<p>I am not a STEM guy, but my sense is that Caltech-level undergrads don’t get Ph.D’s AT Institution X so much as they do Ph.D’s WITH Professor Y in Lab Z. Many of those highly specialized facilities are at state flagships, and the folks who need to know about reputational stuff by and large do know.</p>
<p>^ this is what I meant… There are some elite programs/professors in graduate schools in most of flagships. Your mentor matters a lot more than the school in many doctoral programs.</p>
<p>Thank @menlopark mom. I have come to realize that everyone else’s decision seems like a no brainer, even though I know it’s not for them. Although I do shake my head at all the people getting boatloads of money from USC and not knowing what to do. If his 4.5/2300 had got the Deans or even 10k in FA, it would have tipped the scales. Each of us is just making it harder than it need be as we get to the final days here. You stated the goal clearly and it makes sense. Just having a hard time letting go of the idea of private school, but besides UCLA, we have some other private options with good $ if we get stuck on that (I think this is mom’s hangup, not S.) We have one at USC and it’s not that I am overly impressed, just want to treat them fairly. I think I found peace when my H said, there is no way he would even look at USC if his brother wasn’t there. It’s really not the school for him and on top of that, I can’t justify $62k for it. They are marketing themselves as elite and charging an elite price, but I just don’t feel they are there yet. Case closed… I hope.</p>
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<p>I hire the person in front of me who impresses me most during the interview.</p>
<p>*Quote:
You don’t say what is your field. Let’s say it is engineering. Who would you rather hire:</p>
<p>Person #1 who did their Undergrad at Caltech (#4) and Graduate School at Ohio State (#29), or</p>
<p>Person #2 who did their Undergrad at Ohio State and Graduate School at Caltech?</p>
<p>========
I hire the person in front of me who impresses me most during the interview.*</p>
<p>I agree. For careers, such as engineering, you want to make sure that the person’s personality will mesh well with the group as well as being very talented. You also want the person who can represent the company well at meetings with your customer (good grooming, speaking skills, etc). </p>
<p>We shouldn’t just assume that the person who did grad school at Cal Tech is going to be the “better employee.”</p>
<p>Thee answers are often more complex than the dollar amounts would seem to obviously show. If a family can afford to send a student to a more expensive school, whether it is more elite, or whether it is a school that seems to be a better fit, or for any number of reasons, that is a choice made in terms of how to spend family resources. The cost of college is very high these days,more than many houses that we liven in, but like the costs, choices, spending that we all do, it’s something that comes down to a complex number of factors. Whether spending more was the right decision or not, may not even be judgeable by the results simply because we never know what the alternative would bring, and also some decisions are bad/good at the instant we make them, but the situations can change. So one has to to decide based on the family and student stituations.</p>
<p>Soemtimes it is a no brainer, and one can see the financial train wreck occurring, but in many cases, that is not the case.</p>
<p>We were caught out in a bind. Our D received merit scholarships from two universities (same overall cost). One was for $30k, the second was for $23k. The school offering more is a wonderful school, but the school of music is not well known and has limited facilities. The lower scholarship was for a top music school in the country. We decided the extra $7K/ year is worth the experiences she will receive from the second school but have really struggled with this decision for many of the reasons that are outlined in this article.</p>
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<p>Sure, and I would hire the one who wasn’t a mass murderer. The question is: All else being equal, which would you hire? </p>
<p>Or, assume you were going through resumes, which one would be more likely (all else being equal) to be put in the Interview pile with the least amount of further thought?</p>
<p>To whoever was saying best ROI is grad school,</p>
<p>Consider the fact that MBA applications are based mostly on the quality of your work experience, hence why 20% of HBS’s class is made up of management consultants. The large majority of the class is composed of investment banking analysts and private equity associates.</p>
<p>If you can’t obtain these jobs in the first place, then you probably won’t end up at H/S/W.</p>
<p>I do know someone who was admitted into UCLA with full ride, USC, and Cornell. She’s planning on attending UCLA. Her major is engineering. College “prestige” should not be a sole deciding factor in choosing which school to attend.</p>
<p>*Quote:
I hire the person in front of me who impresses me most during the interview.</p>
<p>========</p>
<p>I agree. For careers, such as engineering, you want to make sure that the person’s personality will mesh well with the group as well as being very talented.</p>
<p>========
Sure, and I would hire the one who wasn’t a mass murderer. The question is: All else being equal, which would you hire? *</p>
<p>But that’s the point, all other things won’t be equal. My son just went thru the med school app process which is more grueling than applying for some eng’g job. He was completing against people with similar stats or even better stats than he had and some were from better undergrads, yet, there was something - maybe intangible - that allowed him to get acceptances from all the SOMs that interviewed him…while others with similar or better stats, did not. </p>
<p>However, I guess if it came down to really not knowing which person to pick, then flip a dang coin!</p>
<p>College choice determines a student’s future life-course in many ways unrelated to academics per se. This is why many upper-income parents are so inclined to full-pay their children at prestigious colleges and universities, even if less expensive alternates are readily present and perhaps quite warranted. They are ensuring a social-status milieu for their children that matches their aspirations for their children, that reflects their children’s upbringing. I read the NYT wedding posts every Sunday, and amazed by how consistently book-matched couples are concerning educational background. The “Ivy grad + Tier 3 grad” is fairly uncommon; it’s like the pairing-off two-by-two for Noah’s Ark.</p>
<p>Didn’t someone note on another thread the Princeton-related comment about “finding your spouse” as a legitimate reason for college choice?</p>
<p>Parent income and social status probably have a great deal to do with Ivy League graduates success. </p>
<p>It would be interesting to see how well white male ivy graduates do whose parents are not wealthy or have connections compared to those that do.</p>
<p>My husband and I faced identical decision thirty years ago: accept an offer of admission at Harvard or accept an offer of substantial merit aid at a well respected university (Duke). We made different decisions. The one who chose the scholarship makes much more money. And the one who chose Harvard knows s/he might have been a physician if s/he had gone to Duke. Nevertheless, despite the much lower professor salary of the Harvard one, BOTH feel like Harvard was the better decision for setting out on a life of joy. </p>
<p>This is not a decision where the answer comes from the question “Is it worth it?” in its most literal form–that is, from who makes the most money. Instead, consider where you will be most fulfilled. You will ABSOLUTELY NOT be happiest if you have to go into massive debt that cripples you or your parents for your entire future–but on the other hand, you might not be most fulfilled by the higher salary, either.</p>
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<p>Then why go to school at all?</p>
<p>There are a lot of intangibles in any college experience. All any of us can do is the best we are able, weighing all the things we are aware of and see how it turns out. Crushing debt is certainly something to weigh very carefully and something I and my family would NOT shoulder if there were any other options. Others may have different values, but some really don’t consider the long term implications of heavy debt load and how that will limit choices.</p>
<p>Re: The “Cal Tech undergrad, Ohio State grad” scenario, my spouse did this. The undergrad degree is from an elite private school, the PhD is from a seemingly-random state school. But people in the know, that is, people doing the hiring, know that the state school actually has the best department in that field, and spouse’s advisor was a huge name in said field. So it does happen, for very good reasons and with very good results.</p>
<p>For many reasons the whole Ivy, elite thing was not part of my world view when growing up.</p>
<p>For other reasons it was not part of the process when D applied in 2010. </p>
<p>We are FAFSA poor and CSS-Profie full pay. </p>
<p>S was encourage to apply to a couple of what would be considered by CC to be elite institutions.</p>
<p>One of these sent a post card showing the COA at elite to be 63K. This only included an $800.00 travel allowance. Given that we live on the opposite coast I figure this was a bit low (unless S wanted to bribe a few train conductors and get home hobo style as extra freight). So, in reality, given travel, storage, moving and other additional costs, this institution would have run us about 68K a year. Two other institutions were a few K lower.</p>
<p>We are lucky in that we live in CA. A full freight UC runs 35K. And that includes some very nice visits with parents staying in 5 star hotel rooms :). S received very good merit $$ for places not lauded on CC. </p>
<p>Simply put, for me, and speaking only for myself, I can not in any way find 67K/ yr worth of value for undergrad education. We are talking about 18-22 year old’s. If these 4 years are truly such an all important, overwhelming indicator of the people they will become, of the life they will live, the determining factor in their next 75 years of life, then I think we have a whole different problem.</p>
<p>S exclaimed ’ holy poop’ I’d never ask you guys to pay for that’!</p>
<p>So, just because we could, didn’t mean we should. S now has not only our permission, but encouragement to spend 5 years getting his UG. (engineering is a tough road). He wants to get his pilots license…we’d pay for that with a big smile on our faces. He gets to spend as much time abroad as he’d like. We will assist with grad school and most likely with down payments on homes or income property, or help either kiddle start a business.</p>
<p>I look at it as a ‘pot’ of $$. How do you wish to distribute them? Different people put different values on different things. The middle class is ‘goobered’ at the moment.</p>
<p>The above scenario was right for us. And maybe TMI for a public venue…but hey…what the heck… </p>
<p>YMMV…and in the end…I guess that about says it all.</p>
<p>dietz199 - what if someone were to say:
“Simply put, for me, and speaking only for myself, I can not in any way find 35K/ yr worth of value for undergrad education. We are talking about 18-22 year old’s. If these 4 years are truly such an all important, overwhelming indicator of the people they will become, of the life they will live, the determining factor in their next 75 years of life, then I think we have a whole different problem.”</p>
<p>Just because someone may not be able to afford 67K for certain schools, it doesn’t mean those schools would be worth it for some people. There is nothing wrong with someone else having different values.</p>
<p>^^^^ which is precisely why I clearly stated FOR ME and SPEAKING ONLY FOR MYSELF. Yes, it is all a personal choice, and a personal price to value decision. </p>
<p>There is a 33K/yr difference in my example…(in government math this would be double the cost for elite) so to use your example the question would be …does another find the difference between 35k/yr and say…CC worth it… Maybe yes, maybe no.</p>
<p>The basic question is value (to ME!!!..and unlike most other areas of my life in this case…yes…it’s all about ME ;)). Another may have a different evaluation system. I love capitalism and free will.</p>
<p>I do have to chuckle TO MYSELF at the often thrown about ‘experience’ . It reminds me a little of the difference in wine tasting in Napa Valley in the 80’s and now. Back then…lt was basically…ya want red or white, heavy sweet or dry…did it taste good, do you like it…and maybe a bit of higher level discussion. Now…it’s oh…the lingering effect of peaches preceded by a subtle yet delightful bouquet of raspberry is simply just perfect for pairing with Oysters harvested from the left most field in Tomales Bay before sunrise after a blue moon. </p>
<p>Then again, I buy my purses at Marshalls, and I enjoy Portlandia, and get a kick out of the fact that Two Buck Chuck Wine wins in blind tastings of other … more elite…vintages.</p>