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<p>Isn’t Yale one of those schools with very generous financial aid? That means that the few of its students from middle or lower income families are less likely to worry about insufficient financial aid than students from middle or lower income families attending less generous with financial aid (private or public) schools (NYU being an infamous example), or worrying about losing a merit scholarship due to not keeping a high GPA that is needed to keep the merit scholarship.</p>
<p>annasdad…you pay for your son to attend a catholic school correct? Do you have statistical evidence that this particular catholic school is educationally superior to the public school in your home district?</p>
<p>Something very strange, tk, is happening between the early years and graduation. Based upon student performance in the early years, they made predictions on how students in various disciplines would perform after year four (page 15 of your Academically Adrift summary).</p>
<p>Looking at the graph, they thought that students in math/science and social science/humanities would lead the pack with business and education/social work trailing behind. But when they were asked to run the numbers,</p>
<p>[Do</a> Majors Matter? | Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2011/06/16/connor_essay_on_why_majors_matter_in_how_much_college_students_learn]Do”>http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2011/06/16/connor_essay_on_why_majors_matter_in_how_much_college_students_learn)</p>
<p>they found sociology, interdisciplinary studies, physical education, foreign languages, math and business leading the pack, and communications, physical sciences, nursing, engineering, economics, and architecture at the bottom.</p>
<p>Anybody has a good explanation for these results? Personally, I suspect the CLA needs work, and it is not measuring what they think it is measuring.</p>
<p>“they found sociology, interdisciplinary studies, physical education, foreign languages, math and business leading the pack, and communications, physical sciences, nursing, engineering, economics, and architecture at the bottom.”</p>
<p>liberal arts FTW</p>
<p>OP, I have not read through this thread, but have you considered an LAC?</p>
<p>And I don’t see how the selectivity level of a school matters much in terms of advantages/rigor. The only reason certain schools, like the Ivies, are so selective is because everyone applies, even students with bad stats. If no one applied, then what would happen? A school could offer just as good of an education but no one could no about it, thus making it easy to get into.</p>
<p>The average ACT score of my school is 28.5, there are published student authors, musicians, lab researches, world travelers, you name it. The faculty have PhDs from places such as Harvard and UChicago, and it accepts more than half of its applicants.</p>
<p>@rbouwens: same situation here. :)</p>
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<p>Physical education and business are liberal arts?</p>
<p>of course not! I just copied the passage. 
That wasn’t the point, however.</p>
<p>I guess I’ll throw an anecdote in here. I have a friend who recently graduated from my non-prestigious LAC (Earlham College) who chose our college over Brown, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, and Wellesley colleges (might be wrong on a couple of these but I know they included Brown and Wellesley). She liked all of them for different reasons, and asked the admissions departments of each college if she could contact 5 seniors (from each college) to ask them about their experiences. At the end of each talk, she asked them all this question: “Given what you know now, would you have made the same decision to go to your college?” The only college where all five students said yes was Earlham, so she came here.</p>
<p>Kind of a strange way to pick a college, but it worked out really well for her. She graduated early with a near-perfect GPA, started several successful campus organizations, studied abroad, and excelled in basically every area. Now she attends Oxford University for grad school pursuing a doctorate in (I think, I might ask her) International Relations.</p>
<p>Obviously, she was a pretty exceptional case. Not every student thrives in the environment that a LAC provides. Additionally, she probably would have seen similar success at Brown or any of the other colleges. Still, I think that her story is a powerful example of what a LAC education can provide.</p>
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<p>None whatsoever.</p>
<p>Next question?</p>
<p>My internet has been kerflooey all day (no I don’t have the malware thing on my computer but the ISP has been awful all day) so I cannot get this entire article to load. Could someone please download it and read it? </p>
<p>It is : Worker Signals Among New College Graduates: The Role of
Selectivity and GPA*
Brad Hershbein - The University of Michigan October, 2011 <a href=“U-M Web Hosting”>U-M Web Hosting;
<p>All I can get is the abstract, which says:** "Recent studies have found a large earnings premium to attending a more selective college,** but the mechanisms underlying this premium have received little attention and remain unclear. …</p>
<p>… The model is then used to produce predictions of how the interaction of the signals should be related to wages. Using five data sets that span the early 1960s through the late 2000s, I show that the data support the predictions of the signaling model, with support growing stronger over time…and relate the findings to both the returns-to-college-quality and employer learning literatures."</p>
<p>Wouldn’t some then think you foolish to pay for a school that is not proven to be better than one that is free…just as you insinuate that parents are foolish to send their kids to Ivy league schools?</p>
<p>From the study linked above…“First jobs matter in the presence of career ladders because they open doors; as a consequence, a
medium ability student who graduated from a selective college can have better career opportunities
than a high ability student who graduated from a less selective college.”… this certainly strengthens the argument that many made in this thread.</p>
<p>No, not foolish at all. Because based on an analysis of this kid and his needs, and an in-depth understanding of the opportunities (educational and otherwise) available at both schools, his parents made the judgment that it was worth the money. </p>
<p>It was not made on the prestige or the selectivity or the ranking of the schools. </p>
<p>IOW, the decision was made after just the kind of analysis that every family should do when making a college decision. </p>
<p>And, I may add, two years later, we are convinced it was the right call - because of what we have observed that tracks almost perfectly with what the research shows are high-payoff educational activities for college students - rigor of assignments, faculty-student interactions, student involvement in the life of the school, etc. </p>
<p>Now this is the last question I’m going to answer in this line, because where one parent chose to send his kid to high school has no bearing on the validity of 30+ years of scholarly research on the effects of colleges on college students.</p>
<p>“No, not foolish at all. Because based on an analysis of this kid and his needs, and an in-depth understanding of the opportunities (educational and otherwise) available at both schools, his parents made the judgment that it was worth the money.”</p>
<p>…exactly why we allowed our D to attend Cornell…</p>
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<p>Is this the 2005 article that has been referenced over and over and over? I would like to see a link to a more current article and at least three or four others done by different authors that give info.</p>
<p>And I do not care if this article is a complilation of 30 articles from 2005. I want something more recent, and supported by different authors.</p>
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<p>Interestingly enough, that’s exactly how our family approached the college decision for D1, and how we’ll approach it for D2. I’d guess that’s the case for many others here on CC, regardless of prestige, selectivity or ranking. Even some at Yale. ;)</p>
<p>Exactly, slithey and csdad. For ANY GIVEN STUDENT (as has been constantly crammed down the readers throats here) what will effect the best educational outcome is made on their individual attributes and needs. No kidding.</p>
<p>THumper, the article I linked above in post #393 seems to offer what you are asking for-- more recent data that provides evidence that in some cases selectivity does matter. But my ISP is being difficult today and I cant get the whole article to load. Can you help? </p>
<p>CSdad- can you expound on what you wrote in post #395?</p>
<p>It’s not an article, thumper, it’s a 700-page compilation of 30+ years of scholarly research. </p>
<p>If that’s neither current enough nor comprehensive enough for you, then I would invite you to find and cite something more recent and/or comprehensive.</p>
<p>Would somebody please repost the link to the 2011 article I linked above? AD will claim he doesnt read my posts for a reason that it a total fallacy. But thats a story for another time. In the meantime, please someone repost the article in #393? Thanks.</p>