<p>My twin sons are so alike and so very different. They are freshmen in college this year</p>
<p>When choosing colleges one was intrigued by rankings and the other could care less. One is a national merit finalist and the other was commended, (missed by one point). They have identical ACT scores and both are majoring in Computer Engineering with a minor in Electrical Engineering.</p>
<p>After the selection process played out I have son 1 at a US News top 30 University, a private school. Son 2 is at a Tier 3 out of state public in an Honors college. The public school has a very well regarded engineering program however and it is also a top 70ish program on the US News engineering rankings for whatever those rankings are worth. </p>
<p>What great comparisons we are seeing. Both schools met full EFC so money was not an issue at either. First BIG difference they noticed was that at the private school many of son's 1 friends had large LCD TVs in their rooms while at the state school most of the dorm floor had small older 20" regular TVs. Yes an economic class divide truly exists between these schools.</p>
<p>Academics have been similar in the math and intro engineering classes according to their comparisons but son 1 at the private school is having to take more philosophy and arts classes while son 2 is diving into the engineering and math classes a bit sooner. The Japanese program at the public is quite amazing, however son 2 is finding it hard to manage a possible Japanese minor with the full load an Engineering program brings.</p>
<p>It will be interesting watching this play out over the next few years and a semester/quarters worth of school is not enough for a legitimate comparison. Both seem very happy with their choices at this point. More to come.</p>
<p>Really interesting topic, drizzit. I look forward to hearing more.</p>
<p>Best thing is that both are happy. Best for them and also great for the analysisi you are making, as it won't be colored by anyone's sour grapes or regrets.</p>
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This is as close to a controlled, one-variable experiment as we will ever get. Honors at State U. vs. Tier 1 Private.
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</p>
<p>It's a neat topic, and I'm interested to see how it plays out, but the one tier 1 private and the one State U honors college are not going to be representative of the entire pool of options.</p>
<p>drizzit, Is the state U student taking exclusively honors classes, or is he in the general pool with the rest of the university students? My sons are in engineering at a state U, in the honors program. They take some classes as honors, others not. That's an interesting comparison as well.</p>
This is as close to a controlled, one-variable experiment as we will ever get. Honors at State U. vs. Tier 1 Private.
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<p>Double check your statistics. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Anecdotes aren't evidence; someone else could have an entirely different experience. For this to be a valid experiment the sample size would need to be a lot bigger.</p></li>
<li><p>There's more than one variable at play.
a) Difference in intelligence, or intelligences - as you people like to point out, ACT/SAT aren't accurate measures of intelligence
b) differences in temperaments - can greatly affect the amount of social contact they have
c) luck - who they get as their teacher, their advisor, their roommate, etc.
d) not all private universities are the same, and not all public universities are the same - there's no way you can generalize the results</p></li>
</ol>
<p>It's interesting, and thanks for sharing your son's experiences - but not very useful beyond that.</p>
<p>Id be expecting some of the courses at the public to be very demanding as with popular difficult majors, there are often weed out courses- like with Ochem for premed</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It's PlanPlusDebater, not MasterDebater, except you probably have no idea what the former means.</p></li>
<li><p>Nice try for you - a) there are many, many, better studies that are much more controlled.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>b) "As we will ever get" = predicting into the future; EVEN IF there aren't many good experiments now, there will be better studies in the future, which means I'm still right</p>
<ol>
<li>Attacking someone's argument without supporting your own doesn't mean you're right; try taking a basic logic course.</li>
</ol>
<p>Thanks for sharing, drizzit. It will be interesting to see how it unfolds. I was shocked to see engineering majors having to take 16-19 credits a semester to get all their requirements met. I was living in the stone age still thinking anyone could take 15 credits a semester and graduate.</p>
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b) "As we will ever get" = predicting into the future; EVEN IF there aren't many good experiments now, there will be better studies in the future, which means I'm still right
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</p>
<p>Perhaps you didn't catch the "LOL" in the thread title</p>
<p>
[Quote]
3. Attacking someone's argument without supporting your own doesn't mean you're right; try taking a basic logic course.
<p>What does the Israeli study have to do with anything that is discussed here?? It is a completely different educational system and has nothing in common with American honors-public vs. private debate!</p>
<p>Goodness me. Debunking the experiment before the data comes in? What are we afraid of, that the Honors Public educational experience might compare favorably with the Designer Private? Do we protest too much?</p>
<p>I was shocked to see engineering majors having to take 16-19 credits a semester to get all their requirements met. I was living in the stone age still thinking anyone could take 15 credits a semester and graduate.</p>
<p>Not as shocked as I was when I registered for barely full time vocational classes at a community college and found that not only were they at least as demanding as any college class I had ever taken, but full time- meaning 15.5 qtr credits was about twice as much as anyone else was taking- some of my courses were much more academically demanding than others, but I would have done better to have taken two classes instead of 5.
Funny, I thought a two year program would take two years.
At this rate I will be happy if I get done in four.
( I had to switch to auditing one class & I want to retake another besides :p )</p>
<p>I forgot to add a very interesting difference between the schools</p>
<p>The private school is fairly difficult to get into and rejects something like 75% -80% of the applicants and it has a very large number of national merit finalists. The state school, on the other hand accepts almost 85% of students who apply.</p>
<p>But in the private engineering school you are accepted into the professional engineering program as a freshmen with no more hurdles to clear. At the state school, the freshmen and sophomores are in a pre-engineering program. They must apply to the professional program at the end of the sophomore year and to be accepted you must have a 2.7 - 3.0 University GPA depending on the specific field you apply to.</p>
<p>In other words, I think the private schools sorts the kids right away while the state school is mandated to accept most of the applicants but sorts out to the best at the end of the sophomore year. I suspect when the boys hit Junior standing their classmates will be very similar in academic ability. Just an interesting side not that may not apply to all state university engineering programs but something to look for.</p>