Should we ask how many of her college credits can transfer prior to enrollment? She doesn’t have many APs to transfer. Maybe 4? We don’t know if we can hear back from Rice before April 30, but we are pretty sure we can transfer more credits to Rice than Caltech (they don’t take any) or Columbia (they might take some after taking their classes with good grades for some pre-req ones). She wants to have some wiggle rooms to go study abroad twice. Once in England and once in Japan or South Korea so we are hoping for some credits to transfer (classes she took beyond her high school requirements).
Rice!
My son has a good friend that went to Caltech. It was smaller than our high school!! My son who lives in SF would fly up to visit the friend every so often and hang out there. My son skipped college and went to work in SV which is why he could just fly up when he wanted. (Actually fly down I should’ve said). Anyway, he said it was far from the airport, so then we would start looking for flights to Burbank which was more convenient, smaller and closer but harder to find flights. The friend had to retake classes he took in high school since CalTech didn’t take the dual credit. But, that said, he is now getting his PhD at Stanford in Chem, so you definitely can’t go wrong but you absolutely cannot go wrong at Rice when it is FREE!! No question.
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If you have a question about whether Rice will accept the college credits call the Rice admission office and/or the registrar and get an answer. I would hate for her to make a decision thinking various colleges will or will not accept the credits and then fins out something different later. Rice gives credit for AP scores of 4 or 5 for certain courses.
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Here is a link to the AP credit page. Advanced Placement (AP) Credit | Office of the Registrar | Rice University
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If she has a 4 year full COA scholarship, why would you want (almost) any transfers or AP credits. Enjoy the four years. Work will always be there.
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First - to the OP. CONGRATULATIONS TO YOUR D!
I think I am going to be among the minority here. The most brilliant five people I know all came from Caltech. Seriously
Yes, I am in Silicon Valley
Yes, I am a Recruiter in Silicon Valley
But, by a wide margin, the handful I speak of are brilliant. They also are really, really well-rounded. One CS (PhD) DJ’d, kite surfs, photographer. Others are CS, Robotics, a couple of rocket scientists - are also just good people. Caltech is small and your D will have the opportunity to work directly and network with people that are on the bleeding edge of their fields.
[edit] Caltech also has just under 1,000 undergrads and a total student population of about 2200. They are small - so VERY tight-knit. This is either good or bad, depending on your student’s comfort zone.
IF there is the possibility of attending Caltech and she won’t be saddled with a huge debt, then this dad says go West young lady, go West.
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I agree college is a time to be enjoyed and one should not be in a rush to finish. The AP credits at Rice can fulfill some of the distribution requirements (which are in addition to major requirements) allowing the student to take fewer hours per semester, take fun elective classes, study abroad, etc. Of course some people in a rush to get out of school can use AP credits to graduate a semester early, etc.
I think she can enjoy 4 years of debt-free education at a very strong school (AND BALANCED school) and (presumably she will still be a strong student), maybe then go WEST for Grad School.
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Some students would rather take the advanced placement rather than repeating what they already know (e.g. after a 5 on AP calculus BC, would prefer to learn something new in calculus 3 instead of repeating calculus 1).
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Because she can then take more advanced math classes, for example, to start, perhaps try to get in to the MS program in the end if she changes her mind, while making sure she can enjoy study abroad which she may want to take classes that might not be a part of CS requirements. She would obviously stay for 4 yrs at Rice, and anything she could do to minimize the CS requirements by transferring some credits would be certainly nice.
If she is attending on a full ride scholarship, why does she need those credits?
Not sure of Rice specifically, but most higher level schools have placement tests for at least math and foreign language. They allow you to start higher but you don’t necessarily get credit for the stuff you skipped. I would be careful about transferring CS credits. It depends where she got them. My DS did a summer program at a top 150ish state flagship. One of the classes he took was a microeconomics class. He took the class again at his current school. I asked him if it was much different. He said they were nowhere near each other. Since that is a likely major of his, he is glad he did it.
Full ride at Rice would be incredibly hard to pass up. Unless she adores NYC, I’d take Columbia off the list - for CS - I sure wouldn’t want to pay for it over Rice. Caltech is a bit different animal. It is a uniquely intense school that is a great fit for some kids. If that’s the vibe she’s looking for and you can afford it, I can see making that choice.
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Many people at CalTech or Columbia have full-ride offers elsewhere. CalTech or Columbia brand will follow the student for the rest of her life. If money were no object, I’d pick CalTech or Columbia. CalTech for a techie and Columbia for a liberal arts-minded STEM student. Columbia East Asia language top notch. I believe the Japanese might be one of the tops in the country.
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If you are unsure of whether to take the advanced placement that the college allows you to take, and the college does not have a formalized placement testing regime for the subject, you can try the old final exams of the course that you are allowed to skip to determine how well you know the material from the college’s point of view.
Regarding microeconomics courses, the introductory level courses may not be too critical to have exact matches with respect to transfer credit. But the intermediate level ones can vary substantially between colleges, particularly in terms of math intensity. However, a college with an intermediate microeconomics course that uses multivariable calculus is unlikely to see a non-calculus intermediate microeconomics course from another college as equivalent.
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Not really. Unless a person goes into academia, few job locations actually care where you went to college five-ten years after your graduate.
Seriously, if a person’s main achievement in life at the age of 30 is that they were accepted to Columbia, I would say that it wouldn’t be a good idea to hire them for anything.
I disagree with that - it does stay with you.
It’s especially important in finance for example - when include VIP bios it’s almost a must to have gone to a T1 school either for undergrad or grad.
Not really, and not even the majority:
Many of the most “elite” colleges roll out their red carpet for people AFTER they become famous. They also do the same for the kids of the very wealthy. To conclude therefore that attending these colleges resulted in their fame is a fallacy. To conclude that because GW Bush became president because he attended Yale, that Eric Trump Jr. runs his father’s business because he attended Harvard is the same fallacy, or that Natalie Portman achieved Hollywood fame because she attended Harvard, is to see things upside down.
Any top business person, politician, or celebrity who attended a top college either as a kid of a donor, a legacy, or after they achieved fame is not demonstrating that there is any benefit to the “Brand” of their college. They are demonstrating that attending a “top” college is a status symbol of people who were born, to wealth, power, or fame, or achieved these early in life.
Successful people aren’t successful because they attended “top” colleges, rather, they attended colleges because they were already successful, or their lives were such that they were almost assured success.
One of the great advantages that Harvard has is that, with 57,000 applicants, it can select either kids who were born with the proverbial silver spoon or choose those who have already achieved a lot of success as highschool students.
In short, for most “top” colleges, the college does not help their graduates achieve fame and fortune, but rather the students achieve fame and fortune due to their own skills or family connections, and the colleges are the ones who then benefit rom the association.
If a college selected its students by height, and had 100,000 of the tallest students clamoring for one of the 2,000 places there, it would be pretty ridiculous for us to claim that attending that college made you taller, no?
The reason that so many people in business in top positions flash their Ivy degrees is that same reason that they drive expensive cars - it is a status symbol. It isn’t helpful for somebody who does not have the rest of the trappings of success, any more than a poor person would boost their job success by driving a Bentley.
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From an undergraduate perspective, the sports conferences with the most CFOs are the Big Ten (77), Ivy (51), ACC (53), and SEC (36). The Big Ten is also on the top of the CEO list
https://www.cristkolder.com/media/2697/volatility-report-2020-americas-leading-companies.pdf
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