For those looking at elite schools: why do public universities have such a bad rep?

<p>Hmm, I never heard it myself, jym626. I think it can only be true when they lumped together valedictorians + 2400 scorers + 36 scorers.</p>

<p>I raised the issue of single-sitting scores, because CB only provides readily accessible numbers of 2400 scores attained in a single sitting. However, I serious doubt that there are more than 3 to 4 times that number, when you count superscoring. Many of the students who have a likelihood of scoring 2400 with superscoring, but didn’t obtain it in a single sitting will probably take their one-time 2350+ scores and just walk away. The ACT figure appears to be a “hard” number. Most places don’t superscore the ACT.</p>

<p>Some school are superscoring the ACT, from my understanding. Cant recall who off the top of my head, but I have seen it.</p>

<p>I put the Val/2400/36 that way just to save time typing. I meant those as “ors” not “ands”.</p>

<p>" When it comes to college, it’s the brand and the contacts that help you maneuver in the real world. "
-at D’s HS, they were looking at UG as a middle step. Everybody was talking about Grad. School. Network might help in some fields. In many others, network is irrelevant. I found most of my jobs from the local newspaper. Did not need any network, did not even need newspaper after sometime, it was easier to look on-line. And my first job in my field I have found after graduating from CC in the worst economic time also, and yes, it came from me answering the local newspaper ad, and yes, I did not know anybody else in my class who found a job…maybe because they did not look in a local newspaper and rely heavily on their network?</p>

<p>In this day and age, finding a job through the newspaper is a rarity.</p>

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<p>He also probably had an EFC of $0. But I have the impression that in those days being admitted with a full scholarship required a combination of need and merit.</p>

<p>apprenticeprof,</p>

<p>While a student may be able to pick and choose from among his/her teachers to find a positive recommender, s/he still must provide a counselor rec. There is no getting around that one, to my knowledge, except in special circumstances.</p>

<p>I do think there is some self-selection that goes on with the rec requirement. Students who know they are not held in high regard by the faculty and staff may avoid applying to any colleges that require recs.</p>

<p>Despite my opinion about how recs are used, I am actually not a fan of them. I think putting a student’s college career partially in the hands of an administrator who may not possess sound moral character or positive personal qualities herself, is not right. I also think it is only a matter of time before someone brings a case of libel against a high school counselor for a negative rec, and such personalized recs go by the wayside. Much like employer recs have been reduced to confirmations of work dates and salary ranges.</p>

<p>“Anyone knows when the schools abandoned non-need based scholarships?”</p>

<p>here: [A</a> brief history of overlap and the antitrust suit - MIT News Office](<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1992/history-0903.html]A”>A brief history of overlap and the antitrust suit | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology)</p>

<p>“The civil suit involved an agreement that MIT and the eight Ivy League colleges entered into in the 1950s. The colleges agreed to admit students solely on the basis of merit and distribute their scholarship money solely on the basis of need.”</p>

<p>“I also think it is only a matter of time before someone brings a case of libel against a high school counselor for a negative rec, and such personalized recs go by the wayside.”</p>

<p>I think they are very very careful about how they write a negative recommendation.

  1. They probably stick with verifiable facts: Johnny was suspended for 2 days last year.
  2. They probably damn with faint praise: We can verify that Johnny is a student.</p>

<p>Those type of recs in comparison to “Johnny is one of the top students we have had in the last four years” will provide enough of a picture for an adcom.</p>

<p>*
Being #1 is a small private school with a graduating class of 30 may be seen differently than being #1 in a large, competitive school with a graduating class of 600.
*</p>

<p>Or the first example could be seen as taking the top 30 students from the latter school, when the colleges are familiar with the selectivity & rigor of the private school.</p>

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<p>Clearly you have little experience with large urban high schools. Our school of 2400 students has 8 guidance counselors and each student is assigned to one. My son BARELY knew his and she did virtually nothing to help “guide” him in his college search process. In other words, he was held in NO regard–neither positive nor negative. The same will likely be the case with my daughter, as she has only sought help from the GC to switch a couple of her classes. The GC in no way could speak to the character of either of my kids. But because GC recs are mandatory at a lot of schools, each student is asked to submit a “resume” of their activities so the GC has something to go on.</p>

<p>Also, you seem to think that requiring recommendations is a differentiator of “top” schools from all the others. In fact, all schools on the Common App (not just “top” ones) accept online recommendations from teachers and GCs. And as I pointed out before, most state schools nowadays either require or strongly encourage submission of recommendations. You seem to ascribe a remarkable self-awareness to a group of imagined Morally Bereft Students No Teacher Likes and Who are Unworthy of Top Institutions. I don’t get it.</p>

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<p>Well, presumably, he needed enough merit to be admitted without coming from a favored prep school.</p>

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<p>Not according to the University of Illinois’ most recent common data set, which shows 10.1% of classes with 100+ students, 9.9% in the 50-99 range, 11.8% with less than 10, and 30.2% with 10-19 students. So that’s 20% with 50+ students, pretty similar to Cornell, and 42% with fewer than 20 students. The remaining 38% of classes range from 20 to 49 students, but are heavily skewed toward the lower end of that range (22% of all classes have 20-29 students). </p>

<p>In my experience (having studied and taught at both top privates and top publics), this is the biggest class size difference between public and private research universities: many classes that at a big public research university might have 20-29 students will have 10-19 students at the private research university, but both will typically have large numbers of very large classes. To my mind, there’s not all that big a difference between a class with 15 students and a class with 25, but the US News methodology exaggerates the importance of that difference. I’ll say it again: if you want to avoid big classes, look at LACs, not private research universities.</p>

<p>It’s certainly possible that in some majors at Illinois all the classes are large, and it seems likely the student tour guide was speaking from personal experience in such a program, but that presents a wildly inaccurate description of the university as a whole. These numbers are easily checked on the common data set. IMO, it’s kind of foolish to rely on the estimate of a student tour guide rather than investigating the data.</p>

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<p>Wouldn’t schools that superscore one superscore the other? The CSUs superscore both the SAT and ACT.</p>

<p>Almost all the top students graduating last year in our county went to state schools.</p>

<p>sally,</p>

<p>So you are saying that because your kids are held in <em>no</em> regard by their counselors, then no high school students exist who have been identified by their counselors as being of poor character or who lack positive personal qualities? Help me understand the logic in that analysis.</p>

<p>It would be nice to come up with a list of colleges that do not require recommendations. None of the CA public colleges require them or accept them optionally, including UCB and UCLA. UTexas does not require them. UWashington does not accept them. Those are great schools. I haven’t taken the time to look further.</p>

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<p>Same in my county and at my daughter’s highly competitive highschool (ranked in top fifty by US NEWS among 22,000 schools).</p>

<p>People are becoming wise to the scam by the expensive - elite schools and want nothing of it. Why pay 45 -50K in tuition to attend Ivy Dog where you will be taught by grad students and adjuncts, rather than 5K in tuition to be taught by real professors who care more about teaching than having their name put on a research paper that nobody will bother reading? Very bright kids attend my daughter’s non-elite, public school, 15K of them, especially in its honors program. Average SAT exceeds 1200 (Math and CR). People are friendly and not cut-throat and are not prestige seeking people. Why choose another school that would cost over 200K in four years (We would get neither merit based nor need based aid). Doesn’t make sense.</p>

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<p>Better would be the school’s on-line schedule, if available, and it shows class sizes. That will also let you know the class sizes of the courses in the student’s prospective majors, which may be more relevant than the general average.</p>

<p>UIUC’s schedule does not show class sizes (maybe if one knows the size of the rooms listed, that can help), but you can get an idea from all of the quiz sections that CHEM 102 (general chemistry, a typical pre-med course) is a big class:
<a href=“https://my.illinois.edu/uPortal/render.userLayoutRootNode.target.u41998l1n6.uP?pltc_target=210253.u41998l1n6&pltc_type=RENDER&pltp_course=CHEM&pltp_term=fall&pltp_classNumber=102&pltp_sessionId=default&pltp_action=classView&pltp_year=2013#u41998l1n6[/url]”>https://my.illinois.edu/uPortal/render.userLayoutRootNode.target.u41998l1n6.uP?pltc_target=210253.u41998l1n6&pltc_type=RENDER&pltp_course=CHEM&pltp_term=fall&pltp_classNumber=102&pltp_sessionId=default&pltp_action=classView&pltp_year=2013#u41998l1n6&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Meanwhile MATH 444 (real analysis, a typical math major upper division course) is taught in several lecture / discussion sections:
<a href=“https://my.illinois.edu/uPortal/render.userLayoutRootNode.target.u41998l1n6.uP?pltc_target=210253.u41998l1n6&pltc_type=RENDER&pltp_course=MATH&pltp_term=fall&pltp_classNumber=444&pltp_sessionId=default&pltp_action=classView&pltp_year=2013#u41998l1n6[/url]”>https://my.illinois.edu/uPortal/render.userLayoutRootNode.target.u41998l1n6.uP?pltc_target=210253.u41998l1n6&pltc_type=RENDER&pltp_course=MATH&pltp_term=fall&pltp_classNumber=444&pltp_sessionId=default&pltp_action=classView&pltp_year=2013#u41998l1n6&lt;/a&gt;
where the rooms appear to not to be giant lecture halls:
[Altgeld</a> Hall - Second Floor Plan](<a href=“http://www.math.uiuc.edu/Maps/0026PLAN2.html]Altgeld”>http://www.math.uiuc.edu/Maps/0026PLAN2.html)</p>

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<p>No, many schools superscore the SAT but don’t superscore the ACT; few, if any, do the opposite. There’s a technical reason for it: an applicant can have scores from all or any select number of SAT sittings submitted for the price of a single score report. With the ACT, in contrast, the applicant must pay a separate fee for the score report from each sitting. That can get pretty pricey. Suppose an applicant is applying to 10 schools, and her best superscored ACT comes from parts of three ACT sittings. That’s 30 score reports she needs to pay for to get her best superscore to all 10 schools. Meanwhile, the applicant with a best superscored SAT from three SAT sittings only needs to pay for 10 score reports to get her best superscore reported to 10 colleges. </p>

<p>For example, Columbia says:</p>

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<p>Some prominent schools, including Stanford and Chicago, superscore both, but I beleive it’s still more common for schools either to superscore the SAT but not the ACT, or to superscore neither.</p>

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<p>Almost! While I am not sure what Chicago does nowadays, this is what Stanford does, including defeating Score Choice for all intents and purposes. All scores have to be submitted!</p>

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<p>Regardless of the stated policies, one has to be an higher-up insider to actually KNOW for certain how scores are evaluated, and most importantly reported. There is NOTHING that precludes a school to use one set of test scores, and report the scores after making plenty of exceptions for certain group of students. The same thing happens to the reports of rankings of HS class – which explains how the ever creative (and secretive) Columbia reports 98 percent of students in its freshman class. Whatever that class actually is, considering the multiple admission paths and colleges.</p>

<p>A reasonable appraisal of the reports of test scores and ranks is that, as the famous Lee Stetson admitted, few schools would pass a careful audit of their reported data.</p>

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<p>Look, no one is questioning your choice of school. It is not necessary to post wildly inaccurate anti-intellectual slurs against other schools to justify yourself.</p>