst are much more likely to want to get a PhD in philosophy - or stumble into academia as a career field - than students who go to UW La Crosse or even Minnesota, because of the kinds of students schools like Harvard and Amherst serve.

And trust me, I’m not trying to say that UW La Crosse would be better than Minnesota or College of the Atlantic. One of the latter two would definitely be better, if you had unlimited resources. But most people don’t have unlimited resources. Most college professors realize that when they are doing admissions.

Also, bravo for you for calling the departments directly. A lot of undergrads don’t do that, but that’s the easiest way to get your questions answered about specific programs.

In terms of cost for me, the UW colleges are going to be free. I am dependent of my father for VA benefits here in Wisconsin, and UW system colleges get full tuition reimbursement. However, that being said, UMN, assuming I don’t pull out loans for living costs/expenses (off campus), would be about $8,500/year that my parents would have to pull out. College of the Atlantic would actually be quite a bit cheaper than even UMN, about $7,000/year total that my parents would have to pull out, including on-campus housing (this would be quite a bit cheaper, I believe if I again did not take out many loans to live off campus)…Would you say going to COA or UMN would be a good investment if this is the case?

In my opinion, yes, although it depends on your family’s finances.

It sounds like you and your parents would only have to pay around $14-18K total for you to attend Minnesota or College of the Atlantic (assuming that you have two years left); you can help finance that with federal loans and other sources (e.g. Pell Grant, if you are eligible). In return, you will get a much better atmosphere for someone who is striving for a PhD and an academic career. Again, it’s not that you CAN’T go to a good school from a regional WI college; you can. But at Minnesota or CoA, there will be a larger community of students who have like-minded goals; your classmates will be more accomplished students; there will be more research going on around you to get involved; the professors will be higher quality, come from the kinds of programs that you want to go to, and have more connections. Those are things that can benefit you even if you change your mind and don’t get a PhD in philosophy.

But I don’t know how much of a hardship it would be on your family to come out of pocket for that, so you’d have to discuss it with your folks.