That said, the posit is does it matter where you go to school–yes, it does. Again, if we just take this at face value, and you are attending an institution where attrition is less than 3% annually and has 90%+ graduation rate within four years, versus an institution where say only 60 percent graduate within 6 years, you have already clearly answered the question. The question is, at least I take it as such, all things being equal, do institutions matter–yes they certainly do…
Ah, but the question is, “Why is the graduation rate at the second school low?” Perhaps it’s because the school has a high proportion of non-traditional students, who generally graduate at much lower rates, or there’s another trait the students share that results in a lower graduation rate.
One problem with this subject is the perennial chicken and egg dilemma. Does the state school, due to its geography, attract the homebody personalities who are more likely to stay in their social bubbles because of who they already are, or does an environment which provides for a plentiful supply of people they know from high school simply lead them to seek the familiar? A kind of social inertia? I don’t know, but I do know that even if my D wanted to hang with kids from her high school while at college, it would have been impossible since she was the only one there.
Second, I am not implying anything about all state school kids, nor kids who attend the best state schools in the country, like UMich (which is one of the exemplary state schools which always get mentioned in these discussions. I am sick of hearing about the Cal state schools and UMich–not all state schools are like those!) I am just speaking about what we see locally with the kids we know. And like warbrain, we have also noticed that the kids who attend the local state schools tend to return each summer to their high school minimum wage jobs–economic inertia?–rather than seek higher level internships. It’s just too easy to do. How much of that was due to the student’s pre-college development and ambitions, and how much to the environment is hard to say. You can’t separate one from the other. But generally speaking, the elite school population is a more driven bunch, and that likely influences perceptions of what one should be doing summers…
What matters is how smart and driven you are. Harvard is not going to do anything to raise your god-given intellectual abilities. I can go train with a Major League Baseball team my whole life, but without the requisite athletic ability, I am never going to make the team. So, if you are smart enough to get into an “elite” school, but didn’t go to one, it only matters in some situations.
For us, the more prestigious the school, the less it is going to cost us.
"What matters is how smart and driven you are. Harvard is not going to do anything to raise your god-given intellectual abilities. " - but what if if this is NOT a person’s goal? Fot the one who wants a name of Harvard to be attached to his for the rest of his life, Harvard will be the only place to attend. The question if it matters where you go to college has connection only to a personal goal. If one has a goal to have a great experience at college and a successful career, in most cases it would not matter. But if one salivating over accetance to Yale, and nothing else will satisfy him, of course, it matters. This person will feel inadequate otherwise and this may persisit for the rest of his life. He will never understand how is the one who graduated #1 in his HS class and has the money to pay for any Elite college, never even apply there, was very happy at in-state public and had a very satisfying life after. Irritating or not, the differences are irrelevant. People have different goals. And while for some being happy is an ultimate goal, for others not so much…let them have what they are after even if they cannot afford it, nothing we can do, why bother?
Then great, but your not getting into Harvard if your a dim wit, and if you don’t get in but had a decent shot at getting in, your still not a dim wit. So it may matter personally that you did not go to Harvard, it will not matter in most cases that you went to a non ivy if you are still smart and driven. Take Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg… Both dropped out of Harvard, but because both were very smart to begin with, they were able to succeed without a Harvard degree. The cream always rises to the top you see.
But people are social animals and are greatly influenced by their peers’ behavior and attitudes. If all your friends start applying for professional internships in November, you will likely get the idea you should too (if you didn’t already have that idea, which surprisingly many kids don’t). On the contrary, if all your friends continue life as usual in the fall, and then fly to Florida for spring break rather than job hunt back home because they need the fun, then you along with them will likely be back at the ice cream shop or the pizza parlor for the summer. Naturally, one can break from the prevailing mold, but it’s harder to do and some kids don’t.
@TheGFG, some people are heavily influenced by their peers. OK, granted, many college-aged kids are heavily influenced by their peers.
But here’s the thing: If a kid can get in to an Ivy/equivalent, unless he/she didn’t have a smart application strategy, it’s rather doubtful that their only choices would be Ivy vs. local mediocre state school. If they are full-pay at an Ivy, chances are very good that they could go to CWRU/Rochester/NCF/Oberlin/Grinnell(/Kelley or another good program somewhere) for cheaper and they may have the opportunity to attend schools like Richmond/Emory/Miami for free.
I know that people on CC love to present false dichotomies, but this seems to be one that is presented so often that it’s almost a trope.
Really, there is some apples and oranges talk here. In general, the sort of kid who managed the hs years well and can get into a tippy top is not the sort who is at risk of lagging through the “local mediocre state school” (or whatever we are delicately trying to call those.) He or she is generally not the sort who sees college as an extension of the hs social scene and just wants to plan spring break.
I still stick to: what matters is the kid.
“Local mediocre state school” is often in the imagination of students who see greener grass elsewhere. For example, some New Jersey residents seem to think that their respectable state flagship is to be avoided at all costs. Recently, there was a thread where a student was asking if s/he should go to an expensive school versus a full ride to an unnamed state school which is ranked as approximately as highly as Michigan for his/her major.
“friend said the reason you go to an elite private school is you learn the mannerisms of the upper and upper middle class. You learn to fit in and this gives you opportunities…if that is what you want.”
This is an odd comment. As if there aren’t PLENTY of upper and upper middle class kids at every flagship state u.
I disagree, PurpleTitan. If you are a full-pay, upper middle class student who is admitted to an Ivy, it seems to me your choices can wind up being the expensive Ivy at around $60,000, the expensive top LAC with their best merit scholarship dropping the cost to $40,000, the mediocre private school for which the student is at the top of the pile for some $30,000, or the state flagship for $20,000, which is likely better than the mediocre private. Thus it seems to me kids often are left with this decision of paying a lot for the big name school, feeling like it will be worth the debt, or attending the most affordable option, since $40,000 per year is still a whole lot of dough and the mid-priced mediocre school option is less compelling than the flagship.
I think the biggest downside of a kid going to a “lesser” school is social integration, not that they won’t learn anything.
Which is why it’s important to assess how large a critical mass of “like” students any given school may have. Most state flagships have decent honors programs and many have LLCs (living learning communities) created with the intent of establishing smaller-college environments within a big thriving university.
Also, the student’s choice of major is an important factor. For example, engineering programs tend to attract a lot of top students. If you’re looking at a “softer” major (communications, for example) that has a history of being flooded with less academically talented students, look for schools with an outstanding program, as they’re more likely to attract other top students.
All of this requires some digging, and there are risks (what if you change your major?), but there are lots of gems out there waiting to be discovered if you’re willing to do the work. I recommend the Fiske Guides for helping to identify the unique strengths of all the big flagships (along with many, many other excellent schools) and this site as a helpful resource when assessing honors programs:
http://publicuniversityhonors.com/new-top-programs-by-category/
@theCFG again, the cream rises to the top…
Help me understand–what is social integration?
It’s frankly insulting to imply that students at elite schools can’t function around the ordinary Joe. That’s just not true at all. There are educational benefits to attending an elite school in some disciplines. An English major at Emory WILL have a much better academic experience (at least within the classroom) than one at the University of Oklahoma. The classes are harder, the students more engaged, and the professors calibrate their expectations accordingly. Additionally, high stats applicants tend to come in with a stronger base of knowledge than more average ones.
Is that worth an extreme price premium? Maybe, maybe not. But it’s absurd to suggest that a school full of those who are in the 1% by test scores and graduated in the top 10% of their class will be the same academic experience as one where the vast majority of students were average at best in high school.
@whenhen Well said. The comment is at best pompous, and at worse devalues the individual and collective experiences of every member of a student body. I have seen this from all levels of higher education from being a student, to a parent and college instructor. This perspective values everything from an urban community college to the residential college system of the Ivies, and everything else in between, as all have profound merit and notable contributions.
Folks act like they are coming from Windsor Castle and being placed in Attica…
We live in a society where many people would be horrified that an Olympic caliber athlete was training at the local playground with cracked cement and a volunteer coach who knew nothing about elite level sports. But when it’s academics, somehow every option is alike except for the prestige-$%^&'s who care about Brand Name in higher education.
Having said that, just paying a premium price does not guarantee a better intellectual experience. There are private college’s where the student body is unengaged, majoring in beer pong, and being full time fraternity/sorority/party animals vs. being students… and sometimes there is a nearby public U at much lower cost which has a heavily engaged student body with fantastic academic opportunities.
So it’s not as simple as the plebes vs. the aristocrats as some on CC like to make it. (I love the parents who post that their kid could have gotten into Harvard but wanted to be with “real people”).