Yeah, that’s fair and I didn’t think you were saying that. You’re pretty even handed on these topics in my experience, so I wasn’t assuming the worst.
I only jumped in to amplify the other perspective that education can (and IMO should) be viewed as the long-game play, and it’s not to many people 100%, or even close to that, about ROI and dollars in and dollars out. In my experience, the full end game is hard to predict and medium- to long-term outcomes vary wildly.
Our top kids often get merit aid that will bring the cost of a private school under the cost of a public. Private colleges give their merit aid knowing what the student is likely to get at a public. Since most folks in our area pick a college based upon cost, the top kids tend to go to private colleges - just not always the private colleges that tend to be highly rated.
My own top stat kid’s private school cost came in just under what the cost would be at Pitt or UAlabama. The same thing tends to work at less selective private schools with what would be top stat kids for them (1200-1400 SAT for them).
Perhaps this is just true in PA? I’d find it doubtful TBH.
I can only speak for healthcare and engineering. In these fields, first jobs are pretty egalitarian, and advancement is meritocratic. There’s no correlation between undergraduate institution and medium or long term outcomes.
I’m not picking on MIT, but every year students with great in state engineering programs, faced with the good deal option or MIT, chose MIT because they’re afraid not to.
Using Michigan as an example, that’s a $176,000 difference over 4 years assuming no aid at either institution. Invested over a 40 year career at historical market rates, that’s over $2,500,000 after inflation. That’s the opportunity cost of choosing MIT. A student would need to make that much more to break even.
Will they? Very unlikely. The average salary for Mechanical Engineers 2 years out of MIT is $79,000. It’s $74,000 for Michigan.
There is only one NASA facility director who didn’t go to a state school for undergrad, and he went to RPI.
Again, I’m not saying that the cheapest option is the best. Not every cheap option is as good as Michigan (or Berkeley, Illinois, Purdue, Cal Poly, Wisconsin, etc.). There are a lot of fear based inaccurate assumptions in choosing a school though.
We have a good in state flagship for engineering that my son did not choose. He went to a state school in an adjacent state that fit his wants list better and cost about $50k more.
Wasn’t this thread about the lesser known schools, not MIT vs state flagships?
Wait a minute. What’s that $2.5m? Is it the future value in 40 years? At what “historical market rates”? If the current inflationary trend continues, $2.5m 40 years later may be worth peanuts. 
In any event, MIT is, IMO, one of the few schools that are worth paying some extra for, even over a fine school like UMich.
Not at the outset. One of the sidebars morphed into that.
Do you expect the current inflationary trend to continue? 
Inflation is one of those things that’s hard to stop once it starts. It’s a positive feedback loop that’s self-reinforcing.
In the short term, yes. In the long term, no, not since the adoption of MMT. We could easily stem inflation by continuing to wind down QE, and raising interest rates. That would put the brakes on an economy recovering from a deep recession. In the short run, it’s a Catch-22. In the long run, it’ll sort itself out.
Perhaps MIT students are not aspiring to become NASA flight directors.
Who knows what they’re aspiring to be? There is no evidence though that they outperform other engineers in the workforce no matter where they are. I have MIT and Stanford engineers in my family, and one who turned MIT down for a free education. They all say the same. Most MIT engineers on this forum loved their schooling, but also say the same. Again, I don’t want this to devolve into a MIT discussion. It has a great reputation. It’s about the $176,000 and the ROI no matter the two schools being compared.
Some MIT students go into finance, or consulting, or become hedge funds quants, all of which are easier to obtain with an MIT degree. For those going into regular engineering or government jobs, the name likely doesn’t matter at all.
So the ROI should include access to a different type of career than one might have from a lesser known school.
ABSOLUTELY! And for that, MIT is THE name. It’s worth the difference.
This was really my point, which you made more clearly than did I. There are slackers everywhere, but at the less selective privates I’d expect proportionally fewer on the margin since that population is going to be comprised mostly of kids of people who can write the check and just don’t care, which most would agree is not the average family.
Now taking it back to the way the poster purports to go through resumes, it would seem to be a mistake to slide the Linfield resume the bottom of the pile in favor of the Western Oregon resume not knowing anything else.
Here’s how I would do it instead: read the through at least some of the resume and give the applicant the courtesy of time he/she has given you in preparing an application. Or, if that’s just not possible, give the selective schools priority (public or private) and use their admissions criteria as a (arguably lazy) screen as people have been doing since the beginning of time.
This was interesting to glance through. Some surprises there for me.
Who are you addressing this post to?
Thank you for bringing up this point, @blossom, which I think comes back to the original topic of this thread. At what tier/level does an algorithm or experienced recruiter/HR person start making these cuts? I doubt they’re looking at USNWR so there’s not necessarily an exact correlation, but is it something like flagships plus T150 schools? Or…? Although you’ve brought up the names of schools that are generally unknown but are excellent in a particular specialty, for a high school senior who is undecided on a future area of study, at what point do they start entering the danger zone of going to an Albertus Magnus that is unlikely to get the light of day if applying to a company that is receiving thousands of resumes a year?
ETA: @circuitrider, Blossom quoted cquin85, so I’m assuming that was who was being addressed.
I’m glad you found her response helpful.
I know you addressed this to @blossom and that post was flagged (unclear to me why, I gave it a 
), but isn’t this really a rhetorical question down in the really squishy range? As a practical matter, which really started this thread, are any of your kids thinking of applying to schools like that?