Perhaps more concerning than access to Plan B on campus is the fact that Catholic colleges won’t cover any contraception - including Plan B - under their student health insurance.
And yes, I would expect that a student who needed Plan B would get it and charge it to his/her account if they didn’t have $50 or a credit card (or want their parents to see the charge on a parent card).
I’ve seen a completely empty Plan B shelf at a pharmacy, and there are also pharmacies that do not sell it at all, under a conscience clause.
Red flags for us were: low 4-year graduation rate; low first-year retention; low endowment; high number of adjuncts or faculty without terminal degrees in their fields; high numbers of part-time or non-resident students.
Endowment is an indicator of the dedication of the alumni to their institution. It also allows colleges to offer programs that wouldn’t be cost-effective at a tuition-driven institution, where every course has to be either popular or required, or it’s not available.
Why would you think that a frosh who had 3.9 HS GPA and 1500 SAT CR+M is no more likely to graduate in 4 years than one at the same university who had 2.6 HS GPA and 1000 SAT CR+M?
Given the close correlation between graduation rates and admission selectivity, does this mean that posters who disfavor schools with lower graduation rates would veto the kid choosing a safety over more selective non-safety schools that s/he was admitted to? I.e. people do not actually “like the safety” despite preaching that?
I would circumvent the whole issue…if access to plan b is such an issue 1. Send offspring to school with it, just as you would send motrin/tylenol in a first aid kit (don’t forget to send condoms too)? 2. Be certain your offspring is already on BC. 3. Most importantly…If D is raped (which was the original premise) she really needs to report it to the authorities in which case she will be taken or should insist to be taken to a hospital emergency room, not the school health clinic and plan b access would be handled at that level not the school level (please do not forget to remind her that in addition to plan b she should ensure that she is given medications to cover her possible exposure to STDs/HIV/AIDS. Now if we are talking about access to plan b simply because offspring had unprotected sex…well see #1 & #2.
@ucbalumnus - I was more commenting on the lower stat student has an equal “chance” to graduate in 4 years. Emphasis on the word chance.
I would think that the higher stat honors student has just about the same number of reasons to fall off track and NOT graduate in 4 years (minus failing a class and possibly being able to register/access for necessary classes as they often seem to have an unfair advantage, IMO, at registration). ie. faces illness, does an internship/study abroad that doesn’t count, family emergency etc.
The only thing I know about Baylor is that Chip and Joanna Gaines from Fixer Upper (HGTV) both graduated from there, and they are adorable. Ok, Chip is a little impulsive and unhinged, but Joanna is pretty cool.
The latter ones (which are likely invariant by college as well as student characteristics) are minor compared to the big reasons for late graduation:
Needing remedial courses.
Failing courses and needing to repeat them (or take other courses to make up the credits).
Taking light full time course loads (e.g. 12 credits) instead of full full time course loads (e.g. 15-16 credits) because the student cannot handle the latter.
Changing major late.
Poor planning and course selection by not paying attention to prerequisite relationships (good advising could help to some extent).
But it does not necessarily improve graduation rates, since low selectivity schools do not have many students who do not need remedial courses, do not fail courses, take full course loads, and follow their majors’ course plans. Basically, they just exist to assure the students who will graduate in four years anyway that the low four year graduation rate will not affect them.
I see a lot of the kids in the same major as me having this issue due to poor advising. We are given an excel spreadsheet with drop-down fill in boxes specific to our major, but the often mystical prerequisites have tripped up many of the students, and forget about asking a question of your adviser outside of your major-they have no idea. Add to that they just de-certified one department within the major, so the kids who are currently doing that as their focus are now screwed and have to switch to a different focus within that major.
I’d add another dealbreaker, come to think of it-if your kid knows what they want to major in, make sure it is not the red-headed stepchild of the college they choose.
(I’m not going to name the college I’m attending because I’d like to graduate with as little drama as possible, and it’s not one any of you is wanting their kid to attend, I’m sure.)
This is what I know about Baylor: 1) A dear family friend in her 90’s was one of the few black students back in her day, and she reports having a good experience. She majored in some type of business, and did very well for herself. 2)The young lady who ran the summer program we host at my church a couple of years ago is now a Baylor grad. She started as an intern and moved up each summer-she was mature beyond her years, very professional, and spent every summer here working on some extra studies of some kind. If Baylor has a majority of students like her, I’d be happy with my kid attending. 3)A friend of mine in TX has a D who applied to Baylor, among others.Baylor gave her the LEAST FA, while TX Tech gave her nearly double anyone else. She stayed went to Tech and stayed all the way through her Ph.D.
@Baylorpoly, I probably would not veto Baylor – seems to me to have intellectual rigor and has other things going for it, and the religion piece is more like a side dish instead of the main course.
I don’t know anything about TCU. Does religion take precedence over intellectual rigor in how they develop their courses and hire faculty? Do they make students or faculty sign a statement of faith?
I have two older brothers who chose to go to religious schools (Loma Linda University and John Brown University), so this issue is near and dear. I totally understand that for some families, these types of schools are a great fit, and I don’t judge them or my brothers for making choices different than I would.
The CSU ones (checked CPP and CSUSB briefly) have wording like “if it is determined that required courses were not available, the student will not be required to pay tuition or fees otherwise required for the student to register and subsequently enroll in courses necessary for graduation” for students who uphold their end of the agreement.
I don’t think students who don’t finish in 4 years are necessarily paying tuition for the 5-6 year time period. They take breaks, they take co-ops, they switch to part time, they drop out all together. And they aren’t paying $60k a year for the extra time. Most schools with the lower graduation rates are the less expensive schools to begin with. They aren’t paying for extra semesters, just taking longer to link the 8 semesters together.
I went to school with a couple of career students who did take 5+ years on the “Daddy’s paying” plan. They’d switch majors, they’d drop classes, they weren’t serious about graduating on time. Why graduate, they were having a bal! I think this would have been their MO at any school, although at a smaller school they might have had a watchdog adviser. ( Adviser? I’m not sure I even had one).
At a bigger school, I do think the student needs to be more in charge of his schedule, his requirements. There are more choices, so they have to be made more carefully. My daughter who is in engineering just follows the list. Take this math class, take this physics lab. Easy, and she even gets priority registrations so never gets blocked out of a class. Other daughter could have followed her adviser’s suggestion and taken the core classes he pointed her to, but she has me for a mother and I suggest she take English first because it is a prerequisites for so many other classes I knew she’d want. I also taught her to go beg a prof if there was a class she wanted but was full. I taught her to map out the courses to see what buildings there are in, how far, what time of the day. Advisers sometimes take the easy route. A 4 pm class on a friday? Was he serious?
How does a veto look? We didn’t have to veto, but until my DD finally picked her school last month we were climbing the walls with frustration.
She’s an excellent student who isn’t settled on a field of study yet and was left with a huge range of options, so she decided to use her sport to narrow the field. She was down to two private D3 schools at the end, a very local one and another in PA. The trouble was the local one was not nearly as good in academics, in the sport, and it was very local. She’d been clear that getting out of town was important, that academics were important, and she also was adamant that she play at a high level. This was a bad fit by any measure.
The only reason we could identify was that her club coach was also the head coach at the local one. (Doh! Who knew that would actually carry weight?) I asked her to talk it over with anyone she respected. Eventually one of her friends at school sat her down and had her lay it out. “You’ve used the word better seven times in the last two minutes.” Case closed, and bless you Sonia.
I guess the part that might have drawn a hard What Are You Thinking was the complete mismatch on every level. There were so many gaps between what was important and the reality of these schools. I can’t say we’d have actually said no, but any school that fails on so many of her criteria is a bad idea. Another that emerged was that any school where my kid would be in the top (or bottom) couple percent is a red flag. And cost of course, but these were both coming in near EFC so it didn’t factor in.
That’s a confusing sentence so I’ll paraphrase what I think you meant: graduation rate is primarily driven by admissions selectivity and choosing a college by graduation rate is less controversial on CC than choosing by selectivity. It’s rational to value a high probability of graduation over selectivity for its own sake.
If I’ve restated what you wrote correctly, while it’s undoubtedly true that graduation rate is inversely correlated to admit rate, it’s easy to find schools that punch above their weight for graduation rates and I’d argue these schools deserve significant consideration beyond what they’d receive if selectivity was the primary criterion. Ignoring our state flagship with its 55% admittance rate and 84% six-year graduation rate, Western Washington University’s 85% admit rate with a 72% six-year graduation rate is admirable. Likewise, our Catholic schools–SeattleU and Gonzaga–have 73 (admit)/78 (graduation) and 68/83 percentages respectively. Looking at Washington’s remaining public universities, a <70% threshold only excludes Washington State, Eastern, Central and Evergreen.
Well, it is rational from the point of view of avoiding argument or criticism to claim on these forums to favor a high graduation rate over selectivity or prestige, because the latter tends to be more controversial, even though all three tend to be highly correlated.
Admit rate by itself does not measure selectivity very well, since it does not consider the strength of applicant pools.