You know, to those with kids who were accepted to tippy top schools and find yourself having to make significant financial sacrifices to allow them to attend, I respect that a lot. It was DS’s decision to pass and stay in state. I was thinking tonight that if he would have chose differently and managed to get into one I would have made it happen. I would say most of us who come on this site are here because we are invested in our kids. And once the decisions and the checks are being written we want to feel like we made good investments and the ROI is there, financial or however you measure it. So if that’s you and you need to make a few humble jabs to feel solid and justified in your decisions, hey we’re here for you. You did well.
@Nomorelurker we actually have the UGA Honors information session first thing tomorrow morning. We toured the campus on our own this evening and it’s a great campus. The more I learn about the admissions process across the various schools, the more arbitrary it seems. At the end of the day, we just want to gather as much information as possible and hope that our son makes the choice that will best prepare him for his future. My husband and I both chose UVA in the late 80’s because that was the best option available to us at the time. It appears it is a completely different situation 30 years later in terms of their admissions criteria as our son’s ability and credentials far exceed what we brought to the table as applicants in 1987. The current admissions criteria and key considerations seems to be quite different these days. Hopefully it all works out in the end.
@Panther92, enjoy the Honors presentation tomorrow at UGA. Be sure to check out Myers Honors dorm if you get a chance and also the brand new business school buildings across from the main dining hall building where you will probably have lunch tomorrow. By the way, UGA consistently gets very high ratings on food. I think you previously posted your S may be interested in a Business major/finance, but don’t get confused by the old Terry Business School building location on the map. The new Business school complex is in a different area and consists of 2 new beautiful buildings, and a third is under construction. The Myers Hall Honors dorm is a short walk from there.
@Panther92 Admissions has changed radically in the last 30 +years for most colleges with selective admissions, not just UVA.
@sevmom This is our first of three so just learning how different things are today as we work through this process for the first time as parents. Looks like you’be been a member here for a while and have likely acquired some valuable insight along the way.
Have fun at UGA! It all seems to work out in the end. You are in for an adventure with three! Good luck!
@nomorelurker Thanks for the information. Terry School of Business is where our son would likely want to be if he ends up here so will definitely check out the new facilities you mentioned. We saw a number of buildings under construction today as we drove around. After the general session tomorrow, there is a lunch at Bolton Dining Commons and a tour of the Honors dorm so will get to see them both. In reading your posts, assume you have a rising college freshman as well? UGA was the one school we didn’t visit last year or over the summer due to some scheduling conflicts. Also still waiting on some private RD’s.
@writermom2018 I would take those newspaper and magazines with a very big grain of salt.
I think this is a good synopsis of the pros and cons of honors colleges.
http://www.thecollegesolution.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-honors-colleges/
@Panther92, the third business building is likely still under construction so it may be what you saw yesterday when driving around campus. When we were at UGA last fall for the Honors tour, they had not broken ground on the third but the first two buildings were finished. Also, you can arrange for a private tour of the new Business school if interested. Simply call the business school this morning and arrange it for after your formal Honors tour is over, if you have time. Yes, our S will be a freshman this fall. He has four acceptances so far (2 safeties, 1 reach and 1 match) and waiting on about five more RDs by April. Will be glad when May 1st comes!
I assume somewhere in this thread someone has recommended Willingham’s book on 60 public honors colleges/programs https://www.amazon.com/INSIDE-HONORS-Ratings-University-Programs/dp/0692783814. Excellent book.
@writermom2018, agree that a degree is going to be from the university overall, as opposed to the Honors program. However, what really matters is what the student has accomplished during those four years both in and outside of the university. As many have posted, specific majors are often more crucial to higher paying jobs (not that that is the only or main end result consideration). Somebody majoring in English at an Ivy or other “elite” university will likely have a harder time getting a high paying job than a Comp Sci major or engineering major at a large state school, particularly one who has done internships and/or research or developed an app… I have a friend whose wife got a teaching degree from a state school in CA. Her coworker went to the University of Southern California (top 25 school). They both have worked as teachers in the same school district for the same number of years and have the same salary. However, the USC grad has over $100,000 in student loan debt!
And graduating with honors isn’t a bad thing.
Read the book over one year ago. If you are a NMF and interested in Honors Program, great merit money and majoring in hotel management, take a look at UNLV. Even dropped by the campus when visiting Vegas. My kid didn’t like it. Each Honors College has a unique well recognized program. Univ of South Carolina’s draw is definitely Intl Business which is ranked as number 1 in USA. I reviewed courses to see if it is justified and found their courses in this area are comprehensive and varied. One good thing about Honors College is as long as you have certain hard stats, you can be almost certain you will get in and get certain scholarships. If you are from this region or near by and you are into IB and have stats, I would give it a consideration. And then there is a IR Honors School at U of Kentucky, something called Patterson School of Intl Relations or Diplomacy. My kid had 160, 194 and 223 in PSAT as freshman, sophomore and Junior, so I had no realistic expectation that he could ever make NMF before his 223 score came out based on his scores before. I think it jumped when he studied for ACT. Only thing I feel bad is we really didn’t get any money out of his making NMF although he could have. The first thing that popped into my head when I found out he will make NMF is “Wow, he might be able to go to college for free!” And then wondering why UCs did not give money to NMFs. I gotta tell you that it did feel funny knowing that with some high score in one test he could get free education at many colleges who wanted to sign up as many NMFs as possible. IMO it’s a misguided effort by colleges to reward NMFs so much because it’s so arbitrary in the sense that it’s just one test and a score of 222 will not make you a NMF in New Jersey but it will in South Carolina, but it is what it is.
It’s so funny. When you go back to the OP (the original OP’s) first post a year and a half ago, she never asked which type of college was “better”. She asked what were they “like”. The revelation is how many different kinds honors colleges there are.
Just wanted to add one thing to my above post. Policy wise, I think we should be focused on making college or technical schools affordable for low income to middle class kids who don’t have all that good stats and who cannot get merit moneys. Instead of offering money to kids who can afford to pay for some colleges, I think the money should be used this way.
My high stats senior only applied to state schools with honors colleges and one mid-sized private (not super selective), here were some of the advantages she saw at schools with honors programs that made her go this route
-Priority registration - at some schools it was right after graduate students
-Waived pre-requisites - need to take the required credits but not classes to get into other classes
-Ability to register for graduate-level courses as an undergrad
-Access to best professors classes
-Network of some of the most successful alumni
-Networking opportunities with administration and professors
-Near guaranteed research opportunities
-Better dorms
-Better administrative support
-Built in academic peer based communities (especially if living in honors dorm)
-Smaller class sizes - may had small caps of 25 or less even at BIG state schools
-Diverse student body population
-More clubs/activities/opportunities because of the large state school environment
-Merit money based on GPA/ACT
-The honors lounge/building/etc - UT Dallas absolutely has the coolest honors building we visited with many perks.
-Free printing or near free printing
-Fringe benefits - like transportation tickets, theater tickets, take your professor to lunch reimbursements
-Small discussion-based honors seminars with unique speakers/top professors
-Good track record of medical school, graduate school placement
-Excellent track record of post grad scholarships and fellowships - some have entire departments to support this
I have heard it described as a LAC inside a public university. I think that is an oversimplification. To be fair NOT all honors programs have the benefits listed above - but if you do your research right you can find them.
To my daughter it provided the best of both worlds and she is very happy this is the route she chose even if it was unexpected by family, friends, and peers at her very competitive high school. In the end she had 7 options to choose from: all of them excellent, all of them places she could see herself being happy and successful for four years. I have been impressed by the maturity she showed through this process in learning about herself and what she wants out of her education and how to get past all “brands” (which include some presitigious state schools) and dig deeper to find the right “match” no matter the “name”.
@websensation: Policywise, the German system of tuition-free unis (mostly barebones education consisting mostly of large lectures, self-study, and tests with almost no elite unis) + an apprenticeship system (including for white-collar career paths like programming and banking) is probably the best system, but corporations have to buy in to establish those apprenticeship systems (or government would have to subsidize) and taxes would have to go up to make college free for everyone.
If anything, American elites are, on average, moving in the opposite direction, with tax cuts mostly for the well-off and corporations as well as state funding for publics not keeping up with costs (state funding for UMich/UVa/PSU/Colorado now cover something like 2% of the budget of those schools, I believe, making them have to act more like privates to be able to keep up in the arms race).
And estates, so that people born into wealthy families can collect more money the old fashioned way (inherit it).
Note that all four of those public universities you named consider “relation with alumnus” (an unearned characteristic that correlates with other advantages) in admissions.
Of course, in another thread going on right now, there are claims that gaining development admission at an Ivy can be bought for “only” $500,000 ( http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/21195913/#Comment_21195913 ), so maybe there is hope for the bottom half of the top 1%. And if an Ivy is willing to bend for that amount of money, would a cash-strapped public do the same for even less money?
QOTD right there!