<p>“Location trumps rigor.” You had said prestige was the overriding factor so surprised to see she is leaning toward Goucher. No offense to Goucher but it really does not seem to be considered in the ranks of elite liberal arts colleges. Rhodes, or Macalester(if she could get off the waitlist ) seem to be more prestigious </p>
<p>Yes, Elliott is a great program. That’s what made GWU D1’s number two choice after Tufts (where she is now). And I’m sure that GW would’ve been great for her. Except that D1 ended up switching majors into a non-IR field. OP, your D may well end up in the foreign service…or she could end up doing something else where GW isn’t as impressive, with you still paying the higher price. </p>
<p>… or you could draw up a contract that stipulates that the considerable financial investment is for Elliott/poli sci (etc) and that if she switches out of Elliott or into a major where GWU isn’t too hot (such as the sciences), she needs to plan to transfer elsewhere where costs will be 30k or less and that pretty much means UWyoming since scholarships won’t be available for transfers. </p>
<p>I was checking for another student and there’s this program:
<a href=“http://college.sciences-po.fr/sitereims/”>http://college.sciences-po.fr/sitereims/</a>
If none of her options appeal to her, she could apply for the Spring program, work in the Fall and spend the Spring about 2hours from Paris. Apparently there are still some spots open for the Fall, too.</p>
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<p>Has this changed? I think if you put 5 affordable options on the table for your daughter then allow unaffordable options back on, you’re sending mixed messages and that’s not fair or helpful for any of you. Perhaps it would help to create a ranking of several criteria that she finds important (prestige, location, majors, internships, etc), give each of the 5 colleges a ranking from 1-10 on each one, and add up the points. The results may help guide her decision.</p>
<p>Freshman retention rates can be interesting as well. US News considers them an “indicator of student satisfaction.” Here are some I found (some of the schools we have been talking about as well as some other schools I was curious about just for comparison).
Rhodes 90.3%
Goucher 81%
Portland State 71.5%
Macalester 94.5
GWU 92.8
Barnard 94.5</p>
<p>The retention rates for Goucher and Portland State seem low. </p>
<p>UVa 96.8
Virginia Tech 91.8
University of Maryland -College Park 94.3
Yale 99</p>
<p>I don’t think it is helpful to the OP to send more stats his way – you have to look at fit factors as well. Goucher has a very strong commitment to international education - it requires all it students to study abroad, and has a lot of resources in that area. I also think that Goucher sends a lot of grads to the Peace Corps — not the foreign service but definitely another good option for someone interested in an international affairs -focused career. </p>
<p>Again – Macalester would just be one more unaffordable option if the d. got in and the last thing she needs at this point is another false hope to hang onto. </p>
<p>Right now the daughter is leaning Goucher - the father is willing to pay and the college may open up all sorts of opportunities for her. US News might like Rhodes better… but I can see why Goucher might be a much better fit for this student – and the last thing the family needs is another set of reasons to despair over choices.</p>
<p>I agree you have to look at fit factors. Leaning toward Goucher does not mean the decision has been made, especially since the OP said the major reason for leaning that way seems to be because of the location on the east cost. Prestige has also been noted as important. Good luck to the OP and his daughter in making a final decision. </p>
<p>@grossjh – you might encourage your daughter to start focusing on the details of the majors she might be interested at Goucher vs. Rhodes – she could look at the web sites to compare their respective IR focused majors:</p>
<p>Rhodes: <a href=“http://www.rhodes.edu/internationalstudies/default.asp”>http://www.rhodes.edu/internationalstudies/default.asp</a>
Goucher: <a href=“http://www.goucher.edu/academics/political-science-and-international-relations/programs-of-study/international-relations-major”>http://www.goucher.edu/academics/political-science-and-international-relations/programs-of-study/international-relations-major</a></p>
<p>She might also look at which foreign languages each of the colleges offers.</p>
<p>Goucher has a cross-registration agreement with JHU, so she might also check out course offerings there, bearing in mind that there may be logistical issues that are likely to be downplayed on the Goucher site. (Differing academic calendars, transportation issues, etc.)</p>
<p>She should look at each school’s policy for distribution or general ed requirements – and also look at the course sequences required for specific majors. That will give her a sense of what her academic experience might be at each school.</p>
<p>Also, if you can get her to do that: dig into the course offerings and course requirements on the respective web sites – that might change her focus somewhat. That is, she might find a few things that look enticing, and start to build up some enthusiasm for those courses, or stumble on some special offering or program that looks attractive.</p>
<p>On the financial end of things, you should be looking at how each school handles payment for study abroad. Some school require you to pay their normal school tuition for study abroad, and they in turn pay the abroad program – but at other schools you will pay the abroad program directly, possibly along with a small fee to the home college. I believe Goucher gives all its students a $1200 voucher toward study abroad --but the flip side of that is that Goucher offers a bunch of sort-term, 3-week intensive study abroad opportunities that run about $4500 --and you might find that your internationally-focused daughter is tempted to do more than one, in addition to a more traditional semester or year abroad. So if she opts for Goucher, you might want to be sure you have a clear understanding at the outset of what extras you are willing to pay for along the way. </p>
<p>And social fit is important as well as the academic side of things. She was not enthusiastic about either Rhodes or Goucher but is now "leaning " toward Goucher. Besides a preferred location,what did she like about the vibe, other students at Goucher,etc. </p>
<p>Sevmom, prestige was important to this student, but that’s something she needs to move on from. None of the options she has right now are prestigious – and US News ranking is not the same as prestige.</p>
<p>She might want to look at grad school admit rates from each school, but those issues are complicated by other factors such as GPA and work or internship experience after college grads.</p>
<p>But to OP: you might also look at things like the number of students from each school who get Fulbright awards, as that also obviously is a both a good opportunity and a post-college prestige builder. My impression is that Rhodes does a little better in that area. </p>
<p>calmon, If you are telling the OP to look at things like number of Fulbrights, how are YOU not trying to send more stats his way-something you just said was not helpful.</p>
<p>Whatever OP decides, I want to know how it turns out. This is a really interesting thread, learned a lot here. If, after all the discussion here and at his home, he decides he can spare the money for GWU or Barnard, and he’s happy with the family power structure the way it stands, that’s great. It wouldn’t be my choice for any of my kids, but I am happy for those who can manage their first or 2nd choice and emerge financially solvent and at peace with their decision. Keep us posted.</p>
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<p>The question isn’t the prestige of the school, its what sort of opportunities it might offer to the student post-grad, specific to this student’s interests.</p>
<p>The stats I don’t think are helpful are to buy into the US News paradigm of facts like freshman retention or 4-year graduation rates – which often reflect demographic factors or other issues. On an in individual level, a student is more likely to stay at a college that is a good fit. So the individual student is more likely to leave a school where she feels she doesn’t fit in - even if their overall stats are better. For example, Greek life plays a significant part of campus life at Rhodes (about 50% of the students join) - and is nonexistent at Goucher. Would OP’s daughter want to get involved in a sorority or attend frat parties? Or would she be completely horrified at the idea? We don’t know. But that is a huge campus culture difference. </p>
<p>You also put in a list of stats that included Barnard and Macalester-- I can’t see much of a value in that. Everyone agrees – all things being equal, daughter wants to go to Barnard. So why use those schools as comparison points? </p>
<p>The issue is what school will be better for THIS particular student. One advantage that a lower-tier school might offer is the big fish in a small pond benefit – making it more likely that a student will be a candidate for honors or special programs. So if every year there are a small number of Fulbright scholars from a given school – then the odds may be better for a student of getting that award than if applying from a school where the competition is more intense. But if none of the students from a given school ever get Fulbrights – then that’s pretty much of the table. It isn’t just the student --there’s usually a Dean or college prof who helps coordinate those sorts of applications.</p>
<p>There are some other really amazing opportunities for internships and fellowships that are similar but less well known–the point simply is that the family might want to look at what is available for students to aspire to. </p>
<p>I also think that this thread really highlights the importance of parents being firm and clear about finances from the beginning of the application process. That is, ideally the OP’s daughter would have known going in that her college budget was $30K per year, and that no need-only college was going to match that. Ideally the father would have sat her down and explained that even though the family looked like they had strong assets on paper, his self-employment situation meant that he needs to keep larger reserves and cannot count on his income in the same way that a salaried executive can. In an ideal setting, the student would have known going in that Barnard would not be affordable. I can see a student still wanting to apply to a financial reach “just to see” – in the same way that many of us tend to buy lottery tickets when the jackpot numbers are really high— but the d. ideally should have been more emotionally prepared to move on once the financial aid award was received and clearly fell short.</p>
<p>calmom, I included the retention rates of places that were being discussed. The retention rates are from the Common Data sets I believe, so US News is not cooking up these stats out of the blue. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m on wrong on that. And I believe retention rate does speak to fit. If a school is not retaining a good amount of their kids, that would be a POTENTIAL red flag for me. That is why I asked about what vibe the daughter is looking for. Goucher and Rhodes seem different socially from what I can surmise. And by the way, the freshman retention rate at Wyoming is 73.5 % and 84.5 % for Western Washington. Please ignore those stats if it is of no interest to you.</p>
<p>And I do agree with you that retention rates can be influenced by the demographics of a school. That is why you often seen lower retention rates in lower tier publics, when many kids have financial issues.</p>
<p>Retention rates for all but the best public institutions tend to be low for reasons other than satisfaction. They enroll a wide range of freshmen, some of whom are not prepared to do college work and who leave after their performance freshman year makes this lack of readiness apparent. Those who remain may be very satisfied, as the courses beyond freshman level can be more demanding with less coddling, as most borderline students have either shaped up or departed.</p>
<p>Yes, celeste, We crossposted. This is not uncommon in lots of lower tier public schools.</p>
<p>We just went through a similar exercise with our D. We used proxies to assess various factors. For example, to compare the level of student preference at universities that we were comparing, we used the student retention rate simply because qualitative values (from student survey) were not available for one of the univ. under consideration. From a financial perspective, we looked at 4 year graduation; this, along with historical price inflation rate gave us an estimate of overall cost for the average duration of study. In some cases, we had to estimate the cost for more than 4 years of UG study. We weighted different factors based on the level of importance, and came up with different scores from parents’ and D’s perspective. It was an interesting exercise that provided us (the parents) with a fairly good cost/benefit analysis, and our D, a set of pros and cons that she could weight to score her preference for one univ. over the other. Since the weightage and the scores were subjective, they were used strictly to induce deeper level of thinking to sort out what are essential (again subjective, but based on objective metrics), and which ones are nice to have. All along, we informed our D our financial boundaries. </p>