EFC and the realities of living

Parents Forum
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<p>@sylvan8798:</p>

<p>I don’t want to be biased towards 3-2’s. For the right kid/family, they are great programs. However, are you trying to assert that the basic science and other pre-engineering classes at all LACs are equally rigorous? I think the kid/family should certainly ascertain that before committing.</p>

<p>BTW, while in theory, Columbia and WashU could drop schools that do not prepare their students well for their engineering programs (or stopped doing so decades after they were added as a partner), in practice, does that ever happen?</p>

<p>Also, you and I know (well, I hope you do) that Columbia and WashU (and other research university engineering schools) care more about maintaining their research (and maybe giving kids an opportunity to succeed) than they do about whether they are admitting kids who are prepared or not. After all, these kids aren’t reflected in any rankings criteria.</p>

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I would not assert anything about “all LACs” or about “all research university engineering schools” or about all anythings for that matter. I don’t think one can generalize that broadly. I do know there are a lot of misconceptions about what actually goes on in the hallowed classrooms of academia.</p>

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<p>I don’t know where the idea came from that our kids, if high achieving, have to go to a top school . . . but it certainly came from <em>somewhere</em> because every parent seems to have it! </p>

<p>I know why I had it – because both my husband and I went to top 10 schools, and our kids are doing better in high school than we did, so naturally we assumed that their college years would look like ours did. I don’t know if there are parents who went to state schools themselves who are now turning up their noses at state schools for their kids, and if there are, I don’t know their reasoning. But I did realize while my oldest was still in middle school that she was not going to be able to just waltz into Stanford the way I think she could have done 30 years ago. </p>

<p>Same with the skyrocketing tuition. Parents may read headlines about high college costs and ballooning student loan debt, but the hard facts don’t really sink in until they run the numbers and have @janniegirl’s experience. Why is this? I think it’s because nobody outside of CC emphasizes it. Maybe because it’s still considered gauche in our society to talk about money? Teachers, mentors and authority figures tell our kids to aim for the stars because they don’t want them to think they have no chance at success. Nobody says “aim for the stars, but only if you can afford your own spaceship!” </p>

<p>Anyway @janniegirl, I’ll tell you what I keep telling myself – that if my daughters are shut out of top schools, that means most other kids with her stats are also getting shut out, and they’ll all be attending those less than top schools as well. So they’ll be with their academic peers. And if reputation is what you care about, it won’t be long before these “less than” schools acquire pretty amazing reputations, since they’ll be graduating all these stellar students! We just have to adjust our expectations to match current conditions rather than our own outdated prejudices.</p>

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<p>This has been an interesting thread. One factor that might come in to play in choosing an in-state vs. out-of-state school is cost.</p>

<p>Ohio State: $22,000 (in-state)
Purdue: $38,834 (out-of-state)</p>

<p>Now, admittedly, Purdue is ranked slightly higher than Ohio State in the Times Higher education poll:
<a href=“Subject Ranking 2013-14: Engineering & Technology | Times Higher Education (THE)”>http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2013-14/subject-ranking/subject/engineering-and-IT&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Purdue is 50th, Ohio State is 53rd. This is out of the top 100 schools in the world. Their scores are nearly identical.</p>

<p>But take a look at the methodology. Teaching only accounts for 30% of the rankings. If I was a student, that’s the bit that would concern me. Research income is great, but in some instance running world class labs doesn’t involve too many undergraduates.</p>

<p>My point is, the rankings are a bit of a nonsense for undergraduates.</p>

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<p>dustypig, good post. And you are correct–already many, many colleges have top students who are there for a variety of reasons. The state schools…the little LACs…and not just the highest-ranked ones. Another thing I always look at is the quality of the faculty and where they got their degrees. Even if they got their PhDs from top schools, most of them can’t find teaching positions there–there just aren’t enough of them. So our kids at “lesser” schools often still have faculty who were trained at the places people drool over here.</p>

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<p>“Ohio State: $22,000 (in-state)
Purdue: $38,834 (out-of-state)”</p>

<p>For Engineering at Purdue it’s closer to $41k as there is a surcharge.</p>

<p>“Purdue is 50th, Ohio State is 53rd. This is out of the top 100 schools in the world. Their scores are nearly identical.”</p>

<p>This statement is only for a sense of scale. According to US News the top majors for Purdue graduates has engineering at the top with 20%. OSU is not showing engineering in the top 5 (which number 5 has about 3% of the students studying that subject). My point is only that engineering is VERY important at Purdue, while at Ohio State it’s just another major. I’m sure it’s a very good engineering school though. Some of this is because Indiana has two flagships, Indiana University and Purdue. IU has no engineering degree.</p>

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<p>We are lucky to live in a state with pretty inexpensive public schools.</p>

<p>Our EFC was around $40,000. Our instate flagships, both have very good engineering programs along with many other strong programs, ended up being about $15,000 per year total. We never had any intention of paying anywhere close to our EFC.</p>

<p>It was a no brainier for us. We didn’t waste much time looking at private schools as even after merit, they were going to be substantially more expensive than our instate option. We just really didn’t feel that most were worth it anyway. None of us lost any sleep over having to ‘settle’ for an instate school. </p>

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<p>@sally305: Agreed. The academic talent in higher ed in this country extends <em>very</em> deep (due to the limit number of slots at the top). It’s something that some foreigners (and even many Americans) don’t appreciate. There was a CC post from a guy who was worried about the difference in the quality of education between a school that is #5 and #15 or something in engineering. In his country, that’s probably a huge difference. In the US, there would be essentially none.</p>

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<p>I’m sure Ohio State is a perfectly reputable place to get an engineering or other degree. At $22,000 per year, if the daughter takes loans and works summers/breaks, the parents’ share of cost would be under the half of EFC that they are able to afford. Though that doesn’t account for what will happen when the younger sibs enroll if there is overlap. Perhaps daughter can take RA position then? Her 27 ACT is at 25th %ile for enrolled students at OSU and also 25th%ile in their engineering school, surprisingly. I always expect science/math to have higher scores. While that is low, she has excellent GPA and will get a gender boost, so has a decent chance to get admitted. This may be an acceptable compromise between the unattainable top schools and the best financial options like CC for 2 years, or local college and live at home, or much lower-ranked school with scholarship. Depending on how the parents’ attitudes about this evolve.</p>

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<p>“if my daughters are shut out of top schools, that means most other kids with her stats are also getting shut out, and they’ll all be attending those less than top schools as well. So they’ll be with their academic peers.”</p>

<p>That’s exactly right. The way I put this to parents is that the number of aspirational schools has gone up. Many more schools are now building highly qualified, nationally diverse classes than in our day.</p>

<p>Agree that OSU sounds like a strong choice for the OP.</p>

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<p>@sylvan8798</p>

<p><a href=“https://engineering.wustl.edu/contentfiles/dualdegree/Sample%20EE%20Curriculum.pdf”>https://engineering.wustl.edu/contentfiles/dualdegree/Sample%20EE%20Curriculum.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://bulletin.engineering.columbia.edu/files/seasbulletin/2013-2014_ELEN_Chart_3-4_Late.jpg”>http://bulletin.engineering.columbia.edu/files/seasbulletin/2013-2014_ELEN_Chart_3-4_Late.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I don’t know, Maybe it makes sense to condense the curriculum; that depends on how useful you think specialized upper-division courses are. My argument is that 1) taking core engineering science courses late in the game reduces choices for electives with lengthy prereq sequences, and 2) the 3-2 curriculum requires a quick adjustment at the second school thanks to the immediate heavy engineering courseload. If your program offered more engineering courses at the first school, that’s great. The literature from these 3-2 partners doesn’t indicate that your experience is the norm.</p>

<p>Maybe we should increase fast-track math/science opportunities in high school and make engineering a two-year degree.</p>

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<p>ugh. please no. It’s bad enough the engineering students barely have the time take any electives or non-engineering courses during their four-year degree. Squeezing it down to a two-year degree would be soul-sucking.</p>

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<p>Yes a kid can be “special in a global way” and go to school locally and I love your flip, calmom, that many very bright and talented kids do go to school locally - I didn’t mean to sound like I was “dissing” local options at all. My point was that based on this parent’s opening post the student in question is a regular nice, bright, high achieving kid with a number of activities that she spends a lot of time on and does very well at; but, the dad might not have fully examined the current reality RE the competition level for admissions. I don’t want to sound too “CC” in suggesting that there’s something wrong with a 3.98 with a few APs and a 27 because there isn’t. However, I think a lot of stress and future heartbreak could be avoided by becoming more clear eyed about current freshman admissions profiles. </p>

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<p><<<
However, visits to a state public (OSU) and a private (UD) are planned in September. Visits were made to Purdue and U of Illinois already. Purdue is definitely top of her list right now. But, we do understand the reality of the situation. One thing that bothers me about OSU is it is so elite anymore. Many good kids in the state do not get into main campus. OSU seems to think if it attracts smart kids, they’ll be richer and able to pay higher tuition. (IMO)
<<<</p>

<p>??</p>

<p>Why did you take her to Purdue or UIUC if you can’t pay for them??? Those are OOS publics who will expect you to pay the full costs. Her current ACT doesn’t come close to any merit at Purdue, and even if she were to get “some” merit for a higher score, the bulk of the cost would be yours?</p>

<p>I hope you can convince her to nudge Purdue off the top of her list. Unless you are prepared to pay $40k per year, the school won’t be possible. </p>

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<p>Because a significant number of the Colleges of Engineering that your family is interested in will think that a student with an ACT 27 will not succeed in engineering unless the math score is high, and maybe the English score is low because the student is ESL. </p>

<p>What was your D’s ACT math score?</p>

<p>Unfortunately, most test-optional schools will NOT award merit w/o looking at scores…and most will not award much/any for an ACT 27.</p>

<p>You have to understand who gets merit…</p>

<p>There is a huge pool of kids with high GPAs these days (because of grade inflation & easier schedules)…so test scores help separate the men from the boys. </p>

<p>There is a smaller pool of kids with high test scores.</p>

<p>There is an even smaller pool of kids that have BOTH high test scores AND high GPAs…those are typically the recipients of good-sized merit awards.</p>

<p>If you want/need your D to get enough merit to get costs down to YOUR budgeted goal, then she needs to look at much lower ranked schools that have ABET accredited eng’g programs. Even UAH, which gives generous merit, won’t give much for a 27. Maybe look at Miss State.</p>

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<p>I forgot to comment on the test-optional thing earlier. I hope you aren’t assuming that “test-optional” means “crappy.” A lot of very good schools are going test-optional these days.</p>

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<p>Take a closer look at U of Cincinnati. Their co–op program is highly regarded and has an impressive list of companies that offer co-ops and employment after graduation. Per the Engineering open house students earn as much as 40k for work done over the 5 years of the program with 4 required co-op semesters. Tuition is only paid for 4 years. </p>

<p>Also if your D changes her major, co-ops are available in many other programs as well. </p>

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<p>^^^
That is a great suggestion.</p>

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<p>@Janniegirl‌: It’s not a shame, but did you look at the numbers? While it is true that a 27 puts a kid in the 87th percentile, which is great, nearly 1.7 million ACTs are administered every year. And that doesn’t count kids who take only the SAT (quite common on the coasts). Guesstimating about that and the number of scores in that mix that are multiple testers, it’s probably a fair assumption that there are at least 200,000 high school seniors in the US with better scores than your daughter. I haven’t done the math, but I’d guess that is either close to or more than the aggregate number of seats in the incoming freshman class in the entire US News top 50. (The top 20 seem to have average entering classes of 2,000 or so each so the crunch is even more pronounced there.)</p>

<p>Ninety percent of what you’re experiencing here isn’t a value judgment about your kid. It’s a numbers game. And you may be better off in Ohio. Up north, a 27 probably doesn’t even get a look at Michigan. </p>

<p>ETA: Cincinnati has a great coop engineering program, and I know plenty of folks who loved it, but it’s football season, and I am precluded from saying anything nice about the place. </p>

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<p>@lvvcsf: That’s not how I read the trend. Ohio’s college age population is declining. OSU, Ohio U, and Miami have responded by recruiting hard out of state to maintain quality enrollment. (Miami’s freshman class is now 58% OOS.). Other state schools with less brand equity outside state lines have struggled to fill seats. Many of the Ohio LACs are in a similar boat, needing to recruit further afield than they used to. </p>

<p>Or to quote my fellow Ohio expat, Chrissie Hynde . . .</p>

<p>[Pretenders</a> – “My City Was Gone”](<a href=“http://youtu.be/Muaj78324Rw]Pretenders”>http://youtu.be/Muaj78324Rw)</p>

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<p>@SomeOldGuy‌ I agree on what was said; for the class of 2013 the most recent numbers available per ACT they administered 1.73 million exams; 65,907 test received a score of 27.</p>

<p>The only thing that isn’t clear on the report states these include “reportable to college” tests so the numbers may include multiple submissions from one test taker.</p>

<p><a href=“http://bridgemi.com/2014/08/um-soars-msu-doesnt-on-freshmen-test-scores/”>http://bridgemi.com/2014/08/um-soars-msu-doesnt-on-freshmen-test-scores/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Article notes the competition now for seats at Big 10 schools.</p>