<p>Oldest S spent a semester at a middle rated small LAC-media SAT 1150, as he was going to Midd as a feb-
He found that the professors were dedicated, knowledgable, interesting, and thrilled to have him in their classes BUT then overall classroom environment suffered due to the caliber of many of the other students. Often, he would be the only one willing to engage in discussion or able to challenge the prof.His main focus is poli sci. He also got a 99 in Intro Physics with no work.</p>
<p>He now is at Midd, still pretty much all As, but he has to work for that, and the other students are as engaged and advanced.</p>
<p>He says it is totally worth the extra money in terms of his learning. He is paying 30% vs. nothing.</p>
<p>So he will have similar grades, but he will LEARN a lot more at Midd.</p>
<p>As a direct comparison, he took a semester of Chinese at said school, learned about 100 characters, and got an “A”. Second son is killing himself learning Chinese at Midd-spending at least 7 hrs a week in class and another 14 hrs studying for a C+, but he can actually speak it, and had 300 characters after 1 semester.</p>
<p>Sometimes you get what you pay for. Son 1 was spending all his free time with the honors kids at said first college, and felt “I could have been happy there” but feels he is learning so much more at Midd.</p>
<p>I think you’re contradicting yourself with this statement because if there is no use of the peer group then there is no use going to college at all. You can just join an internet university and interact with the professors.</p>
<p>The point of going to college is to participate in the discussion that happens in the classroom or the small groups with TAs. You are brain storming with your peers, solving PSETs that actually challenge you.</p>
<p>If all the learning can happen by oneself then the colleges is of no importance.</p>
<p>IMHO if a child can survive a rigoros college with strong peer group the child should thrive in the real world.</p>
<p>In real world you need to interact with peers, your knowledge is tested against your peers. If you are not exposed to competitive peers you may have tough time thriving in a real work environment. </p>
<p>Real work is not same like working alone with Professors in a lab on an open ending project. You have real deadline, if you won’t be able to do the job some one else will. It’s a competitive world so it’s better that go to a competitive college and get used to it.</p>
<p>You will be surprised to know that at some colleges the lower level GIR might be more demanding than the upper level at other colleges. So you can’t compare these and opportunities to take upper level doesn’t equate rigor.</p>
<p>Think of schools with AP classes that are less challenging that of regular classes at rigorous prep schools.</p>
<p>Taking a college course is a full experience which comes with an equal peer group, esteemed Professors and dedicated TAs. It’s the whole package that makes the college experience worth the time and finance.</p>
<p>If the point is to just know the material then one can just take the course online, interact with a Professor finds a lab and do research. </p>
<p>Do you think that will prepare the child for real world challenges? IMHO No, the real world challenge comes from strong and motivated peer group and that is why selecting the academic fit college is more important for learning.</p>
<p>I standby my statements and reinforce with examples:
Most large lecture classes have very low interactions with Professors.
Major learning happen in small discussion classes with strong peer groups.
Most of the time a one on one discussion with Professor might not touch points that are out of the box.
Since Professor knows the subject (s)he won’t make any out of context remarks. Peer group that are hungry for exploration can ask questions that some time bring other relevant topics to discussions. Knowledge ball bounce from topic to topic making the discussion not only more interesting but also teach more than just the topic.</p>
<p>Please do provide reasons why “One eyed among blinds” is ever a good condition for learning. It can be good condition for self patting for those personality who need validation to be better(Gifted) than other (relatively) but not for learning IMHO.</p>
<p>POIH, there are some college students, believe it or not, who do get a lot more out of interacting with those who are older, smarter, and wiser than themselves- such as with actual live professors and grad students. By the time they do graduate, and often these are the type of students who are accepted into top grad programs, they are adults and have learned plenty of skills needed to succeed in life -again, from those who are older and more experienced than their college age peers. Yours is not the only word on this subject, sorry to say…
But I have no wish to get into a discussion about this … except to say" internet university"? yeah right…</p>
<p>I just heard an interview on NPR with David Brooks, their conservative political commentator, talking about his new book " Social Animal. He’s delved into research on how humans learn, interact and succeed. He found that the most important element in a culture’s ability to thrive is the bonding and care that it’s members show for each other. That ability to understand and feel empathy for each other is the paramount factor. By all means, demanding academics are important but apparently not to the exclusion of learning social intelligence.</p>
<p>@LadyDianeski - if everything goes according to plan, I’m transferring to a 4-year for Fall 2011. I’m not enjoying my time at comm. college at all.</p>
<p>You are again contradicting yourself with this statement. If a student is at a non competitive college what are the chances that the grad students are of any competitive nature. Just because some one is a grad student doesn’t mean the person will be able to provide a better interaction.</p>
<p>Again at some colleges the undergraduate peer group might actually be stronger academically than the graduate students at other colleges. </p>
<p>The notion of older doesn’t necessary mean smarter. Just because one get a chance to interact live with Professor and grad students doesn’t necessary means a more intellect environment.</p>
<p>There might be colleges where the TA and undergraduate peer group can be intellectually more challenging than the Professor and the grad students at another college.</p>
<p>If that is not the case then the rigorous and quality of education would have been same at each and every college.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m just providing my honest opinion to the OP who wants to make a decision. In the process I’m trying to refute your illogical statements which contradicts itself.</p>
<p>If you don’t even understand the value of the strong peer group then I’m not sure for what purpose you send your children to college. You can interact with grad students and Professor by just doing internship in labs and do home study (or internet university).</p>
While I agree with this statement and think that POIH’s characterization of the peer group being all-important is over-generalized, I also want to challenge the assumption that students who “end up achieving far more than most students” through personal initiative are thus achieving to the maximum of their own ability. Peer group does matter–maybe for Student A, the additional effect is small enough to be far outweighed by the additional enrichment of having money for summer study abroad, but it’s not a non-factor for anyone (in either direction, including for students who would drown if thrown into the academic deep end).</p>
<p>Throughout middle and high school, I learned more about life and academics alike from information resources (books and the Internet) than from my peers, teachers, or family. The crux of learning has always been a semi-obsessive independent pursuit for me. But–now that I finally have access to small discussion-based humanities classes with high-level intellectual peers, I find myself learning so much more from that environment. It’s not a replacement for independent study, but a complement. I am lucky enough to be able to attend this school without debt or extreme family sacrifice.</p>
<p>Actually, I’ve just come home from visiting tons of high school friends and classmates at the state U. Due to the confluence of a small state and a “high academic” high school, it seems like 1/4 of Honors housing is high school classmates. And everyone had plenty of work to do–but none of them, admittedly a biased sample because I attended a math/science magnet, were solely humanities/social science majors. One friend took an English course as a “GPA buffer,” and did get the A easily. In comparison, people are always *****ing about papers at my college. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>So, that’s just one datum point that’s been on my mind, since I’ve been doing higher ed institutional research for a college extracurricular and just visited my friends at the “opposite” type of school. JMHO.</p>
<p>POIH,
Three students of my acquaintance who took the merit $$ at the flagship, took graduate courses, were published in major journals, did significant research, double or triple majored…and have interviewed for grad programs at Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Duke, JHU, Caltech, Stanford and UChicago in the past month and a half (and have gotten offers). All STEM folks. None has complained about the lack of a peer group because they went out and found one.</p>
<p>If you’re talking about tippy top schools, such a student would be an A-student with each section of the SAT at or near 800. Their fitness at college depends on how hard they challenged themselves in HS. If they worked extremely hard and maxed out everything, then college could be a challenge even if they came in at the 50th or 75th percentile. On the other hand, if they took it easy at HS, now college could be easy when they start challenging themselves. Boys and girls may differ.</p>
<p>^^Certainly seems like, aside from going to a university for a specific “known” major (e.g. materials preservation at UDel), taking flagship merit $$ pays off most for STEM folks. Humanities/socsci folks tend to double-major to get additional rigor, which is definitely helpful, but not the same as intellectually challenging depth.</p>
<ol>
<li>Lots of student make it to top schools from low performing public high schools. Does that make the experience at prep high schools futile???</li>
</ol>
<p>
If the large state U is so good at providing the experience and lack of peer group was not an issue then why go to top universities for the grad schools. Student should have spent time instead of taking double, triple major to get the Phds in the same time frame.</p>
<p>Why something become so desirable after the undergraduate, if it was not so good during undergraduate?</p>
<p>If the question is finance, then yes you need to make the best of resources. But don’t say state flagship will provide the same experience or there is no loss of experience by not going to the top schools because you contradicted by showing that the end goal for these students were to at last go to the top schools only.</p>
<p>Sorry about not reading the whole thread. Maybe this was discussed already, but are kids happy/comfortable with their choices of attending a “reach” school where they might struggle more with academics than their peers?</p>
<p>“showing that the end goal for these students were to at last go to the top schools only”
NO, what he was showing was that after going to a less prestigious college[ and perhaps saving hundreds of thousands of $$ in the process] a TOP student CAN be accepted into the most rigorous graduate programs in the country. [ and not pay anything for them either!] Happened to my son- graduating from USC this May, with 5 years of scientific research with 2 top scientists/ profs in his field, published in a scientific journal, presented his findings at 3 national conventions, and has been accepted at Stanford and Cal Tech for his PHD. [ he’s going to CT] He didn’t apply to those graduate programs because of the “prestige” factor of those universities, but because they have the best PHD programs and professors in his particular field of study. He frankly wouldnt care if he was going to “Podunk U” for grad school, if it had the best profs and grad school program for him.</p>
<p>You’re again contradicting yourself, if your DS had the good fortune to do scientific research with 2 top scientists/profs in his field then why doesn’t he continue at USC and get a Phd in 2 years or less.</p>
<p>What difference a Phd from Stanford or Caltech will make? which certainly will take more time unless your DS understands what he missed at USC was the peer group which was not as strong as he would get at Stanford or Caltech.</p>
<p>^To rephrase, perhaps, POIH’s argument in a less combative tone: If it is important to attend the “most rigorous” graduate program to which one is accepted, why is rigor any less important for the undergraduate program?</p>
<p>If the students are motivated, then students with social science & humanities majors can really do a lot to enrich their own experiences. That is, an English lit major can easily find and read much more than the assigned reading – any library is going to have plenty of works of literature to choose from. </p>
<p>My kids were both poli sci majors, one at an elite college, the other graduating from a lower-level state u. The state u. kid probably had much more of an opportunity to develop the practical aspects of his interest – that is, there were internships, opportunities to participate in local politics, etc. I think one of his fellow poli-sci majors was actually an elected official in the college town. My son was far more interested in practice than theory, so it ended up being a good fit. Also, while he found the introductory level classes at his u. boring, that was not true of upper level classes – and he certainly found students who shared his interests to spend time with. </p>
<p>It could vary with different majors of course. Just because my poli sci major kid found plenty to keep him engaged at his college doesn’t mean that a kid who wanted to major in philosophy would find the same level of support.</p>
<p>I think POIH is laboring under a stereotype about a university environment that simply is not true, at least at larger universities. </p>
<p>Universities tend to have a far more diverse student body in terms of age and experience. The class peer group isn’t just a bunch of other 18 and 19 year olds – there may be students in their mid-twenties who are military veterans, women in their 30’s who are parents returning to school when their kids are finally out of diapers, etc, and young adults with a lot of real-world work experience. They bring their own perspective to the classroom. I always found when I was in college that the classes that were the most interesting were those with the most diverse group of students – otherwise it was kind of like being in an echo chamber. My d. also reported a similar experience, even at an elite college – she felt strongly that the most capable students were the nontraditional students who had matriculated via Columbia GS. I just think that in general, a 26 year old has more to offer in a class than a 19 year old, even if that 19 year old has a better SAT score. Also, the older students tend to be much more serious and focused on their classwork – they aren’t coming to college to socialize.</p>