I used to skate at the same ice arena as an Olympian pairs skater. It was a nondescript ice arena in the middle of a suburb of Detroit.
The local state school is not the local playground with cracked cement.
My local state school is a great option for a kid who wants to be a K-12 schoolteacher. It is a terrible option for a kid who wants to study Classics, Asian History, Mandarin, Econometrics or Nanotechnology (or any of the engineering disciplines for that matter) since it doesnât have any of those things.
Jump the border and you can find a much wider range of disciplines. But then youâre paying out of state rates, even though the college is commutable. Head off to the State flagship and you can find a much wider range of disciplines, and you are in-state, but you need to pay room and board.
Etc. My local community college? another good option for a kid who wants to be a pharmacist, any of the allied health fields, or a high school gym teacher.
I occasionally run into the parents of my childrenâs high school classmates. Many tell me how well their offspring is doing at college; I tend to assume theyâre truthful, but I suppose they may not be. They go on to say things like: S or D is on the deanâs list/getting straight Aâs/just got a student-athlete award for high GPA, etc. This always puzzles me a bit, since presumably college should be more difficult than high school, and these were kids who werenât ever on the high school honor roll and never got the high school student-athlete awards. In fact, the D of the gentlemen I spoke with yesterday was in high school remedial classes. For example, instead of say, regular Algebra I, she took the class called âElements of Algebra.â Yet, she has earned quite a high GPA at her university.
Sure, some kids are late bloomers, and some decide to finally put their nose to the grindstone in college. But itâs hard for me to believe that the educational demands at such universities even remotely compare to those of the elite schools, where NMFâs and high school vals and sals often do not earn nearly as high of a GPA as these students supposedly do, despite working extremely hard.
As for the thought that going to oneâs home state school made you stay close by - my parents went to school close to home in LA, then went to Arizona and eventually to New York. They couldnât get out of CA fast enough.
@TheGFGâ
Yes, we all know that kids at the lowly non-elite schools are easily superstars bc the courses are taught at a kindergarten level and the criteria for success is so low the bar can be toddled over. All bow to the elites.
(I need a puking icon.)
This is a hard conversation to have without offending someone.
We have to realize not much is cast in concete. I know many superior young-ish PhDs who were relegated to early jobs (sometimes, even longer term) in the same schools CC tends to put down. But for some stroke of luck, they could have been employed at a more âCC desirableâ college. There are other profs who may stay, long term, at some so-so college, for family, lifestyle, or even just the stability. They donât just teach and grade, they research and stay active with peers in their fields. The bright, willing kids could certainly get their attention and mentoring, no matter who sits in the other rows.
Itâs one reason it helps to know whoâs doing what, at various colleges- and how accessible they are- not just go on rep.
@TheGFGâ, that depends a lot on the school and the major.
Not all GPAâs are the same, and many people know that.
I donât think there is a single person here who believes the two options are âalikeâ. I think what people are trying to get at is that the differences are exaggerated. Speaking purely from personal experience, I saw no significant differences in rigor between my non-elite undergrad school and elite grad school in terms of curriculum/coursework. The student culture was different between the two schools, but the actual academics were surprisingly similar in terms of quality, difficulty, and depth. Perhaps thatâs why my undergrad school had a 60% 6-year graduation rate!
Once again, you are making a very broad (and unsubstantiated) assumption based on differences in incoming student body SAT scores and GPAs. If your assumption was true - that non-elite schools have a less rigorous academic environment, tailored to student body stats - then graduation rates would be much higher, similar to what you would find at elite schools. Thatâs obviously not the case thoughâŠ
If there are any differences, they are likely small, and those differences become even smaller when you compare honors colleges to elite schools.
To sum up, the school you go to wonât matter for most fields but the education you receive very well may. However, ABET engineering schools and most science and quantitative departments at publics at the state flagship level and decent-or-better privates will likely have at least a certain level of rigor (though certain programs, like many at CalTech & MIT, Northwesternâs ISP program, and ECE at UIUC, among others, have a level of difficulty that surpasses the typical program in those fields).
Purple- but what of the kid who wants to study a discipline which is not taught at the local state directional? Do we tell him to become a fourth grade language arts teacher instead of an Art Historian or an engineer? Or is it elitist to tell a kid who wants to study engineering that for optimal results he/she should- yâknow- go to a college with an actual engineering department, and not just a few courses in the sciences which exist for distribution requirements? Do you tell a kid that she can get a job with a civil engineering firm designing bridges or airports from her local state directional when it doesnât teach civil engineering?
You guys must all live in places where the former state teachers colleges (now often known as directionals) have been completely transformed into the Berkeleyâs and UCSDâs of your state. In parts of the country, the former state teacher colleges have been transformed into BETTER state teachers colleges, with wider distribution requirements and a few foreign language departments to help train the bi-lingual educators of the future.
Lucky you.
@Blossom
I have lived in states where the directional university has a medical school. I have lived in states where the non-flagship has a better engineering program.
FWIW, TheGFG did not qualify his statement. He made the blanket statement "But itâs hard for me to believe that the educational demands at such universities even remotely compare to those of the elite schools, where NMFâs and high school vals and sals often do not earn nearly as high of a GPA as these students supposedly do, despite working extremely hard." It is comments like those that are absurd. Yes, there are poor quality schools out there. But there are a lot of great schools between the âelitesâ and bottom of the barrel. There are plenty of non-elite schools where top kids are working extremely hard for non-easy As.
Hunter, Baruch-- significantly better in many departments than a lot of the private colleges in the NY Metro area.
But a kid who lives in non-commuting territory?
Stoneybrook- a public U- significantly better (and almost at the elite status in some departments) than many of the privates in the region. NYâs public Uâs not usually described in the same breath as Michigan or Virginia- but there it is.
Iâm not bashing public Uâs. But we live in a big country and itâs easy to assume that what you are familiar with is going to be an option for every kid everywhere.
@blossom community colleges do not educate pharmacists. Maybe the basics, but that is a competitive course of study with an advanced degree. And a gym teacher still has a teaching degree and you can not get one from community college.
âTo sum up, the school you go to wonât matter for most fields but the education you receive very well mayâ
-What is called " the education ". I understand âDiplomaâ - it is a physical document that could be held. I have no idea what is meant by âeducationâ. If person is interested in something, it is not that hard to get educated in this area of interest, all on your own without a college and many (most?) will have to do it AFTER graduating from college at respective jobs and Graduate schools. Every Medical student will tell you that no college prepares you for Med. School. It provides some sort of general knowledge about certain area and all colleges provide basically the same level for this specific purpose - to be able to attend a Med. School. If you talk to anybody in engineering and CS, they will tell you that not only you will have to educate yourself at your first job, but you will have to do it all over at any new place of employment. Again, college privides just a basic knowledge to be able to perform, and frankly, since I am in CS, I can tell that my training at CC was essential, while the rest of my degrees were pretty much for the sake of having a paper. And again, I met few in CS field who never attended any college at all. I happen to work for 9 absolutely different employers in different industries, involving different software, languages and I had to educate myself at every single one of them.
So, what is an âeducationâ? How is it different from one college to another? I understand, that different kids will have totally different experiences while attending the same college and these difference in experiences may have a significant affect in their future. But this leads to a conclusion again and again that what one âgetsâ from the college (is this an education?) depends on the kid and not the place.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek @TheGFG I would agree that remedial classes at Big State U are not comparable to main core classes at âeliteâ schools, or even core classes at that Big State U. REMEDIAL classes versus REGULAR classes? That isnât comparing apples and apples. For crying out loud. NMFs and vals likely donât take REMEDIAL classes.
@blossom, do you see anyone telling any kid who wants to study engineering to go to a school that doesnât offer engineering?
I donât. In fact, in my post, I specifically said ABET engineering schools would offer a certain minimum level of rigor. I think itâs easy to make the deduction that a school that doesnât offer engineering wouldnât be an ABET engineering school.
"For crying out loud. NMFs and vals likely donât take REMEDIAL classes. "
-Not true, it depends on the class, but it is a topic for anohter discussion âŠabout failure of American k - 12, it is openning of another can of worms. You may not see some kids in Remedial classes, but lots of ârememdialâ activities is going on, including private tutors. And many very smart kids are smart becuase they realize shortcomings of their preparation and take care of it as soon as possible. Many valedictorians who are not smart at that level, get derailed easily from their original goals, D. met good number of them in her very first freshman Bio class, the one that (thank goodness!!) she did not skip despite of having 5 on the AP Bio exam.
But if your dau was possibly a product of public K-9, maybe it wasnât as awful as you are suggesting.
@MiamiDAPâ, what is âeducationâ? Itâs the process that you undergo to become educated.
And the simple fact of the matter is that certain kids become better or less educated depending on the environment, methodology, etc. Yes, someone can certainly (in theory) educate themselves. In practice, that works better for some individuals and worse for others.
I know this is an extremely overused cliche, but you get what you put into it. Could a student succeed at Harvard? Well, of course. Could they do just as well at any state flagship or even a community college? If they set their mind to it.
Motivated people will always find success. Pick the school thatâs right for you based on location and finances, not on prestige. At the end of the day, youâll still get a degree⊠you might as well like the school you go to.