<p>Hello everyone, just looking for a little bit of advice here. I've been accepted to Holy Cross, University of California, Irvine, Davis, and Santa Barbara. I intend to go on to be a Classics major while at any of these colleges and plan to go on to be a professor, lawyer*, or writer from there. I'd definitely prefer to go to Holy Cross, as when I went on my college trip, I really loved the place and chose to apply to it rather than BC or other schools because I liked the smaller class sizes,the overall friendliness of the people, and the large Classics department. Money is somewhat of an issue: My family can pay for either(Holy Cross can be managed with some financial planning) but, as a California resident, it'd be far cheaper for us if I went to a UC School.</p>
<p>Currently, my teachers(Including one who has taught me for four years and knows me very well) and half of my family support my preference for Holy Cross, but the other half of the family is concerned that I may not get a good return on my investment and that I should the money for graduate school. Personally, I'd choose Holy Cross at this point, but I promised to keep an open mind.</p>
<p>Thoughts, comments, suggestions?</p>
<p>*Aiming for your stereotypical HYS Lawschool, with sights on Harvard currently. I'm just curious as to whether or not Holy Cross has the reputation for the lawschool admissions officers in the Northeast to know where it is. I think they do, but can anyone confirm this?</p>
<p>As a Holy Cross alum and the father of one HC grad and of another child who may attend HC this Fall, I have visited this forum and made quite a few (extremely objective, of course) posts about this great college. So, I’ll assume you have been using the “search” tool above to see what other threads are saying about Holy Cross including my comments on HC for pre-law. Holy Cross is very well known for the Classics and, as you note, has a large department</p>
<p>As far as “return on investment” I can tell you that Kiplinger’s Magazine ranks Holy Cross as #8 in the category of Best Value among all LACs in the USA. Here’s a link below. Their order is Pomona, Swarthmore, Williams, Davidson, Claremont-McKenna, Amherst, Wash & Lee, Holy Cross, Colby, Bowdoin for the Top Ten. That’s a pretty strong list of great liberal arts colleges and Kiplinger’s considers them to be great values. </p>
<p>[url=<a href=“Kiplinger | Personal Finance News, Investing Advice, Business Forecasts”>Kiplinger | Personal Finance News, Investing Advice, Business Forecasts]Kiplinger.com[/url</a>]</p>
<p>Good luck with your decision: I hope you will choose to become a Holy Cross Crusader and have an incredible four years at HC.</p>
<p>Holy Cross has no name recognition outside of the Northeast/New England.</p>
<p>UC (Berkeley) has world class classics programs with internationally recognized scholars, HC is very low profile. </p>
<p>Berkeley is a public Ivy Leagues school, universally recognized as one of America’s top universities. Is it worth an extra 20K/year to spend 4 years in a post-industrial rustbelt city to have your hand held by coddling professors?</p>
<p>If you love Holy Cross and are only concerned about getting a return on your investment, I would say not to worry. Graduate schools definitely know the quality of students coming from Holy Cross and recognize the name, which is really all that matters.</p>
<p>Obviously all the schools are excellent choices and I am sure you would do well at any one of them. At Holy Cross as a Classics major you WILL get into law school if you provide the work, they have the name. </p>
<p>And the OP isn’t considering Berkeley…</p>
<p>rtl4516-- Looking at your history of posts I see that you’ve made four posts about Holy Cross, all of them negative. What bad experience have you had to make you so negative about such a great school?</p>
<p>Thanks for all of your support! I’ve chosen to attend Holy Cross after careful consideration, another campus visit, and an overnight stay. While it may not have “name recognition” outside the Northeast, I do not plan to be living my life outside of there, so that’s kind of a moot point for me.</p>
<p>I live in the Washington, DC area and it gets plenty of name recognition in the Mid Atlantic area as well since HC plays Navy, American, Georgetown (football) down here in the Patriot League. Welcome to HC!</p>