Connections will help but I wouldn’t choose a school for that alone. I’d focus more on where she thinks she’ll have a better personal and "preparation for professional " experience.
I love the LAC model for preparation for this type of career as it’s likely to provide easier access to and mentoring from profs. It makes exploration of varied topics easy - it can be very “life of the mind”. Post grad, although the network is smaller, it’s very strong and in this case, in a goodgeography.
It doesn’t mean that a student can’t get that at a large public, but they’ll have to really work the system for it. It really depends on the student and the circumstances.
Regarding finances, you may want to consider early career salaries. It should not be surprising that, based on available data, Hamilton grads earn 28% more than SLC grads (see links below), since these schools offer different mixes of majors. However, Hamilton grads also earn more in their early careers than those from LACs to which it is more frequently compared. Hamilton grads earn more than those from any of the other nine NESCAC LACs, for example. Pursuing other LACs because of the possibility of merit scholarships, then, as has been suggested, could represent a counterproductive financial strategy, at least at this stage, when an ED opportunity remains available.
I have several family members who are published authors. The common thread among three of them is that all earned graduate degrees from Columbia’s School of Journalism. Two were math majors in undergraduate school (Chicago & Brown).
Writing is about intelligence, insights,and creativity. Either a person has these traits along with the drive to write & be published or they do not.
Your daughter will do well at Texas, Hamilton, Kenyon College, Sarah Lawrence, or at any undergraduate school. It is her innate traits & drive that really matter.
Attending Columbia’s graduate school did, nonetheless, provide contacts & friendships with major players at the top publications in the country.
In my opinion, writing is not only a product of intelligence, insights, creativity, and desire, but also requires life experiences and maturity. And the path to becoming a frequently published writer is not as clear as one might wish it to be.
I agree. The young person’s drive and ability are key. My daughter majored in art history and photography at Susquehanna. She worked in their student art gallery, which was outstanding. She took part in the honors program and was mentored by an excellent professor. She is sure her experiences in college are why she has gotten a part time position at the Portland Museum of Art and a full time photography job with benefits.
Better would be to compare within the same major. Fortunately, https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/ can help, although it is limited to graduates who received federal financial aid (which the OP’s student looks like she will, at least at Hamilton).
While I agree on the academic side, there is a world of difference in terms of school environment between between a huge sports obsessed flagship, even within an “honors” environment and a small town/rural LAC. One environment may be a better fit for some and worse for others.
Sports is just one small part of UT. The resources and opportunities are hard to beat. The Harry Ransom Center us only one example. You aren’t going to find that at a small school.
It’s interesting that you cite the UT Honors program. In another thread, I was assured by a few folks that Flagship honors colleges are a marketing gimmick. Yes, I’m being sarcastic.
I think the honors college at any major Flagship helps (1) offer some of the goodies that a traditional LAC can offer and (2) alleviate some of the downsides of sharing academic resources with a small- to mid-sized city of students.
In the end, the environments are completely different, and I’m skeptical about ‘our’ collective ability to help out much with that part. You either want the environment that UT Austin offers (and for the record, I agree … fantastic school, location, etc.) or you want to be on a small campus in the northeastern United States … and moreover, in an isolated and very rural part of said region. You can’t really talk anyone into one or the other, and I expect that most people have clarity about their preference between these two extremes. It’s hard for me to imagine that this is a coin-flipping exercise for the vast majority of people.
I have to say, although I generally agree with @merc81 's point about not being penny wise and pound foolish in selecting your undergrad school, a completely free UT Austin education, particularly in their honors program, is a tough one to turn down.
I myself take these “Top ROI” and “Top Salary” and “Best Colleges for X” rankings with a grain of salt, especially when one of the comparators being discussed is a huge university with all manner of people going in all manner of directions. It’s a data point, I guess. I’d rather see placement statistics myself.
As to the teacher’s view that you need to be in the east to get into publishing, I have no idea, but it sounds a little sweepingly simplistic to put much stock into it. I myself would do a little leg work to validate that claim, unless the kid wants to be in the east anyway.
So are you saying that one creative writing program is as good as the other? Isn’t that like saying there’s no point in a talented mathematician trying to crack into MIT because it’s his/her innate math ability that really matters?
I’m no expert here, but I would think the program environment that incubates and develops a young student could have some bearing on their future as a writer.
It appears from the original post that the OP’s family would “cover the in-state tuition” at UT. UT would be “fully funded” in comparison to Hamilton only in the sense that loans would not be required for the OP’s daughter to attend UT.
I live within 30 mile radius of Hamilton College and Colgate University. Both campuses are great LACs.Have your daughter looked into Colgate? My daughter is currently a junior. The school initially was a far reach for us as among the 8-9 schools she applied to a few years back, Colgate was the most expensive. She chose the school and was very glad she did. The school has a generous grant and last year the NO LOAN initiative started as part of their bicentennial plan. Check out the school’s site. Here’s what is mentioned in the Colgate Commitment:
The Composition of the Colgate Commitment
Full Tuition Support
Students with an annual family income of $80,000 or less will attend Colgate tuition-free.
Aligning Income and Tuition Costs
Students with annual family income levels between $80,000 and $150,000 will pay a percentage of annual income toward tuition.
Expanding the No-Loan Initiative
Students with annual family income levels up to $150,000, an increase from $125,000, will have their federal loans replaced with grants.
For specificity, you have compromised on sample size (using perhaps fewer than 18 graduates annually from a given college). For this reason, “better” appears to represent a personal viewpoint.
I would guess that there are more published authors who did not major in creative writing than those that have, myself included.
But this is somewhat off-point. The poster’s daughter is interested in editing and publishing, not necessarily writing. Obviously, that’s a wide category, from working for a magazine (do they still exist) to being an agent. Many young agents–or agent’s assistants–seem to come from LACs in the midwest, then go to NYC after graduation, but this is just anecdotal from my own efforts to land an agent.
Honestly, I suspect the geographic location of where you go to school doesn’t matter much in this field, although it is entirely possible that at a smaller school you will have more opportunity to develop those skills by being involved in school publications than at a larger university. Publishing is one of those fields that seems (to me, anyway) to still follow that old-fashioned apprenticeship model, so I would think that carefully choosing summer internships and your first job after graduation will have as much if not more of an impact than where you go to school. I know people who have gotten an MFA, including from Iowa, and honestly, I don’t know how much that helps one’s career (but to be fair, my friend with the Iowa MFA is now the director of a different MFA program, so if she wants to go that route, maybe it is helpful). I suspect it didn’t help him get published, although maybe he feels it made him a better writer, I don’t know. From my own experience, the only way to become a better writer is just plugging along for years and make incremental improvement through a lot of self-criticism. No one is born knowing how to structure a story well.
Columbia University’s graduate school for writing has helped several of my relatives make writing a full-time career.
With respect to undergraduate school: Northwestern, Columbia, and USC have great programs, but getting accepted into some majors at Northwestern & USC is extremely competitive. And, of course, just getting admitted to Columbia, Northwestern, or USC is quite difficult. For the successful applicants, most classes are very small with substantial one-on-one tutoring.
However, many undergraduate schools allow one to simply to elect to major in creative writing. Whether or not it is better to have to earn one’s way in to a creative writing major is a question that OP may have to decide.
(As usual, there is an unfortunate amount of misinformation regarding class sizes at National Universities. Especially regarding these three, elite. private National Universities in this area of study.)
Thanks! Yes–you’re right, of course. Do you think USC’s program is more geared toward writing for television?
A degree from one of those schools might help establish your credentials when trying to sell your first book, though. It’s a very strange industry, and it’s even more difficult when you consider that people don’t read anymore; why hire an editor for $3,000 if you expect to make no more than $8,000 on your novel? What I don’t know, though, is to what extent a creative writing degree would be necessary if you’re solely interested in the publishing/editing side.
Hey, I don’t know if I’ve said this before, but i am very grateful for your posts, and you were tremendously helpful in my older daughter’s college selection process (she is thrilled with Amherst, by the way, it’s perfect for her and she loves all her professors and has made some wonderful friends).
