My H is a former academic (social science field) and I can tell you that academics value an SLAC experience. That being said, recommendations are another factor important in admission to doctoral programs, i.e., who’s recommending you to X, Y, or Z graduate program. It definitely helps if the professor doing the recommendations has colleagues who are familiar with his/her research in the department where the student wants to go. I’d check and see the track record of K College vs. UCSD in getting students into grad programs in your student’s field of interest. That might give you more information for making your decision.
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THIS! We know students who attended very low ranked colleges…BUT they did undergrad research with excellent mentors who were very well connected. They got great post undergrad acceptances…and are doing quite well.
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I’d edit this statment. “If your son cannot get into a fully funded PhD program, it will not be because he attended Kalamazoo”.
None of us have any idea how the OP’s kid is going to perform in college. He could fall in love with ethnomusicology and abandon Life Sciences by sophomore year; he could get distracted with social life and friends and EC’s and de-emphasize academics; none of us can predict if a HS kid “Will be able to get into a fully funded PhD program in biochem”.
However, Kalamazoo won’t be what’s standing in the students way. As always, individual performance is the key.
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Well, sure. I was making the unstated assumptions that the student would be progressing in their studies according to plan. It is definitely not hard to get into fully funded PhD programs in biochem. He’d need a major departure from his HS performance to nix that chance. People on CC tend to overestimate the difficulty of getting into STEM PhD programs. Top-5 or whatever is of course harder. Or he could change his mind, certainly!
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I agree. My son’s best friend in high school attended Shippensburg (one of the PASSHE schools and not at all highly ranked) as an undergraduate . He was a strong student at Shippensburg, well loved by his professors and involved in research there, and was accepted to Princeton for his PhD in chemistry. He is now a professor at a well-known private university in California.
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This was mentioned upthread, but it is so important: IF your son is great at finding opportunity, advocating for himself, and winning those opportunities and can be a stand-out student at the same time, he may - perhaps - be more impressive to grad schools than coming from a LAC. But boy, is it hard to be that noticed, high-flyer in that environment.
At the LACs, the profs will help him find the opportunities and help him succeed at them. Many students need this guidance and encouragement. And many will be more impressive at the end of their LAC experience than they would have been at the end of their R1 experience.
It’s kind of the difference between being a bench warmer for an excellent team or getting to play every game with a good, but still developing, team. You’ll become a better player by playing, not by wearing the same uniform as the best players.
You really need to assess which place will allow your son to shine. Without knowing him, it’s hard to say. My kid thrived at a LAC, but that’s not the only path.
Also remember that LACs, particularly in the midwest, regularly discount tuition to compete with in state public institutions, not because they have a lesser product. Not sure if you’re thinking you get what you pay for. You’ll be paying tons more at the publics than in state kids.
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Admittedly haven’t read through the entire thread but if it hasn’t been mentioned yet, at a LAC he may have an easier time developing relationships with professors (smaller classes) and will not have to compete with grad students for meaningful research opportunities.
FWIW (purely anecdotal) my D was involved in research projects with three different professors at her LAC and ended up with a paper being published in a peer review journal, poster presentations, and (what she believes were) very strong LORs for grad school.
Congrats to your S on his excellent options.
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Thanks. Yes we are checking where K students from Biology, Chemistry and Biochemistry have gone to for graduate studies. Will check this with the college as well as on social media platforms.
For UCSD of course I am sure people have gone everywhere from top to bottom. We personally know someone who went with Bachelors at UCSD to PhD at MIT recently.
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Yes that is always true. He may change his life goals and that is OK if he does. I believe in taking the best possible decision with given information and current life plans rather than hedging it considering there may be change in the future.
That is great. It is useful to know cases who have achieved this low ranked bachelors to high rank PhDs.
Absolutely agreed. Even after knowing him it is hard to judge that! Especially because he is just a normal kid. Not too much on either side of the spectrum.
We certainly feel he will have more fun at K. Whether it will be at substantial cost to graduate study plans is the question.
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It’s actually the other way round. Usually the pre-meds have a difficult time competing with the kids that are headed for a PhD, because the pre-med kids often have a vocational mindset.
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I’m not sure it’s worth throwing that kind of money at UCSD up-front. For the difference in cost, he could go out-of-pocket for a masters (at UCSD or wherever), if for some reason a funded PhD program didn’t come through straight out of undergrad. And I’m not convinced that UCSD confers any substantial advantage in the individual case. As everyone has said, it’s all about what you do while there. It sounds as if he likes the idea of K-College, and you feel he would be happy there. Happy kids are successful kids!
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Generally other things equal, if you are a top student at a top program, you will have the most favorable chances. If you are a mediocre student at a top place vs a top student at a less known place, odds are student at the lesser known will do better. But the top student at the lesser known will have handicap against a top student at a top place.
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With respect to undergraduate research opportunities, UCSD didn’t collect enough nominations to appear in this U.S. News list:
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/undergrad-research-programs
Nonetheless, UCSD may have the strongest reputation from among the UCs for biological sciences.
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In my experience, the pre-med, pre-pharm, pre-dent group dwarfs the group of kids that are headed for a PhD (as a first choice) in these bio/chem majors at universities with med schools. And the pre-folks are gunners due to the need for ultra high GPAs and desire for research experience.
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At my son’s college the PhD bound kids crush it relative to the pre-med kids. Most of the time. The bio kid has been dreaming bio since at least 9th grade. The pre-med kids find it hard to compete with the PhD kids.
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if 40 felt large to him, then definitely Kalamazoo. UC’s will have classes with literally HUNDREDS of students. He’ll have to be top 5 or top 10 among hundreds of kids, all among the best prepared in California. He’d have to be a go-getter used to hustling a bit.
(If he’s done with the “small environment” and no longer feels that a class of 40 is large, then it’s different.)
To give you a concrete example, 1st quarter at UCSD, he’d take Chem 6A or 6AH+Math 10A+1 gen ed*.
Chem 6A has 275 students enrolled this Spring (+waiting list, meaning all students couldn’t get into the course) but for the students who took the 6A 6B sequence, 6C has 280 per class X 6 classes of 6C (1680 students) - there will be 1hour/week with a TA and 40 students per section but when it comes to opportunities he’ll be competing with all of them.
6CHonors has 40 students throughout, look into ways to get into the class. But that’s still a class of 40 students (representing the best of the best at UCSD, so easier to stand out in some ways but harder to stand out in others).
Calc10A has 3 classesX180 students each, Calc10B has several classes ranging from 165 to 280.
You get the idea.
At public universities, priority registration makes a huge difference - often students say it’s worth its weight in gold because you can choose the best professors or the hours when you work at maximum efficiency - in general, there are more students than spots so not all students can get the class they want/qualify for.
Has he gotten into an Honors Program or Honors college anywhere? At a large university, especially for a student who wants a more personalized experience with more contact with professor, Honors (program or college) makes a big difference. In addition Honors students may get priority registration.
(* has he checked out the requirements for the college he’s been placed in? Is he ok with them?
You can compare them here:
http://compare.ucsd.edu/ )
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Kalamazoo class schedules are at Course Catalog - Ellucian Student Application .
Most class sections are not that big, but some of them seem to be completely full for the current term.
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Yeah I am sure everyone wins some and loses some in the competition and probably gets better.