To qualify that, median earnings for Middlebury are $53,400, while for St. Olaf, median earnings are $44,800. For reference, the lowest of the Ivy’s is Brown at $59,700.
Of course, median earnings at the OP’s state flagship will be competitive with these figures at a fraction of the cost.
@Kathycollege16: Our daughter faces nearly the same situation with St. Olaf, and we might soon seek the thoughts of other CCers to help us debate colleges. But, yes, I suggest you opt for St. Olaf vs. Middlebury.
Edited out the remainder of the post as it was purely a hijacking of the thread and had no info that pertained to answering the OP’s situation. - Fallenchemist
I agree with most of the sentiments expressed in this discussion, but honestly, ANYONE who is good enough to be admitted to Williams, Amherst, Dartmouth, Pomona, Bowdoin, Swarthmore or Middlebury is also likely to get a merit offer from St. Olaf. The fact that this question doesn’t come up more often is that there is almost no overlap in applicants. The next tier down from these schools are places like Colby, Wesleyan, Carleton, Grinnell, Oberlin, Hamilton etc.–not St. Olaf. St Olaf is that far down in the rankings that they are not on the radar of a student of this caliber. Maybe that’s unfair to St. Olaf, because people have educated me that they have great programs, esp in STEM, and there is no doubt there is some East Coast bias at play too, but the fact remains that the average graduate of Middlebury is far better off than the graduate of St. Olaf. For the OP, she will be banking on getting into a good med school based on St. Olaf’s solid reputation and the fact that she will be a stand-out among her peers, and that’s fine, but there is a reason that St. Olaf is the one offering money and Middlebury is not.
@spayurpets If you look at the ACT scores yes the average for Middlebury is the 97th percentile and for St. Olaf it is the 93rd. Is it possible that a certain field of study is responsible for this minor difference? Is it possible that a religiously affiliated school makes admissions decisions in a more equitable fashion?
You make it sound like going to St. Olaf is slumming it. Is this what you really believe? Is it possible that in the real world nobody cares?
There’s something to this, but it’s far from being universally correct. I think St. Olaf and the top-tier LACs see a lot of cross-applications from students in the following categories:
– Full pay families that are reluctantly willing to entertain the idea of pay $60K+/year, but would really rather get a bunch of merit aid so a college education is not so egregiously expensive. St. Olaf is in the sweet spot of fairly selective, high-caliber schools that offer substantial merit money – and yes, you do generally have to head a bit further down the LAC rankings to find those.
–Kids looking for top quality music offerings in an LAC context. St. Olaf has amazing music.
–Folks from the Midwest region that are ambivalent about having their kids go to school too far away.
I’ve run into a great many kids/parents over the years on CC that fall into one of these categories and have applied to St. O in addition to top-tier LACs.
But west of Chicago, Middlebury doesn’t necessarily mean much, or even can put you at a disadvantage because you won’t have much of a network. If the student wants to live & work on the East Coast, yes–Middlebury might be worth it. If not, perhaps St. Olaf is the better prospect.
I know one Midd grad who came back to the Midwest after a stint in the Peace Corps; her various IT certifications from the local tech school made her more employable in the local market than the BS in Biology from Middlebury.
The discussion of tiers on this thread has invoked a great degree of subjectivity. By the standardized scoring of their entering students, Middlebury is 51st in the country, St. Olaf, 88th. Adjust for Middlebury’s test-flexible policy, and these already statistically similar schools would appear to be even more similar.
^I’d say in my post I was using that term to refer to selectivity as much as anything else. St. Olaf’s admit rate was 36% last year (which was a considerable drop from the 51% the prior year), whereas the schools I’m lumping together under the heading “top-tier” are around 20% or lower. But, I’d be the first to agree with the statement that selectivity does not necessarily equal educational quality. I’d readily send my kids to any of the schools in this discussion over Harvard, for instance (though others are certainly free to disagree).
@onthebubble, I don’t know why you repeatedly go back to the religious angle. I never even thought of it; in fact, I like their name a lot, and I’m not biased against religious schools. I assume that like Wesleyan or Harvard or pretty much any northeastern college, they were originally affiliated with a church but are generally non-secular in their educational mission. That’s not it at all.
Nor do I think the OP would be “slumming it” at St. Olaf. It sounds like you can get an excellent education there and get into med school from there. But grad schools are going to give a Middlebury student a bit more weight than a St. Olaf student, in my opinion. I went to a top non-Ivy grad school, albeit not medical, and I can remember several Middlebury alums in my class or in the years around me. I don’t recall a single St. Olaf’s grad. St. Olaf is going to be fine for the OP if she is applying to med school in Minnesota or the Midwest, but it would be interesting to find out how many Duke, Hopkins, Harvard and Stanford medical school students have gone to St. Olaf; I’ll bet that Middlebury has more.
I also know that my D, who sounds pretty similar to the OP, would never have considered St. Olaf, even though she did at least kick the tires of Macalester, Carleton, Oberlin and Grinnell, which I think are similar midwestern LACs. We don’t have the financial considerations, but even so, I think it’s fair to let the OP know how St. Olaf is commonly perceived in comparison to Middlebury. I view St. Olaf as a good regional LAC, while Middlebury is an excellent nationally ranked LAC.
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When I talked about “tiers” I studiously avoided saying that I was basing that on USNWR because I don’t buy into those types of rankings. But I believe that for most students there are tiers. The reality is that you can only apply to a dozen schools or so, so you’re naturally going to rank order them into tiers of schools that you are likely to get into, possibly will get into and unlikely to get into. That’s going to naturally end up tiering the schools. Of course the tiers are subjective and somewhat arbitrary, but are you going to challenge the fact that someone who was admitted to Williams or Middlebury is not likely to be also applying to St. Olaf? Check your Naviance; I doubt it would match these levels of schools together for the average applicant.
@spayurpets Everything you say it totally unsupported. Do you realize this?
Middlebury is fashionable amongst East Coast kids, which adds a lot to the perception of superiority. Selectivity - admission rates- correlate strongly with perceived desirability- look at UChicago, WashU or Vandy for examples of schools that have jumped whole tiers of “selectivity” in recent years, not b/c the schools themselves have changed that much but b/c of marketing.
@spayurpets, there is a world of difference between a student who knows that their family can afford any college they choose and a student who knows that finances are a serious consideration. I don’t really disagree with most of your core points (I don’t agree with your opinion about grad schools being more impressed with one than the other- there are much bigger variables at play there), but the OP’s question was not ‘which is better’ - whether that is rankings, reputation, etc.- but ‘is the difference worth $120K in debt’. The OP already prefers the prestige and other benefits of Midd- but is trying to figure out how much that is worth. IMO - and I think most of the posters here- is that it is not worth that debt. That is not a reflection on Middlebury, but on the reality of how much that debt is.
I’m not sure I understand why a part time campus job at Carleton isn’t considered financial aid. Most of those jobs are well paying and not particularly demanding. It’s not that big a deal to spend less than 10 hours a week doing some work in order to get to attend your perfect fit of a school, IMO.
I agree that work-study should be considered part of FA. The govt certainly does …
“St Olaf is that far down in the rankings that they are not on the radar of a student of this caliber”
Actually, St. Olaf is on a lot more student’s radar since Frozen came out!
If the long term goal here is to go to medical school then any decent college will do. You need to put in the work, get the grades and develop a hook. I went to UMass Dartmouth and was mediocre the first few years, then rocked the last 2. Got involved in doing some research out of college and got admitted to UMass Med School. UMass Med is unique as is is highly competitive to get in, but it is for Mass residents only, and when I went in the 90’s my tuition was only $2000 per year. I am a GP in a small NH town and got a great education and had almost no debt.
To the OP go the route that incurs less debt, college prestige and $5 will get you a latte at Starbucks.
Here, do some research, and then tell me whether a Middlebury degree is not worth the extra money: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/10/value-university Government stats say you’ll make up the cost difference between Middlebury and St Olaf in about 5 years into your career.
@spayurpets You should sharpen your pencil on that. I see a $5 thousand difference in earnings. And the cost difference is $120 thousand, correct?
Let’s change the schools. If the OP had asked which is better Holy Cross or Middlebury for pre-med what would your answer be?
It would be nice to see some evidence for this statement. If you have none, don’t state it so categorically.
^ actually, this is HIGHLY affected by the fact Midd is a powerhouse for IB and especially consulting, which St Olaf isn’t.
(St Olaf is very much into ‘service’ hence record numbers of Peace Corps volunteers, which would have the opposite effect.)
Finally, cost of living is lower in the Midwest, or in Minneapolis Saint Paul/Chicago than in Boston and NYC.
Anyway, the issue here isn’t the cost differential.