<p>Exactly, digmedia, after all, Ga Tech is a state school. There are several state schools that rank in the top ten of one or more engrg disciplines; others in the top twenty; others top fifty. There are many excellent state school engineering programs and they are set up to give elite admits (and any one else who wants to work their butt off) an excellent education.</p>
<p>But I would also agree that there are “good” state school programs and “not so good” state school programs. When considering a less known school you need to do your homework before deciding if the quality differential might be worth shelling out some bucks or taking out a few loans to go to a higher quality school.</p>
<p>Very good thread here. I especially like curmudgeon’s sense and down-home humor. I think that Public vs. Private, Parents choice vs Kid’s is as individualized as it can be. Every family’s decision is on different points of many different lines. What’s good for one family/child can be very different fot the same family/different child let alone different families.</p>
<p>I believe that ultimately the student can fail or suceed at either a public or a private. I also know of some kids where the parent’s are dictating the school. My parent’s and I are trying to collaborate in both the decsion of where to go and the decision of how to pay.</p>
<p>They haven’t locked me into my State U, but they have advised me that I’ll be sharing the loan burden at a private school. I’m waiting to hear of my financial aid packages and considereing all my choices.</p>
<p>I am grateful that my parents are allowing me some freedom and discretion in the search. I value their input and I think together we can reach a decision supported by us all.</p>
<p>I’ll throw in my two cents about engineering schools, even if it might bore the non-nerds in the bunch. I happen to believe that work experience is THE most important thing that will help an engineering student. A solid engineering curriculum is also necessary. I went to an engineering co-op school; at work, I definitely saw the difference between engineers who had been in the trenches and those who designed from an ivory tower. The ones who had actually worked as hands-on engineers — such as those who had inspected parts in an assembly plant — understood that there is more to designing than calculating theoretical tolerances. Those who had no hands-on experience would say, “It’s properly designed and it’s to spec, so the problem is not mine.” Who moves farther up the ladder in the long run? Well, if it’s a well-run company, it’s the one with real-world experience. The classes required for a degree are also important. I am not an engineer, but I have a degree (Industrial Administration) that required me to take more actual engineering courses than required to earn engineering degrees at a couple public universities in my state. Even if companies were to hire those grads, I think they might lack the necessary education to handle more complex engineering projects. Again, their upward mobility would be compromised. So, I do think that the program of study is important (not the perceived reputation of the larger school), and the things a student chooses to do in addition to school — internships or co-ops — are extremely important. Choose a school with good opportunities for such work. And a final plug — I really think that hands-on labs are very, very important for engineers. Good engineers need to relate what they are learning to how it is applied. I don’t know anything about Ohio U’s program, but I do know that RPI is along the lines of what I described above. OU may be … I just don’t know enough to comment.</p>
<p>Late to this thread… I only read about 20 pages of it, so if this point’s been made forgive me.</p>
<p>I don’t have a Yale vs Rhodes kid, or a Harvard vs Vandy, or an MIT vs Schreyer’s. Let’s face it, these are stand-out kids. These are kids who can self-study for AP Chem and get a 4 or a 5. These are kids who can go anywhere and succeed. For these kids it basically boils down to a “how badly will you miss the extra money?” question.</p>
<p>Well. This is NOT my kid.</p>
<p>My D was an able (and very creative) student, but never an academic star. Luckily she was an excellent athlete and was recruited. Her SAT (~1350) was good enough for her to get recruited at a great school. Though she was offered decent merit money at schools like Beloit and Allegheny, we are paying full price at a top LAC.</p>
<p>Here is why. Unlike the HYPS-possible kids, my D was not “school proof.” She’s the kind of kid who gravitates to the middle of the pack and generally does what it takes to stay there. She was not particularly intellectually curious as a senior in HS. She was the kind of kid you sincerely hope is never stopped by a ‘man on the street’ and quizzed about current events for the David Letterman show. </p>
<p>We basically felt she needed a firecracker in the a$$. We wanted her surrounded by smarties-- indeed, unable to avoid them. We wanted a place that was crawling with kids who were informed and passionate. We felt that an (“on average!”) higher-tide peer group would lift her boat. And we felt that was worth paying nearly double for. </p>
<p>The intellectually-stimulating enviornment offered by her LAC, which is both nurturing AND high caliber, has worked miracles. Shooting for a middle that would be top at many other schools, she has turned on, caught fire. I believe the extra $80K over four years is buying her something incalculable-- intellectual zeal-- that will serve her over her lifetime as a thinking person, whether or not it pays off in any future salary bump. </p>
<p>Would she have developed this trait without her school and the peers it provides? Perhaps, but we were pretty reluctant to take that risk.</p>
<p>SBMom… I appreciate your rationale and it is great that you have made a choice that worked out well for your daughter … but I think you are also echoing a myth, i.e. that colleges like Beloit or Rhodes do not provide an intellectually-stimulating environment, that their students lack passion, etc.</p>
<p>I think it’s an unfortunate byproduct of the focus on ranking that somehow top-notch colleges are perceived as being inferior because they don’t make it into the top 10 spot of the rankings… and that somehow the degree of passion or intellectual environment of a school can be measured by the median SAT range of its admitted students. </p>
<p>I simply don’t believe that is the case. I’m not saying that every college is interchangeable – but I really believe that there are smart and engaged students to be found at many colleges that don’t have top ranking, expecially when you are talking about private LAC’s that direct a sizeable portion of their financial aid budget toward merit awards. Who ends up at those schools? Highly capable students who are attracted by those awards, together with highly motivated students whose parents are willing and able to contribute to the cost of a private education even if their kids do not qualify for such aid. The less motivated students rarely have parents who are willing to pay private tuition to go to some college that isn’t top ranked – I mean, slackers generally don’t opt for LACs, and their parents generally don’t want to pay for them. </p>
<p>I don’t know anything about Allegheny, but the feedback so far from CC parents with kids at Beloit has been very positive. In many cases, the college environment itself is the “rising tide”, simply because of the difference between the college and high school environment, especially for students who high schools that were not highly competitive.</p>
<p>I agree with calmom. My kid found the exact same LAC environment, but, fortunately, we saved the $100K. (Couldn’t have done it otherwise.) But the most important thing is that all these kids end up someplace like SBmom has described, and that their parents can manage to pay for all 4 years of it. Sounds like SBmom’s D is getting exactly the kind of education all college kids should aim for.</p>
<hr>
<p>Kelsmom: Thanks for your analysis on the engineering front. I really liked Northeastern, and for exactly the reasons that you stated, but son is lukewarm. He is still interested in RPI, so we’ll see. We’re down to the wire!!!</p>
<p>I understand SBmom’s thinking. Whether or not it is a “myth” about the top LAC vs the academic climate of the other schools, she and her family went with what was more of a “known entity” to them, with respect to the reputations of certain institutions. She knows her daughter, and it sounds like she and her family chose to err on the side of caution by essentially investing in her dau’s future. This does not mean she (SB’s dau) couldnt have done well at the other schools, but it sounds like SBmom and her family were not prepared to take that risk at this point in her dau’s life. Yes, it is a lot of $ to spend, but if SBMom and her family had that option, and felt that it was the best investment in their dau’s future, then IMO it was money well spent.</p>
<p>Wow, this is the best discussion on the whole cc! Thanks, Curm for initiating this.
I have read only 10 pages so far and this last page. I need to read and reread this whole thread coming weekend because a BIG decision is looming ahead.
I am a fairly hard-working, motivated student and, let me be frank, I want to make a lot of money in my future career - all by honest means, of course. (My ultimate goals are, in fact, quite altruistic. I don’t need the money for myself, so no flaming please!) Because I am interested in math and sciences, I’ll be choosing a major involving those subjects.<br>
I already have full tuition scholarships at Brandeis, BU and Olin (which I really love: very friendly atmosphere, teeming with intellectuals, very caring professors who only teach undergraduates etc.) With three major IVY decisions expected this weekend, if I do get into any of them, we will have a huge dilemma. I already got into MIT with 0 dollars (apart from the unsubs loan). Not interested, because I think Olin wins over it. I expect to get 0 dollars FAid from the IVYs because of our EFC. So, we need to decide between paying 200K and ~50K over the 4 years. My parents can pay 200K, so the only thing I will worry about is if that is a wise investment.</p>
<p>Given that I am confident I will learn my course material well no matter where I go, can Harvard or Yale education help me earn significantly more than, say, Brandeis, BU or Olin education?</p>
<p>Perhaps my question is already answered in this thread. I’ll need to read through.<br>
Again, thank you, Curm. This is the most wonderful thread on this board.</p>
<p>Oh, I’m sure you can pretty much find several answers to all questions in this thread if you look long enough. And as far as that last line of yours? You just haven’t read far enough.</p>
<p>kelsmom, great post. My H, an engineer, would agree wholeheartly with you. He’s described the same things that you have. It was the reason my S looked at schools with a more practical approach than theoretical.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, my anecdote only applies to elementary school, so it has limited value. But my son went from the smartest kid in his public school where he literally learned nothing in 4th grade (the teacher let him bring books into class so he could read while she taught the other kids), to being above average in a private school for the gifted. Needless to say, he learned so much more by being in the intellectually stimulating environment, surrounded by kids with not only innate abilities but a voracious thirst for knowledge. Even now as a HS senior, he loves the classes where he and his friends can engage in debate and discussion and push each other to higher levels. My daughter as well was one of those, that I think SB mentioned, who rises as high as those around her. In our old school, she did grade level work. At the gifted school, she was doing math many years above her grade level when exposed to it. I don’t know if this carries over to college, but I think to some extent it does. If surrounded by others who love learning, you will be motivated to learn more as well. Can this only happen at HYP, of course not. But if education is important to you, make sure it’s also important to the majority of students with whom you’ll be sharing those four years.</p>
<p>Congrats on your impressive acceptances! I’m sure you have an outstanding future ahead of you no matter which direction you travel.</p>
<p>If you were to leave Olin out of the picture, your decision would match a that of lot of the kids being discussed–HYPSM full-pay vs. strong but less prestigious schools with major scholarships. Your Olin acceptance makes you an exception in my opinion.</p>
<p>It sounds like Olin is a near-perfect fit for you. The faculty and students are MIT quality, so you aren’t giving up anything there. With their emphasis on entrepeneurship, I suspect there will be plenty of Olin grads making big bucks in a few years, so if that is what appeals to you, it might serve you better than the top Ivies (I’m sure that others will disagree). And the most important thing is that you say you really love it! Don’t choose another school unless you can say the same thing about it!</p>
<p>What wonderful choices you have! There are no wrong answers on this multiple choice test.</p>
<p>(Disclaimer–my S was rejected by Olin, but I don’t think it would have necessarily been a good fit for him.)</p>
<p>beantowngal, I think you already know that you would be happiest at Olin. That is certainly what you are saying, and your reasons are excellent. Don’t hesitate, don’t apologize, just seize the opportunity and make the most of it. BTW, it’s perfectly okay to want to make a lot of money :)! It only becomes a problem to have that goal if you compromise your values to attain it or if you would feel “unsuccessful” if it didn’t happen. I always wanted to be rich … while I am certainly not compared to some, I definitely am compared to most of the world (and much of our own country). Keep things in perspective and you will always find happiness.</p>
<p>Congratulations are clearly in order. You are probably a pretty extraordinary young woman.</p>
<p>If you know you want engineering training in college, it’s going to be hard to beat Olin’s value/price ratio. It may be small, and it may not have a track record, but I don’t expect that you will give up much in terms of future prestige from your degree there, or in terms of what you will actually learn while there. I could make an argument in favor of the broader course offerings at MIT, or more contact with different types of students, but it would not likely be enough of an argument to outweigh the price difference – marginal additional value for a much higher price. And Harvard or Yale would give you breadth, but nothing like the depth of engineering training.</p>
<p>If you don’t want engineering training, Olin is a terrible value, no matter what the price.</p>
<p>So what if you are a little (or more than a little uncertain)? Olin really locks you in. Maybe that’s what you want – like Odysseus tying himself to the mast. If not, then Olin may not be such a good deal after all.</p>
<p>I thought, by the way, that Olin was free tuition. Is it free everything? If it’s tuition only, the Olin-Harvard (or MIT, or wherever) difference is more like $130,000, not $200,000. The same thing may apply to your scholarships at Brandeis or BU.</p>
<p>For everything else, I’ll refer you to the rest of the thread. If all you are doing is a risk-neutral expected-earnings analysis, you should not be able to justify paying as much as $100,000 extra to attend HYM, etc. If you value what they offer educationally and socially, I think that’s a reasonable price to pay.</p>
<p>I have nothing but respect for Beloit and Allegheny. Otherwise we would not have encouraged her to apply. Had she attended Beloit, we would have been happy-- and we’d have been paying $5-10K more per year than at UC Berkeley, where she was also admitted, which would have been seen as idiotic by many rank-obsessed CC parents. In fact, UCB probably “outranks” her current LAC in most people’s minds, yet for us it was not the right learning environment for her. And Beloit would have won over UCB had those been the only two acceptances she received. </p>
<p>So this is not just about rank, it is also about the fine points of environment matching with a kid’s learning style and personality. We were convinced that, for her, a LAC education was critical because of the intimacy offered. Our kid had always done well in discussion-based classes taught by teachers with whom she has felt very connected. I recognize that not all kids are as sensitive to class size or to bonding with the teacher. Mine is, though. These sorts of teachers/classes broke through her haze and created sparks.</p>
<p>In terms of the peer group, there is no getting around this fact: at her current school my D was basically lucky to make it in thanks to her sports ability and having an acceptable GPA/SAT, whereas at the other two she was one of the kids being ‘bought’ with merit money, in the top ~15% of matriculants. This tells you a great deal about the relative strengths of the applicant pools. </p>
<p>Certainly there are going to be stimulating peers at Beloit, but we wanted her to have a sea of intellectual superiors and a higher ‘middle.’ </p>
<p>Again, for a kid with a better internal engine, stronger motivation, and a different skill set/ intellectual profile, the proportion of hard chargers in the student body may not be relevant. Maybe other things like the amount of partying or the proximity to a city would be relevant. </p>
<p>So there are kids who are potentially quite vulnerable to the general intellectual environment and others who are not vulnerable. Know your kid. Factor that knowledge in alongside the money.</p>
<p>SBmom I understand your thinking and it has worked out for your daughter.</p>
<p>“Certainly there are going to be stimulating peers at Beloit, but we wanted her to have a sea of intellectual superiors and a higher ‘middle.’”</p>
<p>What about the “intellectual superiors”? Why would they want somebody in their school who was their intellectual “inferior”? </p>
<p>I understand the 1350 wanting to go to school with the 1450. Why should the 1450 go to school with a 1350?</p>
<p>There seems to be a thinking that a student is your peer student. So, if I can get into Dartmouth with a 1350, I am now a peer of the 1450 Dartmouth student. I’m now a Dartmouth student. I’m not a 1350 Dartmouth student who is intellectually inferior to the average Dartmouth student, but happens to play a sport.</p>
<p>So, when I am accepted to Dartmouth as 1350 student, I am below average at Dartmouth. One year later, I have caught up.
What does this say about the other Dartmouth students?
What does this say about other 1350 students who don’t go to Dartmouth? Can they also catch up? And if they can catch up, what is the real difference between a 1450 and a 1350?
(I’m just using Dartmouth as an example).</p>
<p>“What does this say about other 1350 students who don’t go to Dartmouth? Can they also catch up?” </p>
<p>Of course they can. Particularly if they pick a school that matches their individual needs.</p>
<p>Generally, the 1450 wants to go to school with 1350s in order to get merit money, honors college treatment, research opps, better GPA, specific departments, etc. Isn’t that pretty clear? Sometimes they may just want a big sports school or a more relaxed enviornment. There could be many reasons.</p>
<p>Your point is excellent, that the 1350 is now not a 1350 but a “Dartmouth student.” Some kids will see themselves in a new way and go new places as “Dartmouth students.” </p>
<p>Other 1350s might be intimidated being in a sea of 1450’s but might flourish at Beloit. </p>
<p>It pretty much depends on the kid. Know your kid.</p>
<p>So you did not want your kid “bought”. Well good for you. You saved her from a percieved threat of intellectual harm. You did a good job. Now go pat yourself on the back.</p>