Sorry UCB, I meant racial diversity at the UCs, not socio-economic diversity. Agreed that the UCs are very diverse socio-economically.
Here’s the breakdown for UCI, Spring 2015.
http://www.oir.uci.edu/files/enr/IIA07S-enr-by-ethnicity.pdf?R=289724
Honors Colleges or Honors programs are not created equal. A few years ago I looked at several online for comparison’s sake and was appalled at the lack of courses available. Segregating diverse Honors students into one living area and offering survey courses is definitely not the same as offering Honors versions of courses through the final year. Having only one version of the general subject STEM courses- what??? Being required to sign up for seminars instead of taking a real in-depth version of a course???
The value depends on the overall caliber of the university. You want the rest of the student body to be better than most and you want the regular courses to be top notch as well.
Given the choice of borrowing money it can make more sense to attend the instate flagship and make use of Honors courses. However, it depends on the university.
PS- UW-Madison has had a great Honors program since the 1950’s- even better now than in my day. But still has the same courses (updated for content, of course) and opportunities to work in grad labs/take grad level courses in highly ranked departments. Very different than just being with peers getting breadth but not depth.
It is almost as if you took the demographics of a school like Cornell or Penn, but changed white->Asian, Asian->Latino, Latino->white in terms of percentage of the undergraduates by race/ethnicity. So a similar level of racial/ethnic diversity in terms measures like the chance that any two students are of different race/ethnicity, but a very different look and feel…
Yep! Except that most UCs have a very low AA enrollment, lower than many of the HYPSM type. MIT is even more “balanced”, as it were, than the Ivies.
wis75,
You bring up some good points. I don’t know anything about honors colleges, but I know at MIT, there are three levels of various lower division STEM classes. (Don’t know much more than that)
Agree on being leery about some honors colleges. Some are just a facade. Many would not be close to the same thing as an Ivy/equivalent (or even a good department in a good flagship). Personally, all else being equal, I would choose a top school or department over a top honors college.
The interesting cases are those where there is a wide mismatch between the quality of the faculty and the quality of the student body. For instance, UArizona has a 75th-25th percentile SAT of 1810-1440 (compare to UW-Madison’s 2090-1760) but several highly regarded departments.
My son is having wisdom teeth removed at one of the top oral surgery practices in my area. I checked the profiles of the people in the practice. Only one went to an arguably elite private college. The remainder went to directional state universities–not even the flagship. All went to top dental schools. I have no idea whether they were in honors programs.
The point seems to be that for graduate or professional school, it probably matters much less where you went to school than for Goldman Sachs.
That said, I’m still a big believer in the intrinsic value of a good liberal arts education, and there is an argument here for Harvard over the state honors program. These threads often turn into public is just as good as Harvard.
Would you consider it to be racially diverse if half the students were white, instead of Asian?
@latichever, this idea that you can’t get a good or even great liberal arts education at at least some publics indicates myopia (especially compared to Harvard, which isn’t exactly one of the research U’s known for its emphasis on undergraduate education).
Also, you can’t just lump all grad schools together. For health professions, undergrad seems to matter less. PhD programs tend to draw from other good research universities (both private and public) + some LAC’s. For b-school, actually working at GS would be more helpful than any undergrad.
In general, overly broad generalizations just don’t work.
^^My point is not that you can’t get a good to great education at many publics, but that the comments on these types of threads often devolve into devaluing the education of not just Harvard but elite privates in general. Pretty much saying they have no added value, and they’re a waste of money.
Isn’t it old?
@MiamiDAP the article is from August 8 and is about a student matriculating this year. Do you consider that old?
And @boolaHI Yay or nay what? This kid made the decision that was right for him. And you know what? Sometimes finances do have to be part of the decision. He will get a great education at Alabama…and will save money.
There have been other threads based on the same opinion piece.
For his specific situation, where all of the Ivy League schools would have been a stretch at best for family finances, while Alabama was a full ride for him according to http://www.businessinsider.com/ronald-nelson-turned-down-every-ivy-league-school-for-university-of-alabama-2015-5 (probably the automatic full tuition for his stats / NMF plus additional competitive scholarships), and his pre-med intentions, Alabama looks like a very rational choice.
For some other student situations, the answer may be different. A student whose parents can easily afford and are willing to pay the Ivy League school prices, and whose intended career direction is elite consulting or investment banking, may choose differently, for example.
Yes. Or, if you were intending to make a go of academia, and especially in relatively obscure topics/subject (e.g.folklore and mythology, Egyptology…)
My sense of it after reading about this kid and what his goals are, yes he made a very prudent choice. Especially if he is very sure about where he wants to end up.
Now the decision to apply to all eight ivies in the first place, that is hard for me to understand. Perhaps he and his parents went into the process less sure about who he is and what he wanted out of life, but that became more defined as he went through the process. We are talking about a 17 year old here.
But yeah if my kids ultimate goal is to practice medicine in the state of Tennessee (or Alabama, Kentucky, etc.), absolutely this makes a lot of sense. To spend six figures more and wind up in exactly the same place, for a family that doesn’t have their retirement squared away yet, more kids to put through college, med school to pay for, etc. it becomes very hard to justify. Very much a luxury item.
Someday in the future, there will be an Asian American student who does the same. THAT will then be a even bigger news than this!
He must be uninterested in heading to the Wall Street. Yay for him for this reason alone.
Here is as good of an article as I have seen about this kid and his thought process:
It does not matter for pre-med. Whatever his heart desires will work the same at the end. Will have to work very hard at any place and get his college GPA as close to 4.0 as possible. I am not sure how much interest pre-med would have in the Wall Street. My guess is none.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this kid…and i don’t think that others should draw conclusions based on what he did. Honestly, he could have won full-rides to Duke, Vanderbilt, USC, Chapel Hill, etc with his stats. The valedictorian of D’s class this year won full 100% merit scholarships (and lodging/meals) to all 4 of those universities.
Not sure why it came down to 8 Ivies vs. one state university for him. His application time could have been much better spent.
Where is mom2ck? She may have a good insight and a good input here. LOL.