<p>@parent56 I agree with you that general data sometimes obscures the underlying data. In your example, graduation rates of colleges. If a college has students with a broad range of SAT scores, its overall graduation rate will be low. But if you look at the graduation rate of those with high SAT scores, the graduation rate of these students are quite high and on par with students at elite schools with similar SAT scores.</p>
<p>Although there is much to be said about SAT scores and first year college GPAs and usefulness in the admission process, the data is clear that there is a direct correlation between SAT and graduation rates. See page 20 of the following link to a UCLA study on graduation rates: </p>
<p>@MYOS1634 I am not sure you understood the information from Malcolm Gladwell’s video about the graduation rate of STEM students from different colleges. The central idea that was being conveyed was that Being a Big Fish in a Small Pond will give one a better odds of obtaining a STEM degree than Being a Small Fish in a Big Pond. This information is useful to @kmywest because her choices include University of Arizona, University of Colorado and CalTech. Given the data in the video, she would have greater odds of obtaining a STEM degree from UA than either Colorado or CalTech. Given this information and the merit award from UA as @stepay stated it seems to be a no brainer which she should choose.</p>
<p>@MiamiDAP I agree with you. If one has regrets about not going to a $250K “elite” vs a full ride at a “2nd tier” school, that person has self esteem issues that go beyond obtaining college degree. As is the case in life, you are what you make of yourself. If you are a determined individual, you can achieve every level of success whether you go to University of Arizona or CalTech. If you strive to be the best, you will most likely succeed. If you succeed, you will have no regrets even if that means not obtaining your degree from CalTech or HYPSM et. al. </p>
<p>@kmywest The truth is you may help define the school you attend, but the school does not define you. You are the only one who can carve your path in the world. Schools are only conduits that can help you attain your goals, but ultimately you are the main force that shapes your life. So as I stated in prior posts, you can achieve whatever you want by attending any number of schools that are not the “elites”. It is ALL about your hard work and dedication than what school is written on your diploma.</p>
<p>“Given the data in the video, she would have greater odds of obtaining a STEM degree from UA than either Colorado or CalTech. Given this information and the merit award from UA as @stepay stated it seems to be a no brainer which she should choose.”</p>
<p>This is bad advice. If a family can afford Cal Tech and the kid is interested in one of the departments where Cal Tech is reasonably considered to be one of the top three universities in the world, the idea that the kid would be better off “obtaining a STEM degree” from UA is crazy. </p>
<p>I get it- I’m an elitist snob. But you are really relying on a self-proclaimed “expert” and huckster (Gladwell) if you’re going to predict that your kid is better off at UA vs. Cal Tech if he/she is studying one of Cal Tech’s top departments. Sure- your kid can’t get into Cal Tech. Then go ahead and look at options. You can’t afford Cal Tech AT ALL without jepordizing your retirement and your family’s nutritional needs. Then go and look at more affordable options. But turning down Cal Tech because you think your kid has a higher probability of completing the degree at UA because Malcolm Gladwell says so… well that’s just crazy.</p>
<p>Malcolm Gladwell exists to sell books and create a “brand”. It doesn’t create buzz to state that Cal Tech is one of the top universities in the world, and that any kid who has the intellectual chops to get admitted ought to seriously consider going there. Nobody makes money by telling vulnerable parents that there is a reason why Mechanical Engineering at MIT or Math at Princeton or Rice or Comp Sci at Cal Tech or History at Yale or Classics at U Chicago are quite simply “better” than your run of the mill department someplace else. And this isn’t a public/private thing- Classics at Michigan? Berkeley? Many engineering disciplines at UIUC? Also top tier.</p>
<p>But to advocate “STEM” is better virtually anywhere than one of the top STEM institutions in the world? That sells books. That creates buzz. That makes a brand.</p>
<p>blossom, colleges are brands too. In fact the poster at the top of the previous page even made a collection of eight colleges into an acronym (“IVY”).</p>
<p>Also, just because a program might be “better” doesn’t mean all the other options are “bad.” Take your example of classics. There are just not that many jobs in classics, so every year newly minted PhDs from University of Chicago, Yale, etc. end up taking positions at “lesser” schools. Which in turn means all the kids studying at those schools are being taught by faculty who, under other circumstances, might have remained in the rarefied air of the top programs in the country. Are they any less inspiring or capable just because they went on the market in a year where there were not enough openings for them at a few select schools? Of course not. This is why it has been really important for me to look at CVs of faculty at all the schools my kids have considered. What I have seen has convinced me that there are fantastic professors in far more than the “elite” schools people here tend to focus on (and as an aside, that’s just one more plus for LACs in my book–the professors are committed to teaching and there are generally no TAs).</p>
<p>Sally- I agree with you 100%. But a kid who wants to study Classics will get told on CC that “it doesn’t matter where you” as if the Classics department at University of New Hampshire is “the same” as the Classics Department at Michigan. The four professors at U New Hampshire might be fantastic but if a kid is studying Latin and is interested in ancient sculpture and archaeology, and the tiny department in NH is focused on Greek literature and drama-- well, the fact that they got their degrees from Chicago and Yale can’t change the calculus that a tiny department isn’t going to yield the same experience as a large one. Fewer faculty. Fewer grants/opportunities to join a dig outside of Rome. Fewer opportunities to attend seminars given by visiting scholars.</p>
<p>I’m making this up and don’t have time to check UNH. Perhaps it is a powerhouse of Classical Studies and I’m citing the wrong U. But you get my point.</p>
<p>How much more potent this is when you’re NOT talking Classics, but a field where it takes tens of millions of dollars to have a credible department (not just three or four faculty). Nanotechnology. Materials Science. Neuroscience. These college departments aren’t just a bunch of professors sitting around making lesson plans. It takes equipment and labs and creative ideas and novel thinking to create the powerhouse departments in the sciences.</p>
<p>So no, it matters in STEM where you go, no matter what the conventional wisdom says. That doesn’t mean that every parent needs to bankrupt themselves to send little Susie to her first choice college. And frankly, if my kid wanted to teach high school biology, there are better (and cheaper) options than Cal Tech. So the endgame matters too.</p>
<p>Cal Tech is a great school. I was impressed by our campus visit a few years ago. But several people (including a Cal Tech grad) advised that its value was more evident for grad school than UG. </p>
<p>@blossom Not sure where to start. I am not arguing that there is no merit in attending CalTech vs “lesser” schools. You make good points about reasons to go to one school versus another. But I was addressing the OP’s inquiry about choosing between 3 colleges, one that was near full ride and the others which were full pay. The video from Gladwell was an added bit of information that bolsters the argument of OP choosing Arizona over her other choices. Gladwell did not make up the data about graduation rates of STEM students at the dozen universities used in his examples. The data clearly shows that if your in the top 3rd of a school’s MATH SAT, that one has a higher chance of graduating with a STEM degree than if you are not in the top 3rd. </p>
<p>The data had nothing to do with graduating with a degree, only with the odds of graduating with a STEM degree, which is what the OP was seeking. </p>
<p>And never did I state that I “advocate “STEM” is better virtually anywhere than one of the top STEM institutions in the world”, I merely stated that upon a balance of cost and likelihood of obtaining OP’s goal of a STEM degree, that UA is a good choice and that she can achieve whatever she wants by going there.</p>
<p>CalTech is a great school! If cost was not an issue for her and her parents then the decision is more difficult, in my opinion. But if I was the one making the decision under this circumstance, I am not sure that I would still not choose UA over CalTech because I do strongly believe that although schools like CalTech provide great resources, I don’t believe that it would be sufficient to pay a quarter of a million $$$ to obtain such an education when the likes of UA et. al. are available at little or no cost. </p>
<p>I agree with a lot of this. But (unfortunately) most students who get bitten by the classics bug need to go on for a masters and doctorate anyway…so they presumably have years and years to immerse themselves in the areas they might have missed as undergrads. And then they too can join the ranks of the would-be classicists seeking teaching jobs in six or eight years…</p>
<p>There are Classicists who are heads of HR at major museums, directors of business development at insurance companies which insure/protect fine art collections, VP of media relations for tourism boards in major historical site regions, and directors of finance for major art auction houses. With nothing more than a BA in Classics and some initiative. Not every student who studies Classics ends up a professor. And for those kids- the professional connections and contacts coming from a top department are even more important than for a kid who is going on to an advanced degree. If you are studying ancient numismatics with the professor whose name and number is in every
Rolodex in the world when an auction house or gallery needs to authenticate an object… isn’t that person likely to be more helpful to the Classics major who is NOT getting a Phd but may need an introduction to the auction house staff once he or she graduates??? </p>
<p>@blossom Getting back on topic of this thread, so what would you recommend a high school student who has a full ride to a university like U. Arizona to study the “Classics” vs full pay at an “elite” school such as Yale for an undergraduate degree? Does it make a difference to you when money is an issue and when money is not an issue? If so at what point in cost does it change your decision making?</p>
<p>Money is always an issue. For me and my family, there was a substantial difference between saying, “OK, we’re on a thrift campaign to pay for college. Cut the cable. Keep the cars until they fall apart. No maintenance on the house except what we can do ourselves with a small outlay at Home Depot. No meals out except for birthdays” vs. “we’re raiding our IRA and taking out a second mortgage, cancelling our life insurance policies, and forgoing health insurance to pay for college”. I happily did the first; I wouldn’t do the second. I have seen family member’s lives change in a heartbeat with one stroke of bad luck; I would not go a minute without health insurance even though I know a lot of people think “I’m healthy, why bother?” </p>
<p>So when someone says that they can pay for XYZ school “with sacrifices” it’s not for me to tell them it’s ok to sacrifice. Heck, a close friend of mine refused to sell their vacation home (fully paid up) to pay for college since “I’m already making a lot of sacrifices for his education” which meant giving up the ski vacation in February but keeping the trip to the Islands in December.</p>
<p>Every family can figure its own tolerance for “sacrifice”, however they define it.</p>
<p>What I am objecting to is the very common CC pile-on that the only thing distinguishing U Chicago from Northern Illinois is better marketing and branding, and that you are a prestige #$%^ to think otherwise. First, it was just “it doesn’t matter where you go for med school or engineering”. Somewhat true, depending on many other factors. Then it was “it doesn’t matter where you go for computer science” which is only true when the poster is talking about IT and MIS, not actual computer science. Now it has morphed into ALL of STEM which is truly ludicrous. Ask a math major at a third tier college (who will likely run out of math courses if he or she came in with advanced standing, as many math types tend to do) if they are getting the same intellectual experience as someone at a college with a world renowned math department.</p>
<p>There are many reasons to take the free ride at UA. But “it doesn’t matter where you go for STEM” is absolutely not one of them.</p>
<p>The universe of 17-year-olds who have committed to such a career path at an early age–and whose parents are willing to indulge their specialized interest to the tune of $250K–is very, very small. If my kid became interested in classics while at BigStateU or SoSoLAC but didn’t plan to pursue a PhD, I would do encourage him to do everything possible between now and graduation to familiarize himself with the key players in that world, take on unpaid internships, travel to historic sites or do whatever else would demonstrate a genuine interest and help him get his foot in the door after graduation. I certainly wouldn’t leave it all to the department at his college to help him find his way. (And if he were in a more competitive environment, like U of Chicago, I would tell him to do the same thing for all of the same reasons.)</p>
<p>OK, the kid of the OP isn’t going to study Classics, considering that he/she is looking at Mudd and CalTech.</p>
<p>Here are my thoughts, dependent on career path in STEM:</p>
<p>If you are looking at doing a PhD, honors college at many publics will be as good as the elites or a LAC, because you’ll get research opportunities as or more easily than at an elite. As @sally305 noted, the academic talent in this country goes <em>very</em> deep, not to mention that many of the research powerhouses in STEM fields are publics. For instance, ARWU ranks schools and departments be research prowess, and in their rankings, 10 of the top 13 American engineering schools are publics, and all rank above CalTech (and, obviously, Mudd).</p>
<p>If you are pre-med, a good GPA(and MCAT) are important. So is research, which is where an honors college would help. Some elites are great at getting their kids in to med school, but some actually have pretty disappointing success rates (given the quality of their undergrads). I would avoid the top publics and other schools that attract a huge number of pre-meds, however (though “regular” flagships do not have that problem; for instance fewer kids from IndianaU and UKentucky apply to med school than from Harvard or Stanford, even though IU and UK are several times bigger than H & S).</p>
<p>If you are aiming at industry, some companies would hire from any where, but some of the top companies are more elitist and recruit from only the top schools in their field. However, you can get in to a top grad school if you do well in undergrad, and 2 years for a masters still costs less than 4 years for a bachelors. So in that case, it depends on how motivated the kid is. I would say that being 75th percentile at MIT is better than being 50th percentile at Arizona, but being 5th percentile at Arizona and going on to get a Masters from Stanford beats being 75th percentile at MIT.</p>
<p>@blossom I agree with much of what you are saying. </p>
<p>What do you consider a “third tier college?” Is it substantially different than a “2nd tier college or a 1st tier college?” Do you believe that using your example of Math major that such a student at a 2nd tier college would not be able to get a similar intellectual experience as someone at a “college with world renown math department?” </p>
<p>I ask these questions because I believe there is a fallacy that schools that are not perceived as an “elite” school will not be able to provide an intellectually challenging educational experience. I believe this is patently false. </p>
<p>Using University of Arizona as an example, it is ranked #121 best National University by USNWR and Princeton which is ranked #1 for National Universities. Do your really believe that a top Math major at Princeton will be any better at math than a top Math major at Arizona assuming they received similar grades in their course work?</p>
<p>If you don’t believe there is much difference between the two examples, then how far down the USNWR rankings do you have to go before you can definitively say a top Math student from a low ranking university is not as good as a top Math major at Princeton?</p>
<p>Sally, like I said- it’s not for me to tell you how to spend your money. If my kid were interested in old Roman coins at age 17 and had the ability to get into U Chicago or comparable, and the “sacrifice” involved were me cutting out vacations and watching network TV instead of Showtime and keeping my junker car, I’d do it. (and although my kids weren’t interested in Roman coins, we did pretty much that for their educations). But we had several things going for us when we made the decision to be full pay: already living below our means since our marriage; dual careers with two sets of benefits- retirement plans, disability insurance, etc; having had kids young so that our prime earning years were still ahead of us (if I’d been 62 instead of 43 when my first kid was a senior in HS it would have been a different calculation for sure.)</p>
<p>My point is just that the “it doesn’t matter where you go” crowd is painting a picture with too wide a brush- in the same way that the folks who say “Ivy or bust” are being similarly short sighted. Our kids GC was for sure frustrated with us that we rejected out of hand the long list of private “physics and engineering safety schools” he’d prepared. No way was I going to be full pay at the schools on that list-- and frankly, their quality didn’t increase one iota even if the merit awards would have made the price tag palatable. Our own public flagship was not a good fit for a variety of reasons, but the list of top publics with terrific engineering and physics programs is a substantial one. </p>
<p>The interesting issue in my mind is that the quality of a particular department at a particular school doesn’t go up when the school starts throwing money at your kid to attend. So to me there need to be some “externalities” to make the deal worthwhile. And many of those externalities are quite legitimate- kid isn’t sure of his/her intended field. Lots of other kids at home who need to go to college. A grandparent with nursing costs which aren’t covered by insurance. A parent with a job which is “at risk”. All good reasons to look carefully at lower cost options. But this isn’t what Gladwell is talking about.</p>
<p>@blosssom: It’s true that the quality of a school doesn’t go up just because they throw merit money at you, but the quality of many schools did not go up just because they started jacking up tuition either. Using higher tuition to increase fin aid is laudable, but doesn’t change the quality of education much. Nor did much of the spending for many majors (especially for undergrads).</p>
<p>As for Gladwell, it depends on the kid. Some kids do better in a more demanding environment with a lot of smart hard-working kids. Others do better when not everyone in the classroom is as smart as they are. Some kids are equally motivated no matter whether their classmates are bright and studious or partying slackers.</p>
<p>I am a Gladwell fan. I’ve read all his books including Goliath and I think he makes a very good point,. I went from competitive high school (I did fine, but never felt it until I inadvertently learned my class rank was up there) to top of the class in college (BU in the '80s, full tuition scholarship), and I think the latter did a lot for my self esteem.</p>
<p>Purple, I agree with that last point 100%. The reality that there are parents who are paying essentially the same price at Hofstra or Quinnipiac as someone else is paying for Stanford strikes me as bizarre. But it’s not my money. </p>
<p>Well, at those less-selective colleges, note that almost no one is full-pay. Hofstra says that 89% of students there get fin aid (excluding loans), for instance (though it’s pretty much all merit aid). If you look at their merit scholarship page, you’ll realize that virtually everyone gets a discount of some sort at Hofstra.</p>