Help! Child Off Waitlist - Not Sure What to Do?

[Hunt]

<p>

However, I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that every Tolstoy class at Grinnell would be superior to every Tolstoy class at Dickinson. That’s overstating the case by a lot. There are just too many variables to consider.

This is why I added the weasel words “on average.” Perhaps a better way of putting it would be that, on average, the students at Grinnell will have stronger academic preparation and capability, and that will, on average, lead to better class discussions and will enable the professors to teach at a more advanced level. I wouldn’t want to overstate this, because the difference between these two schools is not huge–this isn’t Harvard vs. Podunk College. But the differences is enough that, in my opinion, it would be discernable.</p>

[mythmom]

<p>I am sure the best discussions aren’t be held at Harvard for various reasons. I think your caveat is probably correct, but someone did say, “I have no doubt…” finishing with what I objected to. I have led some amazing class discussions at community college that were the envy of my Williams’11 son. The kids at my school talk a lot. However, not one of them leaves with the study skills, knowledge base or erudite group of friends he has as a sophomore.</p>

<p>And he was a Classics Major, haha. </p>

<p>So I do agree with your side of the argument, obviously. But the “lower” institutions in this case are excellent schools. As I said, I know of one young lady who earned a Fulbright this year who is graduating from one of them.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>Annasdad, it seems that because you happen to have significant financial constraints on your D’s choices (and nothing wrong with that - that’s how life works), you are making yourself feel better that schools are interchangeable. Well, they aren’t. Some are better than others. That doesn’t mean that it’s the end of the world if a student doesn’t go to certain schools, or that a smart young lady like your D won’t do just fine wherever she is planted; and it certainly doesn’t mean everyone at Harvard is a genius and everyone at Quinnipiac is an idiot. But your continued insistence that all of these things are interchangeable, coupled with the fact that you clearly do see differences in different learning environments else you wouldn’t have sent your D to an elite public magnet, is puzzling; and honestly, it sounds like sour grapes.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>

The existence of multiple forms of intelligence has become a commonplace, but however much elite universities like to sprinkle their incoming classes with a few actors or violinists, they select for and develop one form of intelligence: the analytic. While this is broadly true of all universities, elite schools, precisely because their students (and faculty, and administrators) possess this one form of intelligence to such a high degree, are more apt to ignore the value of others. One naturally prizes what one most possesses and what most makes for one’s advantages. But social intelligence and emotional intelligence and creative ability, to name just three other forms, are not distributed preferentially among the educational elite.

</p>

<p>That’s what your D’s high school selects for - analytic ability. What’s the difference? What is the difference between the criteria you used in selecting a high school for her - more opportunities, smarter student body, more resources - and the criteria we’re all talking about? Your D’s high school > your local high school the same way Harvard > Quinnipiac.</p>

[alynor]

<p>Mythmom, not surprised! The most intellectually-gifted person I know, with a vocabulary to rival Mr. Safire’s, teaches at a community college as an adjunct and as her conversations are always amazing, I would expect no less from her class discussions. However, she does report wide variance in the ability of the students and that impacts what she can teach. Some semesters she’s fortunate to have a class filled with capable students eager to learn; other semesters, not so much. </p>

<p>I hesitate to give rankings, or even bands of rankings, much weight in differentiating colleges. Reed isn’t even in the top 50! Yes, I know why, but is that common knowledge among those utilizing the lists?</p>

<p>In the days before rankings, a close relative attended a small nobody-has-ever-heard-of-it college that’s not now even in the top 150, while I attended a now top 10 university. We exchanged visits and notes. She viewed the students at my school as shallow, status-obsessed party kids who cared for little more than the Greek affiliations displayed on their sweatshirts. I boasted of our famous professors. She introduced me to her professors when I visited; they discussed liberation theology and the like with students in the dining hall. I believe her school, like Reed, doesn’t participate in the rankings, and I suspect it is also penalized for its large non-traditional, adult education component, which has an enrollment equal or greater than its traditional residential campus.</p>

[blossom]

<p>My point was actually not that everyone at Harvard is a genius and everyone at Quinnipiac is an idiot. We all know lots of examples in real life where this is demonstrably not the case- genius kids at the Q’s of the world, and morons at the H’s of the world.</p>

<p>My point is that assuming that you’ve got smart kids in both places- there is no question in discussing with faculty, looking at educational outcomes (Rhodes, Fulbrights, PhD production, etc.) that the level of “college readiness” (for lack of a better term) is meaningfully different, and therefore that the kind of teaching a professor can do is meaningfully different. </p>

<p>I don’t think this is the prestige argument. And I’m not telling the OP that Dickinson wouldn’t be a fine place for her kid. What I am suggesting is that the focus on tiers, and where the kid falls in the stats, and the prestige, and the rankings, etc. is actually a red herring from the real issue (in my mind)… are there meaningful distinctions to be made among different colleges which would alter the educational experience for my particular kid.</p>

<p>Answer- it depends on your kid, it depends on the colleges, it depends on your resources (if you can’t afford option B take it off the table immediately), it depends on the quality of life trade-offs (some fantastic colleges are located in places that some kids couldn’t stand to live in) etc.</p>

<p>But yes, contrary to what you usually read on CC which is that it doesn’t matter, you can get to med school from any college in the country, anyone who thinks that Swarthmore has kids who are better prepared for college than University of New Haven is an elitist dope… I don’t believe that’s true. And for OP’s kid it may matter (or not) and that has NOTHING to do with prestige. And if you don’t believe that the level of college prep has a meaningful difference in the quality of college instruction, than folks like Anna’sDad are really delusional- hey, send your kid to the local public school, sit her down in front of a computer for college and get a degree from U Phoenix.</p>

<p>Mythmom, you sound like the coolest college professor ever. My SIL has taught in several community colleges and says that she’s had students there who are off the charts geniuses, well- read, would be at home in any university in the country, and some students who read at a 6th grade level, don’t know the difference between it’s and its, have never written an essay with a topic sentence, and have never used a footnote. If you are routinely getting fantastic discussions out of such a mixed bag of students, god bless!!!</p>

[mythmom]

<p>Well I was probably born to teach in this setti g since I am, from top to tie, a sixties person. As we used to say. Thank you for the kind words, and I support your point of view entirely.</p>

<p>I do want to always temper my remarks, particularly because I have dear friends whose kids have gotten amazing educations at Gettysberg and Dickinson and had opportunities equal to my kids.</p>

<p>I would encourage my kids to chose from the second set of schools the OP mentioned unless there was a compelling reason not to for the reasons jym, Hunt, blossom and pizza girl gave with the knowledge that if they didn’t that would be okay, too.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>I think the questions on the table are:

• Are there differences in the caliber of the student body at different institutions, at such a level that it would meaningfully impact the student experience overall?<br>
• If so, at what level would one consider these differences meaningful? No one wants to be like the high school senior dorks on CC who agonize over the difference between Duke and Vanderbilt and Tufts when anyone with a brain and any real-world experience can clearly see that we’re talking six of one, half a dozen of the other. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no difference between Duke/Vanderbilt/Tufts and Quinnipiac either. Where does one draw the bands? Because I think that’s all USNWR does, really. It gives some context as to where the bands are, keeping in mind that the bands don’t go from black to white, but go in shades of gray.</p>

[mathmom]

<p>-And we’re not even getting into the issue that a kid who loves Tufts probably won’t love Vanderbilt and vice versa, though academically they are probably of very similar quality.</p>

[sally305]

<p>Looking at average ACT scores, the range for Grinnell and Macalester is 28-32. Carleton is 29-33. Gburg is 27-29 and Dickinson is 27-30. (Couldn’t find F&M.) Not huge differences, but definitely a higher high end at the midwestern schools. I apologize for not looking at this initially. I think I had a couple of the PA schools confused with others that we encountered early in our search.</p>

<p>I think the reason I bristle at the “prestige” thing is that I have learned through the experience with my son that better rankings do not necessarily correlate into more academically talented students or better educational opportunities. My son will be attending a college ranked not even in the USNWR top 50, but it has an ACT range comparable to Grinnell or Macalester (27-32). It was very important for our son (and us) to make sure he would be around comparably intelligent kids. </p>

<p>We also care a lot about college offering an intellectually stimulating environment rather than a “pre-professional” one. So we evaluated the percentage of students in “applied” majors like business, nursing and education. We wanted this number to be very low, and it is at his future college–again, comparable with “superior” LACs.</p>

<p>I would encourage anyone to look into the numbers and individual programs before making blanket statements about what makes a college “better.” As others have said, there is more to it than simply assuming the higher-ranked school will have more to offer. And for a kid who knows what he/she wants to do already, it’s even more important to look into the quality of specific programs, the faculty, and the outcomes for students. For instance, if I wanted to study classics I might not choose ANY typical LAC but rather a “Great Books” program like St. John’s, even though the rankings are rather low (Annapolis–#139 for national LACs; Santa Fe–#20 for its region). St. John’s is highly respected for its unconventional (or would that be super-conventional??) approach and its graduates have no difficulty finding their way into “top” PhD programs.</p>

[mythmom]

<p>I am tempted to discuss how crazy Barnard’s position on USNWR’s list because all the shared facilities with Columbia are not credited, but I won’t because it’s my hobby horse, In most cases the rankings offer some insight. I agree with both pizzagirl’s and mathmom’s substantive points.</p>

[thumper1]

<p>

book on my dad’s bookshelves was HOW TO LIE WITH STATISTICS.

</p>

<p>That is an awesome book which was required reading in the stats course I took. I have it too.</p>

[Hanna]

<p>“I wouldn’t want to overstate this, because the difference between these two schools is not huge–this isn’t Harvard vs. Podunk College. But the differences is enough that, in my opinion, it would be discernable.”</p>

<p>^^^ One more voice praising Hunt; right on as usual.</p>

[londondad]

<p>I’m confused. Which 2 schools is the OP comparing?</p>

[Consolation]

<p>londondad, no one knows. The OP has provided two lists and said that the schools under consideration are like those on the lists. It would, indeed, be easier to give specific and constructive advice if the OP would name the schools, but she does not wish to do so.</p>

[thumper1]

<p>Wonder what the OP’s son did?</p>

[absweetmarie]

<p>It might also be helpful to know a bit more about the son’s preferences. Does he now prefer the school that originally accepted him? Does he prefer it over the school that just let him in off the waitlist? I’d hate to think the OP is going back to him saying, “Lots of nice people on CC think waitlist school is better,” by way of convincing him. Maybe the former waitlist school is better than the original school according to a number of objective measures. But maybe it’s not the better school for him.</p>

[mythmom]

<p>Absweetmarie: your screen name is an entire Dylan song!</p>

[absweetmarie]

<p>That is what I was going for, mythmom. Works with my actual name and easier to type than something along the lines of TemporaryLikeAchilles.</p>

[ClayLife]

<p>Hi</p>

<p>I am away for business and had a moment to check in. I am in transit typing on my phone so I apologize if this post has spelling errors etc</p>

<p>No decision yet - my son is still considering his options! Decision will be made by the weekend. He seems to be leaning toward wait list school. The overall strength of the students at wait list school appeals to him. Also he is an East Coast kid so going to another section of the country is interesting to him.
I have used your comments as points of discussion. I am not pushing him toward one school over the other.</p>