Change in opinions about colleges

College Search & Selection
21

I always feel terrible when reading stories about kids who start off college struggling academically. So many of them have common elements of reinforcing effects, where the kid starts feeling depressed, isolated, like the proverbial imposter, all of which can make it even harder to succeed.

Of course when kids struggle, you hope they get some sort of intervention that will help, and I know at least some colleges are trying to be better about this. But still in too many cases that never happens, or not enough. Around here, these stories are rare. But out in the real world, it happens.

And even if that kid doesn’t actually drop out, they may quickly be out of the running for what they originally hoped to achieve. So many people drop out of really hard tracks like pre-med and engineering and so on. No one likes to talk about this, but even at “top” colleges, some of the kids who want to be lawyers will not actually be able to get into T14 law schools, and some not top regional or local law schools either.

And I agree with you, personally–I want my kids to go to colleges where they are well-prepared to do well. Being challenged is good too, so there is a balance there. But it feels to me like some families are basically looking to maximize how challenging it will be for their kids, and disregarding the risks associated with that. That to me is not a balanced approach to these complex issues.

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22

That would suggest avoiding reach colleges and favoring likely and safety colleges. But how many students do that when not forced to by cost or other external constraints, or being admitted only to likely and safety colleges?

23

I think it depends on what you mean by “forced to by cost”.

This is not so common here, but a lot of kids are applying to their in-state options as their preferred options. For some of those kids, they are not really applying to any colleges where they would not be well-qualified.

Does that count as being “forced to by cost”? Their parents may well believe their in-state options are obviously cost-effective, which is usually true. And they may not be particularly interested in applying OOS or to privates and then chasing merit just to have an alternative to a cost-effective in-state.

But the kid may also want the experience of going to the college where they have long been following the sports teams, where their peers from HS are going, and so on.

So the idea that every kid SHOULD want to go to a highly-selective college they can barely scrape into, if they are lucky, is really a notion limited to a relatively small subpopulation. There are only so many colleges that typically fit that description. And although in certain social media circles it feels like every kid is applying to such colleges, that is because that is a self-selected population.

My personal two cents (also reinforced by our college counselors) is really everyone should start there–if you have a good, affordable, likely in-state option where you would be comfortably well-qualified, then you can’t lose because that is a great option. And that might well be the end of the story, but if you can identify even better options for you and your family, and want to take a shot at them, fine.

But you don’t have to want something different, and you should only want something different when it really would be better for you as an individual. Not because it would represent a higher achievement, impress Great Aunt Mathilda, or whatever.

Edit:

By the way, I always love the bar chart here:

Because you would never know in certain circles that the most common number of college applications is . . . one. Followed by two. Followed by three. By the time you get to five, that is over half of the pool.

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24

I agree. I also note that students who barely scrape into a high reach may find they can not or should not major in their desired STEM course and have to change majors as a result.

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25

I think that increasingly, schools are going to have to stop trying to keep up with each other and differentiate. Some already have put stakes in the ground – around their schedules, like Colorado College, around certain programs (Middlebury and languages), around pedagogy (Olin). Schools that were struggling may have cut most programs to focus on something like nursing. But I suspect that their brands will evolve to extend beyond “preppy” or “SJW”, and as this happens, it’ll be harder to compare. As it is, how does one compare Caltech to Williams?

For folks who are looking, whether for the best place for their kid or for an employee, you need to look for who has what you want recognizing that for many things, the T10 anf T100 will be comparable – they’re hiring from the same schools and programs. – but that on certain elements, they may not even be in the same universe.

I also think it depends a lot on the kid. Some will do better surrounded by kids who are all driven and engaged, even if they are the bottom half of the class. Just being in this environment will make them up their game. Others may be far better off being a bigger fish, especially the kids who might not seek out attention (but will now be noticed) or the ones who are motivated by being at the front of the pack.

And yes, some industries are far more fixated on where their employees were educated. Part of this is just ease of recruiting and another part is not being able to evaluate ability themselves.

It’s a good thing when people go out and look wiyh an open mind snd have their horizons expanded. Hopefully this continues!

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26

Almost… In Engineering it also depends on subfields. For Electical or Mechanical Engineering I would agree. However, people hiring in the field know that GT is #1 in Industrial Engineering for 25+ years and program in ISyE at GT is very deifferent from say Utah (no offence to Utah, I have no clue what is going on there.) Similarly, with BME. I pay OOS for BME GT. It is very different from Bioengineering at our flagship at UMD. Since BME GT #1 or 2 from the time the field was established, it is totally different program at UMD. Unfortunately outcome is very different too. After GT students can find employment in insdustry with BS. After UMD they have very limited if any opportunities but going to graduate school.

27

I don’t think I can agree. I put VERY little emphasis on USNWR rankings.

To back that up, let’s look at BME (Utah doesn’t offer IE), and we’ll throw in Cal Poly because they don’t even show up in the main rankings list as they don’t offer PhDs.

The top 5 employers of BME grads according to LinkedIn and median earnings 4 years after graduation based on College Scorecard data are below. (Note: no data is without flaws.)

GT: Medtronic, Abbott, Boston Scientific, Edwards Lifesciences, BD. $89,405

Utah: BD, Merit Medical Systems, Edwards Lifesciences, GE Health, bioMerieux. $93,547

Cal Poly: Abbott, Medtronic, Edwards Lifesciences, Intuitive, Stryker. $97,977

I would say there isn’t anything in there that would suggest a student in UT or CA should pay dramatically more to go to Georgia Tech if they want to study BME.

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28

Your data does not take into account regional salaries. I am talking about employability.
Majority of GT students are from Georgia and stay in GA or states nearby. Salaries in CA or in Boston will be very different from GA.

29

That certainly can account for a bit of the Cal Poly differential, but not Utah.

Plus, looking at “where they live,” a lot of the GT BME grads are not in GA. CA, NY, MA and TX sum up to just about equal to GA.

Essentially the companies and salaries are equivalent among the three.

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30

I don’t know much about Utah. However, I compared employability between BME at GT and BE UMD based on the schools’ official data provided by schools…

31

Assuming your DS will indeed “probably” get into a “top name” school, the most important question, in my mind, is not what potential future employers might think (because this kind of thing is really impossible to predict - though I would not discount the signaling value of a truly top-notch brand), but what your son thinks would be the best place for his self-actualization.

Will he have academic peers at a “school most people never heard of”? Does it matter to him if he doesn’t? Would he rather be a big fish in a small pond?

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32

One of my kids was Industrial and Systems at Virginia Tech. Other was engineering at UVA. Instate. No way would we have paid OOS for Georgia Tech because of US News rankings.
But, sounds like you thought BME was a great choice for your particular family and worth the cost. That’s wonderful.

GT is #1 in Industrial but the lower ranked other schools are having no problems getting their kids employed with internships and jobs. Lots of engineering schools have very big career fairs and very good recruiting. Current Industrial and Systems undergrad rankings -GT, Purdue, Michigan, then Cornell and VT tied.

Cost still very/most important for the majority of families.

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33

This is correct. Fit is kind of tricky. My oldest can’t function at all if she is at the top of the class. She will be doing nothing and slide down. She needs a competitive environment and be in the middle of the pack to be driven. My youngest does not like to be at the top of the class or to attract attention too. But for her social aspect is critical. As a result, the oldest was best served by a big competitive school, and the youngest by good LAC (she refused to go to a less selective LAC when she failed to find similar kids on Instagram and Snap chat. She even became administrator of the forum for the school but failed to ignite kids there…)

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34

We were not chasing ranking. I was ISyE student (prehistoric time) and I was GA resident at that time. DD was interested in BME, not in ISyE. We are in MD. UMD does not have BME for BS. It has only BE program that is relatively new. It is fine program, but as I mentioned above success there after graduation without grad school is very limited. I know 2 great students who completed it. Both are stellar students. One went for a Ph.D. after graduation, and another added second major and now is interested in graduate school in analytics. Both agreed that UMD BE program was not enough for employment. I do not know what is wrong with it. I love VaTech (it does not get much love in MD, everyone is focused on UVA…) In our case OOS VaTech I believe even more expensive than GaTech. DD chose GaTech not because of ranking but because she grew up wanting to attend GaTech due to bias :rofl: (all family members, including extended family, graduated from GaTech, so we do not know anything different :joy:)

35

Understandable.You are a Georgia Tech alumni and I’m sure that’s fun that you could have one of your kids attend your alma mater. And had the resources or aid to make that happen.

There are definitely some OOS UVA and VT alumni that seem happy to pay a premium to have their kids attend .

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36

Opinions, especially employers’, have not changed much wrt flagship v. Ivy League.
One thing did change: the rise of co-op curricula (UCincinnati was a pioneer but Northeastern really took off by using the new appeal of co-ops to its advantage).
Professional opportunities remain better at better-funded colleges - being in a
well-run Honors College is better than not being in one, having a personal adviser is better than meeting once a semester with a person who advises dozens and dozens of freshmen, being at a college with a 1:12 ratio is better than being at a college with a 1:20 ratio, endowment per student funding housing&food for unpaid internships… all make a difference.
A go-getter will be able to get things done from a 4-4 regional college but it is harder and there is way less support so what would be a given for the go-getter at a college with a lot of support, so that at the former college suceeding is a hit or miss proposition whereas it’s a given at the well-funded college.
Where you attend college also matters a lot if you’re low income/first generation, whereas for a high SES student it doesn’t really matter as long as they work hard.
Peer quality matters a lot to discussion-based majors (Humanities, Social Science), whereas for some STEM majors, ABET or ACS would ensure a high standard regardless of college and for arts majors studio space or performance facilities would be the most important criteria.

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37

It is oft-repeated that all engineering degrees are substantially equivalent (because ABET), but a class is taught to the students that are in the room.

If you have a significantly stronger student body, you can challenge them at a higher level, for any given subject.

And that’s before we even start getting into everything that happens outside the classroom.

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38

…and many top CS programs aren’t even ABET accredited.

39

Totally agree! This is an oft repeated view here on CC. But engineering and CS programs are not all the same. Far from it.

It depends not only on the strength of the student body, but also the faculty and facilities available to students.

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40

I don’t think it’s a given that a go-getter will succeed at a well-funded college. If that college is a reach and they are outclassed by their peers, all the support in the world won’t make them one of the outstanding students. They may succeed in getting a degree, but they may or may not succeed in “life”.