<p>Katlia, that’s my point. My son is just a typical Dartmouth student. The one risk I see of attending the merit aid school is that a kid might just be really successful without too much effort. I don’t think that’s good for most kids – maybe it’s a moral judgement on my part, but I think it’s good for kids to struggle, whether for grades or just to earn spending money. If it’s all too easy, how does anyone learn anything?</p>
<p>Boy,
Do we wish we were a full-pay family. Too many kids!</p>
<p>sjmom: I think the point is, that the kids who are awarded some of these amazing full scholarships don’t just do so by being “successful without too much effort.” Those kids work, and have for years; they continue to do so at their chosen school, and not just simply in their courses. Many of these kids are the types that don’t make things “easy” for themselves–never had and never will, I suspect. They consistently challenge themselves and others. </p>
<p>I don’t know that you’re making a “moral judgement,” but I do think you’re making the (incorrect) assumption that a “merit aid school” (your phrase) is automatically less difficult than a “Dartmouth” education. I think you’re heading down a slippery slope with that assumption.</p>
<p>I don’t think my son would have to work as hard at a less selective college. That’s my view of my son’s situation. I’m not comparing Duke vs UNC. For my part, I’m sure I don’t have anything more to add to this thread. </p>
<p>It seems to me that anytime someone says anything to support the full pay option on this thread, they are slammed. In fact, I think that quite a few schools are probably less difficult than Dartmouth.</p>
<p>I agree with Jack on this. There is no reason for kids who received huge merit aid to take it easy (unless retaining their merit awards depend on high GPAs). It is possible to take more advanced courses whether at elite schools or lower ranked schools. Many of the intro courses will also be pretty similar. How different can organic chemistry be at Rhodes vs. Yale?</p>
<p>The material taught in two schools for a basic course such as organic chemistry may be the same, but the tests may be of different difficulty or the grade needed on the same test to get an A may be different (if the grading is on a curve). So it may be easier to earn an A at one school than another, depending on whether a student is one of the brightest in the class or is about average within the class. Marite’s theory of the brightest students not working less at a less competitive school is true for students motivated by desire to learn, but not necessarily for students who are motivated only by the desire to earn an A.</p>
<p>MoT:</p>
<p>But that’s true at any college. At Harvard, there are courses that are known as “guts.” There are courses where you really have to work super-hard. Most courses range in between. So other colleges may not have Math 55 for lack of a critical mass of advanced freshmen, but I’m sure they have different levels of math that a bright math student can choose from.</p>
<p>Well, that’s it for me folks. I’m just going to take my $180,000 and my slacker, conceited, not good enough, rejector of his ivy admit state u.(Honors…horror) son and go play at someone elses house.</p>
<p>padad:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>For me, that’s actually a serious point, one that I tried to make many, many pages ago. Paradoxically, I think that HYPS are extremely egalitarian in terms of actual student experience. Everyone is special, everyone worthy of respect. When I was in college, there was practically no grade-consciousness whatsoever. I don’t remember being aware of anyone’s grades, with a couple exceptions (a childhood friend who was a pure developmental legacy, and who struggled miserably all the time, a recruited athlete in danger of losing his eligibility who had to enlist friends to help him), at least until Junior Phi Beta Kappa was announced (and even then, I only knew who made it in my college). I was friendly with the woman who had the top grades in the humanities in my class, and I didn’t know that until Class Day. There was just a sense that everyone was great, and any kind of ostentatious displays of wealth or pride were complete social no-nos.</p>
<p>My kids switched from a snooty private school to a public school, in 9th grade for my son and 11th for my daughter. Their friends from the old school have a mix of academic and nonacademic talents. One of my son’s closest friends from that school may well be the absolute bottom kid in the class, someone who may not even go to college in favor of a trade school, but they have never had the sense that they shouldn’t be friends. At the public school, it took my daughter awhile to get adopted as an honorary member of the academic elite, so she actually made friends throughout her class. But my son was a top performer from Day 1, and as a result he barely has any relationship with anyone outside the top 10% of the class – maybe a couple kids from drama club. He can get very puffed up about himself, and also very anxious about losing status. </p>
<p>One of the things I worry about if he winds up in a state uni honors program – and that’s a very real possibility, this thread is very pertinent to me – is that he will remain in that mode. On the one hand, the perks – special dorm, special registration, special this and that connected to his scholarship – are great, and make that option more attractive. But I do wonder if it’s the best thing for him. And for some kids, who ARE somewhat freaks of nature, four years of HYPS may be the first chance they have had to see what it’s like to feel normal since they were infants.</p>
<p>JHS, your son is going to do great wherever he goes. But do what is right for your son and your family.</p>
<p>If the right thing is to pay a little more for HYPSMCC…AWSP… do it.
Hopefully you and your son will visit the schools and it will be all clear to you, and more importantly to your son where he should go spend the next 4 years.</p>
<p>marite - maybe the example you used, organic chemistry, was not the best one to make your point. I think that there is usually only one level of intro o-chem, and, due to it being a pre-med requirement, the majority of students taking it want to earn the highest grade possible, rather than be more challenged than necessary.</p>
<p>My State U. S ( on scholarship) turned down the “honors” privleges (special dorm, etc) because he wanted to live with the “regular” guys in the regular dorm. He is sort of a regular guy who just happened to excel in school. He did not spend a lot of time and effort trying to rise to the top of his class, never studied for SAT or AP’s, it just happened as he went along. Everyone knew he was a smart guy but that wasn’t the only thing he wanted himself defined as, hence the choice to decline honors special privleges to live the regular guy life and still be a smart guy. He is now at the top of his class for his major in college. His roommates don’t know that and nobody cares. They’re just his friends. S likes it that way.</p>
<p>sax,</p>
<p>How about if I bring my elitist, closed-minded, prestige-mongering, ungracious daughter and play too? Except I think it’s me who is ungracious. That still stings, although well meaning PMs have helped.</p>
<p>How does it happen that people on both sides of this are getting so wounded and offended? Me among them? And why I do I feel that I have wound up unwittingly on the opposite side of people I would really like IRL?</p>
<p>We need a virtual life anthropologist to untangle this.</p>
<p>Cur, someone, wanna bring back the list? Can’t we just assume that equally good people might make completely different decisions and keep on with the project of helping to tease out factors that can make the decision go one way or the other that don’t reflect poorly or as an accusation on the character of the one deciding?</p>
<p>sjmom, I think this is where people have a problem with your argument:</p>
<p>“The one risk I see of attending the merit aid school is that a kid might just be really successful without too much effort. I don’t think that’s good for most kids – maybe it’s a moral judgement on my part, but I think it’s good for kids to struggle”</p>
<p>You’re automatically assuming that the merit school will not challenge the kid. I don’t think you can make that kind of automatic assumption any more than you can make an automatic assumption that Dartmouth will be a better education than the merit school. (By that logic, your son is getting an inferior education at Dartmouth than he would have at Yale just because Yale is more selective.)</p>
<p>JHS, It is precisely why I raised it. I know that raising the point will offend many here (clearly at least one Shreyer parent objects and packed in), and I tried to do it as lightheartedly as I could. It was also one of the factors that my D decided against going to Virginia last year. </p>
<p>Having followed and admired your posts, I do sincerely hope that your son will have lots of wonderful options besides Shreyer.</p>
<p>dstark: The only school we’re not really familiar with is the only one that has actually accepted him so far! He may not have a choice at all. If he does have a choice, neither he nor any of the thousands of anonymous CC posters is in the dark about what I think. Some of the binary choices would be easy, either for the state school or for the alternative. Some would be close anyway, and the money difference may make them easy, too. Cross that bridge in about a week . . .</p>
<p>(But, just to make things clear, he at least has the courage of my convictions. I admitted to thinking that Schreyer was not all that, and he hasn’t applied to PSU. Never even considered it, really. We have spent enough time in central Pennsylvania for him to know that’s not where he wants to be, and his strategy didn’t require using it as a safety.)</p>
<p>“dstark: The only school we’re not really familiar with is the only one that has actually accepted him so far!”</p>
<p>lol.</p>
<p>This last week before decisions is a stressful time. Then the next month is stressful.
Then when they actually leave…</p>
<p>Stressfree here! It really is much easier when you know what you can pay for, and what you can’t. </p>
<p>(Be aware that I feel that way about lots of things that don’t necessarily have anything to do with money. For example, I love flower gardens. I think it’s great that other people like to tend them, for my vicarious benefit. (They could make their lawns more interesting, though…)</p>
<p>Mini, your next kid applying to college is a junior. :)</p>
<p>Apology accepted dstark, but what was it that led you to say that we live on different planets? A sense that you were morally superior to me? We do live in different hemispheres. I do live an unusual lifestyle, I will grant you that but what was it that made you want to make me feel like a poorer version of you? What prompts that Holier-Than-Thou attitude toward supposedly rich snobs? I’m genuinely curious if there is a rationale or if it’s just a visceral reaction.</p>
<p>
Burn, I tell youwhat, if you put your kids into an elite bubble, you do need to step back to examine what effect the bubble is having. Mine went to primary and secondary schools at the top of the pyramid. I was a little uncomfortable with the secondary school pyramid in one city. Why? Because the tip top part of the pyramid was so amazing for those teenagers–they started to wear invisible blinders about the potential outside of their particular pyramid. There was something anti-creative about that atmosphere, anti-destructive, anit-global, anti-diversity. It was so good at the top, why change anything about it?</p>
<p>The top college adcom do a good job of selecting diverse students, so I’m not sure there is the same danger at top universities–state or otherwise–although if you sit in a room full of scientists you might wonder. Great scientists love those one-up-man-ship games. Architects don’t drop names the way those guys do.</p>
<p>In another thread, I wrote about the jaded quality some Harkness students acquire–and I have seen many many cases of it over a period of thirty years. That jaded outlook is related to spending the formative years at the top of your hometown pyramid. In my opinion.</p>
<p>It’s a juggling act. Provide your children with a fancy liberal arts education while they are in high school–but be careful they don’t adopt those top-of-the-pyramid blinders.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I am a superior architect. That is not hubris or arrogance, that is a fact. Against all odds and stereotypes, I have performed at the top of the profession for over thrity years. Am I as great as Frank Gehry or Le Corbusier? Probably not but most architects do their best work in their 60s 70s and 80s. There’s time for me. I am getting the types of big projects that great architects sharpen their teeth on.</p>
<p>When it comes to artistic talent, I don’t slather on humility to make others feel comfortable. That’s not my job. Most of society doesn’t understand the inner workings of artists anyway. Should I chew up time trying to explain it to them? (I do try to explain it to parents who have an artistic child they don’t understand).</p>
<p>I had 12 years of Catholic schooling, 12 years of the nuns teaching us how to be Holier than everyone else. I never bought that line of bull. That was the great thing about the 60s. A kid could decide that the adults were insane–and get away with it.</p>
<p>
Under 5000 is too small for me, my H or my boys. Over 20K is too big…for me. Rural is out.</p>
<p>As to meeting other internationals, kids from other states, I’m not sure I could explain my affinity for global outlook. It’s a quirky personal preference based on personal experience. Stanford and USC are only 50% out of state–and thats not enough for my tastes.</p>