<p>“To be fair though, you have stated that your own children for their own reasons did not consider the elite schools, so I really don’t know that their choices help us that much.”</p>
<p>They didn’t consider going to HPYS, but older S was accepted to a top 20 private (no aid. He declined admission for an OOS public that he loved that also gave major merit aid). Younger S has expresed great interest in a couple of top 25 privates, but knows that without major merit aid, he’s not going.</p>
<p>We’d told each kid that we’d pay up to a certain amount a year toward their education. They had to make their own choices within that. Their choices could include taking out loans, applying for merit aid or going to a school within their budget.</p>
<p>Although HPY are out of reach for the kids, there are pricey privates (including some ranked higher than our state publics) that would be thrilled to take them.</p>
<p>NSM, are those schools you mentioned, the top twenty and top twenty five, considered 100% of need schools? If so, why would you need loans or merit aid? </p>
<p>Shouldn’t the family’s need have been fully met? Or are you saying that what your family is willing or able to pay is less than what the colleges figure you should pay?</p>
<p>(BTW, your conversation sounds just like the one at my house. )</p>
<p>"They also are better fits for different environments after college. For instance, I doubt that many former frat boys and sorority girls would greatly enjoy working as scientists after graduation. I don’t think that scientists are known as being rah rah type of people. I doubt that the intense, individualist type of people would enjoy working in environments in which there’s lots of emphasis on people working together and doing things in ways that are very conforming, not mold breaking. "</p>
<p>Blosson wrote:
"Ahh, must explain why over half the men at MIT end up pledging a fraternity… they must be the one’s who eschew writing for the Tech or majoring in Science… all that rah rah must somehow rot the science cells.</p>
<p>Northstarmom, you really ought to get out more. I don’t mean to pick on you, but your characterizations of the kinds of people who become journalists, go to State schools, become scientists, have to take out loans to pay for their kids education, enjoy being passionately engaged in intellectual EC’s, etc. betrays a woefully parochial view of the world.</p>
<p>Blossom, I must agree with you here. I was in a sorority at a state school and could not disagree with this stereotype more as well. Several girls I pledged with ended up in med school in either straight MD programs or MD/Ph.D. programs. We also had our fair share of chemical engineers (6 that were there we me right off the top of my head), mechanical engineers, etc. In addition to the doctors, we had several nurses and one who I know of is now in medical research. This is just off the top of my head so I’m sure there are plenty more.</p>
<p>P.S. While I realize that this program I’ve linked to may not deal directly with the title of this thread, I think it speaks to some of the currents within. I think I’m going to go get a hold of College Unranked. ;)</p>
<p>“NSM, are those schools you mentioned, the top twenty and top twenty five considered 100% of need schools? If so, why would you need loans or merit aid?”</p>
<p>Yes, they are 100% financial need schools. We are among the comfortably middle class who wouldn’t get the need-based aid that we would need to continue the lifestyle that we think is important for us .</p>
<p>In our case, we don’t have luxury cars or a luxury home, but we have always thought it was important to do things like take trips to far away places, to allow me to work the jobs I want to work (which often don’t pay much because my passion is community service), and to have sent our kids on some educational opportunities that were costly.</p>
<p>I know that these things are our choices, and that if we gave those things up, we could have more funds for very expensive colleges. I don’t expect colleges to fill the gap between what we want to pay and what colleges think we are capable of paying. I do expect my sons to be able to find colleges that are good fits and that also are within our means or to find ways of filling the gap themselves.</p>
<p>Don’t knock the loans, in my personal situation I find them to be better than using cash, which can better be put to other more profitable uses.</p>
<p>So, what would have happened if your kids would have been HYP bound, NSM? Would you have borrowed the big bucks or would they have had to forego the opportunity?</p>
<p>“Accumulating loan debt even pushes back many of life’s milestones, according to a survey that Baum conducted in 2002 for Nellie Mae, a major student lender, which is now a subsidiary of Sallie Mae. The report found that 38 percent of graduates held off buying their first house because of student loans, 14 percent put off marriage, and 21 percent delayed having children.”</p>
<p>Drossel wrote:
"Well, to be fair though, implied in the title is an element of elitism because of the word Advantage. What we say when we use it connected with attending a top college is that these schools offer something so that those attending them have a leg up over others. That riles folks because they dont wish to accept that they or their kids were/are somehow at a disadvantage for having attended State U.</p>
<p>And when you talk of LIFETIME advantage, well, now you see why everyone is really going at it."</p>
<p>I agree. I don’t see going to a top college as being a lifetime advantage. I only see the choice of college as having to do with fit with one’s personal criteria and preferences for what they want in a college. For some, a challenging learning environment may be an important criteria. </p>
<p>About the financial aid assumption I am reading here, it doesn’t fit my own situation, nor what I am seeing of my children’s peers from here. My kids are on financial aid. I don’t lead a luxury lifestyle. I’m not low income but still cannot afford the college tuition for two kids at one time, or even for one at a time. I can afford it over time but not at one time. It does take sacrifices as well. I think one has to make a certain amount to be able to shell out at least $40,000/year for each kid. We are not able to do that. My kids do have summer jobs. I actually have gone camping as a vacation and have barely any funds set aside for a vacation. We are not poor but do not live in the lap of luxury. Those in the middle have trouble paying the college pricetag, or at least without paying it out over time. I have to pay for my car with loans too. I can’t outright pay for a car. I do not live in a mansion as was given as the scenario in another post either. True that i don’t live in an apt. or a trailer. We used to have a home that was 1550 square feet and now have one that is 2850 square feet. It did not nearly cost what the homes cost in the kinds of affluent communities that I read about on CC either. Our kids are not suffering and certainly have had opportunities and we have put the main focus of our income toward them first, whether it was their EC activities or now their education. But we still need and qualify for financial aid. I don’t think it is fair to generalize about families who apply for FA as not needing it and could pay for college if they just gave up their luxuries. I’m not sure what we could give up that would pay the price tag of two kids in college right now. We do have cars, yes. We do own a home with a mortgage. We are self employed and must pay our own hefty health insurance. And so on, like many. I don’t think everyone who applies for aid is refusing to pay for their kid’s college educations or not willing to give up luxuries so their kids can go to college. Some merely can’t pay out the tuition at one time. Even the college’s FA analysis allows for some aid so even they can determine if one can afford the bill in a given year. My kids’ two college bills total 90something thousand per year. If someone even makes $100,000, for example, they can’t afford to give it all to tuition in the same year.</p>
<p>“So, what would have happened if your kids would have been HYP bound, NSM? Would you have borrowed the big bucks or would they have had to forego the opportunity?”</p>
<p>I would have helped my kids find merit money to help pay their way. I would have enouraged them to take out a total of $20,000 in loans (the average amount that most college students pay for their college education). I also would have encouraged them to look at programs like Americorps and TeachforAmerica that would have helped them with college costs.</p>
<p>And I would have encouraged them to do very careful applications to schools like Duke, Wash U, Emory, Vanderbilt and Wake Forest, which are excellent colleges and have excellent merit aid for students who are good enough to get into HPYS. The merit aid recipients at such schools also often are guaranteed perks that HPYS do not give – international travel, paid internships abroad, guaranteed seminars with top professors.</p>
<p>If my kids had gotten such merit aid, I would have encouraged them to go to the schools offering the merit aid, to take full advantage of those schools, getting good grades, leadership positions, and personal mentoring by professors, and then to apply to H and similar colleges for grad school. Depending on what they applied to, they might have been able to get full fellowships to top colleges to grad school. They also may have stood out more in the pools for fellowships like Rhodes Scholarships, which seem to be trying to diversify by taking more students who aren’t in the Ivies.</p>
<p>The students whom I have seen turn down Ivies for merit aid at lesser ranked schools have ended up being stars at the lesser ranked schools, and have graduated and gotten outstanding opportunities that they may not have been able to get if they had had to compete with thousands of other classmates who were perceived at being at their intellectual levels and above. I think that getting top merit aid and turning down an Ivy or similar school for a less competitive college provides a halo effect for the students who do those things. They enter college being perceived as a top academic recruit, and that perception can pay off for them.</p>
<p>Curmudgeon wrote: “Wowser. Yes, please tell us where the underachieving genius coffeeshop crowd will be who can’t be bothered with dreary ol’ classwork , who paint racial and ethnic stereotypes with a broad brush and care not a whit for their fellow man. I’d like to know, too. Check, please! LOL.” </p>
<p>How sad that you ignored the real question and chose to give a “smart” reply instead. I would have loved to see some real discussion on this topic. </p>
<p>My daughter is also concerned about finding an environment filled with authentic people who want to hang out and dream and talk. </p>
<p>I’m sorry you believe that “learning” only takes place in classrooms, and that “service” only takes place in a soup kitchen and that high grades and service hours tell the whole story.</p>
<p>My time at Oxford says otherwise. I, for one, would still like to hear more recommendations from parents for schools where passionate students can “hang out” and converse with like minded souls and dream of improving the world.</p>
<p>“My time at Oxford says otherwise. I, for one, would still like to hear more recommendations from parents for schools where passionate students can “hang out” and converse with like minded souls and dream of improving the world.”</p>
<p>"And so on, like many. I don’t think everyone who applies for aid is refusing to pay for their kid’s college educations or not willing to give up luxuries so their kids can go to college. "</p>
<p>I never said that. I was specifically talking about the people who have excellent incomes, but large consumer debt due to luxuries, and who somehow expect that that voluntary consumer debt will cause colleges to give them lots of need-based aid.</p>
<p>I also was talking about the people who think that they can send their kids to college while enjoying whatever are the advantages of their current lifestyle. I don’t know why so many people think they should be able to send their kids to college without feeling a financial pinch. People wouldn’t expect to buy a car without having to cut back. Why do they expect this of college?</p>
<p>I also referred to the posts by students who say that their parents make plenty of $ (often $100k-$200k), but are refusing to give the kids any $ for college. Since some of these kids are planning on applying to places like HPYS, I assume that the parents’ refusal is due to cheapness, not to the fact that their kids are lazy bums who are likely to bomb college. Colleges understandably refuse to provide need-based aid to kids from affluent homes whose parents refuse to pay. After all, if the colleges did that for them, that would open the door to all parents’ refusing to pay.</p>
<p>"I, for one, would still like to hear more recommendations from parents for schools where passionate students can “hang out” and converse with like minded souls and dream of improving the world. "</p>
<p>I’m interested, too. I’d also add that the students be graduating on time and taking actions to improve the world, not just dreaming about it. </p>
<p>And if these colleges would cost less than $40 k a year, that would be even better!</p>
As a homage to your screenname , may I suggest the 19th hole? First post. Imagine that. </p>
<p>I never said college was all classwork, I just suggested that brilliant slackards who don’t want to do classwork might as well be “down at the surf shop, bra”. They certainly don’t need to be slowing the learning process up for the motivated kids who are interested in learning what the prof is teaching. On this thread that seems to be a prime reason kids go to elite schools. To leave those kids and the less academically capable behind so that they can be in a class of kids who value scholarship.</p>
<p>Yikes, these Ivy league types are merciless and pick apart every analogy. I used the Michael Jordan to make a point because he’s someone everyone would know. I could have said that people don’t resent our star HS quarterback (who might have been a more accurate choice to make my point, but whose name no one on CC would have recognized) for being an exceptional athlete. They would not accuse him of elitism if he chose to attend the best Divison 1 school to play football instead of the local Div. III state college. Athletes are cultural heroes. We really like it when they exel.</p>
<p>Exceptional brains are definitely not cool. They are labeled geeks, nerds, and worse when they shine. Some folks find them weird and intimidating. They are accused of being grinds with no life, and when it can’t be denied that they do indeed have “a life”, then their hard work is quickly dismissed. They are written off as being able to get A’s without lifting a finger or cracking a book, while the poor protagonist making the comment must struggle so very hard for every A. Often smart kids must hide their intelligence or risk being ostracized. They reduce their vocabulary to 300 words and force themselves to play sports to escape the geek stereotype. Tell me, what athlete has to hide their speed or skill, or <em>gasp</em> pretend to be good student so he won’t get teased?</p>
<p>I have 3 children of varying academic ability levels. My middle child is bright and hardworking. She gets straight "A"s and her peers think she’s very smart. But I can tell you that there is a true difference in intellectual power between her and my senior. She is more talented than he in several other ways, but she lacks the intense awareness, the passion for learning, the memory for details, the capacity for deep analytical thought, the speed of processing, the ability to delay gratification in order to complete schoolwork first, etc. that he possesses. Despite being an outstanding musician, when she earns a solo she is admired. No one tries to tell her to settle for 3rd chair instead of 1st. And when she breaks a school track record, that threatens absolutely no one either. Not once has anyone suggested that she slow down and hang with the pack all the way to the finish line.</p>
<p>But if I assert that we felt my S should attend an Ivy where there are a greater concentration of others of a similar intellectual quality, I’m an elitist. Sorry, but that’s not fair. Those of you who have been on here for a while may have read my earlier posts on other threads in which I was agonizing over the right choice of school for him. For one thing, I was concerned about him being accused of snobbery and elitism.</p>
<p>Who said these “brilliant slackards slow the learning process for the motivated kids”. Quite the opposite. I"m more concerned about my kid being slowed or limited by ones who think hard work can substitute for natural ability.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, many of these high school “grade hounds” find themselves working so hard to keep up in an “elite” college that they have no time for anything else. For this type of $$$$ investment, my daughter wants more than just the classroom experience.</p>
<p>And, BTW, I’ve had some of my best conversations at the 19th hole.</p>
<p>I am new on this board but as a hiring manager I thought that I should chime in on this topic.
I have hired three Ivy Leauge new grads over the last four years. None of them are currently employed by my firm. One left because he felt that he wasn’t being promoted fast enough (the group he was responsible for didn’t have good results but he felt he should be promoted anyhow). One left when he got three poor reviews in a row. He felt that every decision was time for debate; we don’t have time to debate everything: your boss decides and then we move on. The third has just been asked to leave because he was consistantly circumventing the chain of command in the organization.</p>
<p>I will not be looking for any additional grads from these schools any time in the near future. They seem to be out of touch with the realities of the business world…we are getting much better results (at about $5K lower salary) from midwestern state school grads. The midwestern grads don’t work quite as hard (they tend to head home at 5:30 or 6:00 instead of 7:00 or 8:00) but the quality of their output seems to be better. </p>
<p>My experience may be an aberation, but it is what I have seen out here in the trenches.</p>
<p>One other thing that is interesting is that when we are interviewing, even for engineers, we tend to dismiss grade point as long as it is above a preestablished minimum (generaly 3.5). The biggest thing that we are looking for is communication skills…the kids have to be able to sell themselves to me …how else are they going to be able to sell their ideas to the group and to our customers (the government). Some of the highest grade points have been associated with the poorest communications skills, which is why we don’t dwell on GPA anymore.</p>
<p>That’s my 2 cents worth; now feel free to beat on me.</p>
<p>Jeez. I think we have about 5 channels going at once! LOL. Nothing like a thread going haywire to catch our attention. </p>
<p>NSM, on our channel , if we have one ;), I think my daughter and wife agreed completely with your positions and your plan. I reluctantly agreed they were “right”, given my daughter’s desire for med and/or grad school. Had she not had a clear cut future plan , I would have fought harder.</p>
<p>and golferfirst, if the brilliant slackards are not doing the assigned lessons they are slowing the class down. Simple as that. I believe most on these threads would say that admissions at elite schools would require both natural ability and hard work. Not many at the topmost elites would qualify as grinders. And BTW, my kid wants the classroom and the conversation, too.</p>
<p>GFG…The last thing to think about in college selection is a neurotic concern that your kid will be “accused of snobbery and elitism.” If a kid wants to go to a school that has an average SAT1 score approximately at the top 1% level of the nation, has a 70 page senior thesis requirement, brutal problem sets and reading lists and an administration that opposes frats/sororities that is OK. In fact, if worrying about what others think rules the day, excellence will no longer be achieved in our society.</p>
First post. Imagine that. </p>