<p>MeasureYourself, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to only compare UoF grads that turned down Harvard against Harvard graduates?</p>
<p>parent200 – Take this to the Parent’s Board. Lots of people there will give you excellent feedback.</p>
<p>Don’t make your daughter decide based on a slight difference on the USNWR list. And stop doing all this research in order to make the right decision. You can’t control your daughter’s outcome based on some percentage points – AND you can’t calculate all the intangibles. </p>
<p>Grad school will ultimately be up to her and how well she does in undergrad. </p>
<p>You have the right to decide how much money you want to spend to a certain degree, but to continually badger your daughter to go to a school she doesn’t particularly want to go to that costs basically the same and is still in the top tier of LACs is an abuse of the money card, IMO.</p>
<p>i find it impossible to believe that your d’s future prospects would in any way be hampered by her attending Barnard. from the Barnard students i have known, Barnard seems to foster an incredible sense of competence and achievement – i cannot imagine any graduate of Barnard feeling that they did not have the opportunity to do anything they wanted and to have been encouraged in their goals.</p>
<p>i am not addressing the issue of cost since it appears you can’t afford either (a financial safety may have been a good idea). but given the specific choice you have proposed here, i cannot imagine why you would force a choice on your d.</p>
<p>MeasureYourself - I think you’re ignoring that fact that schools like Harvard are the breeding ground for the blue blood ruling class. Therefore, more people will be compelled to seek employment at “top firms” in a way that UofF graduates (who might be more compelled to live near their families in Miami or Tampa) probably would not. Still, I guess it can help get an interview with people in that mindset. I personally wouldn’t assume any superior qualifications from a Harvard grad. I guess I’ve known too many.</p>
<p>That’s off topic, though. I apologize. </p>
<p>Parent200 - I’ve discovered that if one just follows their highest intuitive guidance and moves beyond the fear mindset to hedge one’s bets (this school admits X% of graduates from that school is fear based), the opportunities present themselves when required for an individual to manifest his or her highest potential. </p>
<p>For example, my parents pushed me into college right out of high school even though I knew I wasn’t ready. In retrospect, a year off for me would have done wonders, guided me toward a different school for my first two years, and made college 10 times more beneficial and focused. Instead, I spent the first three years trying to figure out why I was even there (aside from social expectation coming from a college prep background). So, perhaps it is best to allow your d to decide for herself, even if you are footing the bill.</p>
<p>do we even know that teh schools are barnard and pomona?</p>
<p>A cautionary tale: I’m the parent of a kid who thought he “fit” perfectly at an urban school, then discovered he hated the place, grew terribly depressed, got mediocre grades as the result of his misery and, when he transferred, ended up at a much lesser school because of his transcript. The moral of my story is that it’s all a crapshoot, so just make a decision and stop agonizing over it. You can try to guess the best “fit”, but you can never be sure, because visiting a school is nothing like attending it. My personal opinion is that if a kid goes to a school with a positive attitude and a determination to find a happy life there, all will work out okay. It’s a very lousy idea to go to a school with the possibility of transferring in the back of your mind–it undermines the commitment level you need to find happiness and success. And, as others have said, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to transfer to the other college. Pick a college, embrace your choice, don’t look back. And those of us who are on the far, far side of college graduation and post-graduate education know how absurd it is to think your long-term happiness in life will in any way be determined by what college you attend. Relax, relax, relax!</p>
<p>while pomona has more students attending the top grad schools, pomona only sends 50% of their students straight to grad school, while barnard send 75%, as previously stated. You should not decide on a college based on your hopes of attending a top 5 grad school. One does not need to attend one of those schools to be successful. I would choose barnard, if she feels it is a better fit for her. I know some people at pomona and they say that the people there love the school to death, and they felt it the moment they stepped onto campus. If a school is a fit, she should have felt right away. Therefore, I say go with barnard. While you may be surprised that not more students took advantage of have cu right there, that doesn’t mean your d can’t. she will be feel more comfortable in that environment, and therefore be open to more opportunities in school that will help her to reach grad school.</p>
<p>Fit is an incredibly important deal. It’s not the college but the student that earns admission into a graduate school. If your daughter is intelligent enough to get into two highly rated schools then she is smart enough to do well on standardized testing and get into an excellent graduate school from either of the two universities. So the important thing at this point is finding a place where she will be more motivated to work hard for graduate school. It seems to me that if she goes to the WC school she will always think about the what-ifs (if only occasionally) of going to the one she wanted. That isn’t a great environment to make her feel ready to work incredibly hard to get into grad school.</p>
<p>Speaking from experience (at least second hand), my parents did both of the options (though admittedly in a very exaggerated way). My dad went to the school his parents wanted over the one he did. He got depressed, his grades plummeted, and he eventually dropped out. Afterwards his parents let him transfer to the school he had wanted to attend, but the damage of that first transcript hurt his quest for graduate school. My mom on the other hand was allowed to pick her dream school and while it wasn’t the greatest rankings wise she was so excited about college and school that she worked incredibly hard and got into a great graduate school. </p>
<p>Do I think it will be this black and white for your daughter? Absolutely not, she will probably be at the very least content at either school. But I know that when I picked college my parents stressed over everything else that fit was the single most important part of success in undergrad and eventually graduate school.</p>