I don’t think engineering students coast in any ABET-accredited colleges. I think people are forgetting that OP’s son will be studying engineering, not a social science or business. MSU will be challenging and will offer him many opportunities (it already has). I admit, I too would be mourning the loss of NU (and Stanford, if it should happen). But really, this kid made a solid choice that I doubt he will ever regret given the fact that he knows this college well through his many layers of family connections.
Regarding applying to schools all over the country, big and small, public and private, I’m not sure I can name one single kid around here that didn’t do exactly the same. Hedging their bets, feeling out the finances, needing to build in time for visits (or second visits, etc.) and not knowing for sure how they will feel at decision time in the spring compels this sort of application process these days. If the kid is willing to write all those applications, then all the more power to him.
I’ve seen a lot of kids start senior year talking a big game about how far away they want to move while ultimately concluding they’d be more comfortable a few hours away. That can be a very mature, self-aware decision. It sounds like your son is primed to succeed at MSU, and I wish him the best for the fall.
AGAIN, we are talking about ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL. Not about situations in which finances play a considerable role. Obviously you can’t spend money you don’t have, and no one is saying that it’s worth sending the kid to Northwestern over MSU and have the rest of the family live under a bridge.
You made your point a couple of days ago. Many folks simply disagree, and you’ve crossed the line from advancing the discussion to browbeating the OP. That’s all I’m going to say here.
Well, I can see where Pizzagirl is coming from. If you or your kids have attended a top school, you do understand the value of it and you honestly want to make sure other people understand this. It can be very important. Pizzagirl truly believes this, and I commend her for her persistence in making her point.
I just think that the “conventional wisdom” of attending the best (or near best) school you can get into just does not apply in the same way to engineering students. Just a very different type of education and sometimes the big publics can do engineering just as well (and in some cases better) than many of the privates – even the elite ones.
Hey, I’m not disappointed in the OP’s son! No one has to justify their decisions for and with their own kids to me!
Is your son interested in packaging, by any chance? In a former life, I worked with a lot of packaging people and I seem to recall that MSU was known for a good packaging program.
I’m sure that top students at MSU (say with SATs above 2000 or 2100) would totally and wholeheartedly agree that they can “coast” through their engineering and science classes. I mean, they probably hold raffles for grades. Or maybe they just give everybody who shows up an A. Of course “motivated, goal-oriented students” (and we all know that other kids that go there just because are not motivated and goal-oriented if the best place they could get into was MSU) can do well. But so could gasp students who gasp couldn’t get into NU. Or Amherst.
Alert to those who post looking for easy engineering schools to get into - if you can get into Moo U, you can COAST!!!
@pizzagirl. My D did the opposite. When she started her common app last Sept she was pretty sure she wanted to stay fairly close to home. But as she continued to visit schools through the fall and winter her thinking changed, particularly when she realized that a school 8 hours away actually seemed to be the best fit. My alma mater, which for a while was her first choice and is 90 minutes away, ultimately dropped to number two. So over the course of 6 months she, like many applicants, changed her mind.
I’m both happy and sad. Somewhat sad that she won’t be a third generation legacy at a great school that has meant a lot to our family. But very happy that she has found a great place to make her own.
I do wonder, hanna, how much pressure you put on kids to go for the more elite school , despite it possibly not being the best fit. Especially if parents are paying you? Maybe you’re not a paid consultant so I apologize if that is not the case.
Greeninohio, you yourself said you were a little bit disappointed! There can be conflicting emotions. You can feel good about MSU but also have a little sadness he didn’t go elsewhere. Things aren’t black and white.
Things are not black and white but if a family goes into the process automatically thinking an elite school push is a given, that can be interesting. Some kids just don’t buy into it.
But this kid did a lot of work to get into those elite schools, got the funding and turned them down. Ohio, am glad you have appear to have come to accept his decision. Perhaps he saw something in the attitude of the students at the elite schools that he was less comfortable with than at MSU. My guess is you posted here to get some support and got more opinions than you bargained for. Certainly, he will get a great engineering education at MSU.
I never said I was disappointed. I said it was not my pick, but I see how that doesn’t exactly fit the topic. I was not bragging. My point was that even when you have schools in the same bandwidth a parent may still have to deal with a choice that they think was not the best. Thus it was important to list the schools. Honestly every one should stop being so sensitive. I have no less right to talk specifically about my family’s choices just because they included Stanford , etc.
@PurpleTitan also I did not say Stanford was “a big mistake” or that it didn’t rank with Harvard. Read my post, I said that I could NOT say that. I think it is interesting that I am being accused of bragging when both you and Pizza girl are the ones that went to rankings when I was talking about picking a school that was NOT the top rank. I intentionally said that my pick was not Harvard just to make the point AGAIN that prestige was NOT the basis of my pick.
Also, a lot of qualified kids here on CC applied to Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc. only to be shut out of all of them entirely. Perhaps that’s why the “problem” of which one to choose from, or picking the wrong one, rubs some people the wrong way.
@sevmom “I do wonder, hanna, how much pressure you put on kids to go for the more elite school , despite it possibly not being the best fit.”
What she said: @hanna “Maybe this kid made exactly the right choice. Maybe he had terrific reasons. But we don’t know that, and in his parents’ place, I’d be worried, and I’d investigate.”…“We all know that a motivated, goal-oriented student can get a lot out of an MSU. But a kid who wants to phone it in can do that WAY more easily at MSU.”
I am not sure why so many posters seem to find what Hanna said to be controversial. It is reasonable to investigate and understand why a student wants to choose one school over another. MSU is undoubtedly a better choice for certain students, but why not have a discussion about it. I don’t think you want to just push them toward the higher ranked or more prestigious school, but I would want to understand what they see as the pros and cons of each school, and help them make a thoughtful and well considered decision.
DD1 did not choose the top ranked college that she was admitted to, but she had a good rationale for her decision and we were fine with it. Now we are starting the search for DD2 and we will have the same types of discussions about what matters to her, which schools fit her key criteria the best, and continue that discussion as we visit and research schools and she narrows down her list thoughtfully. To me that is just good decision making. Apparently, that is not the approach most people take?
What about the top student who just feels the excitement on a big college campus, who doesn’t want to go to a school with 1000 students, who wants big sports (and teams that win) and full theater productions and the biggest telescope in the free world? I’m not one who believes the perfect class size is 15 if the discussion is more lively with 30.
I’d think less of the student who would really prefer a big state U or small specialty school but picks #14 or #22 just because it is ranked higher. Let the student pick the school he likes best.