sorry - meant to say you should not expect any more $.
Okay, I am rewriting my assumption below.
Miami has $3000x3000=$9,000,000 in hands, and is offering $3000 to 10000 admitted applicants. When eventually 3000 freshman enrolled as expected, everyone would still get $3000.
Once you accept, they are not going to give you more $$. Why would they? Everyone is budget constrained. My hypothesis was merit would go up this year to get butts in seats. However, it seems to be flat to down depending on the school.
@bigs3 - iāve been following this thread but dont have a kid in the game this year. we are a merit seeking family with 4 kids; and my S20 looked at miami last year. We too thought there might be more merit money based on that auto chart. He had a 34 & 3.95/4.0. I guess we thought heād land in the middle of that top zone. they offered him $23K i think at first, then added another $4k on it - still tuition was more than several others. I am truly not complaining - i completely understand and appreciated their generosity. I guess we just thought itād be in that middle zone - based on the thread from the year before! (so last year, we felt like you did this year!)
In the meantime, my kid toured some other schools - and fell in LOVE with Alabama. Thatās where he is now like tsbna44ās kid. Heās never looked back; and weāre quite thankful for the opportunities - and merit- heās received there. Our eyes are wide open with kid #4 coming up. good luck with your decisions.
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Great that he found his fit and loves it! Thatās what matter most. Best of luck!
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Yeah, I donāt really like the US News & World Reports ranking- they put quite a bit of weight on the schoolās yield and the ACT/SAT range of the admitted students - which IMHO puts pressure on a lot of schools to do counterproductive things (e.g. turn down or waitlist students that look āoverqualifiedā to protect yield & value a student with a higher composite score over one with higher scores in the sub-test(s) that fit their major to keep the test score range up for rankings). We pretty much used Niche for ranking as they seem to include more things like quality of professors, student life, etc- but pretty much count the rankings a tiers and consider anyone in a ātierā interchangeable.
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Iāve never had to pay to apply for a job. There are a number of sites now where candidates can post their resume and companyās look for them. Job postings Iāve applied to generally give some good specifics about what they are looking for & candidates can self-select pretty accurately (if they are realistic).
Iāve not done more than put āReferences available upon requestā for years & gotten jobs - high school kids have to provide references from teachers that they probably only had for one class in a large high school & their HS counselor - the six full time counselors at my daughterās school are not just split over the 525 graduating seniors but all the other grades as well. They are assigned by the first letter of the studentās last name - some have gone to competitive colleges themselves - some havenāt - Iād guess the letters they write vary quite a bit.
My Dās school has 4 counselors, and each one handles one grade. So the senior counselor handled 350 kidsā college applications, which is too much in my opinion. Fortunately, many kids only apply for one state university that saved the counselor a lot effort/time.
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That is a nutty way to doing counselors. Ours are by alpha, so that they have approximately the same number of a grade.
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The US News rankings put Miami in National Universities. They only put 388 in that catagory. That puts Miami out of the top 25%.
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I was referencing #s - not fees. Kids are applying for 100 internship b4 they get one. Iām not talking about a 16 year old walking into McDonalds with a help wanted sign.
Iām just saying - the college apps is an experience that will replicate, sometimes even with more difficulty, in life. Everyone can go to college. Not everyone is able to obtain employment or not worthy employment.
Anyway, not to get political - Iām just saying, IMHO, yes the process stinksā¦but thatās going to happen to these kids through a lot of things in life. And in the end, if these are good kids, they will end up find whether itās at Bowling Green, Miami, Youngstown State or otherwise.
But USNews is not the sole judge of what is a national university, and those do not include a lot of nationally-known LACs. My point is that there are a lot of 4-year accredited higher ed institutions, the differences between the top chunk, especially when such things as yield and selectivity are part of the mix, are less than what some magazine would lead us to believe. The focus on overall rank vs. specific program quality, ROI, and general student life quality is a problem and gets folks to spend more and go into debt for a better ranked school rather than a school that is the best fit vis-a-vis the individual student and their intended major.
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US News is considered the standard but itās quite funny that many schools have cheated and got caught - Northeastern, Oklahoma, Clemson, George Washington, Claremont McKenna (very high ranked)ā¦itās a gamed system.
Yes, how do you compare a Vasser vs. Michigan. One is in the LAC section and one national university. Or a Butler (regional) vs. Indiana (national). You can on Niche, Forbes, or the WSJ but for those who talk rankings - it is only US News.
But think where you work - do you think someone really cares that someone went to Pitt (#58) instead of Miami (#102 or whatever it is) or Oregon or West Virginia or any other state school - directional or not.
We all put waaaaaayyyyyy too much emphasis on rankings. Short of the top tier, does it matter? Florida is telling my daughter they are #6 and they are in US News. Do you think any employer cares you went to Florida over Nebraska? I highly doubt it.
Fine the right school for your child, one you can afford - and hope they have a wonderful experience.
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We use both, but I actually lean toward Niche. It seems to really break out things like student life, dorms, food, value, and so forth better. US News, however, I do think reflects āreputationā more than Niche does. For instance, some schools get an āA+ā from Niche because they check a number of boxes. For example, Virginia Tech gets an A+. Itās certainly a great all around school, but some of what lends to itās A+ rating is āparty sceneā, ācampus foodā, ācampusā and āathleticsā. While this makes for an A+ student experience, itās not quite seen by employers as an A+ school, when compared to other A+ schools like Harvard, MIT, USC, and so forth.
So that is why I use a sort of blended 60/40 split with Niche and USN respectively. Having said that, D2 may choose a school that is not ranked as highly in either Niche or US News, because of how it speaks to her, and the total experience. We (and she) believe the key to success at college is being in a good environment for the student, not the schoolās ranking or reputation alone.
As evidence, I went to a B- Niche school, and it wasnāt ranked, and not national ranked with US News (ranked 9th in itās region in Regional Colleges). I made the most of it, got dual degrees, good internships and have had a much better career than many A+ college graduates. Itās important to remember that most of the success is in the student, and the college is just one of the tools.
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For certain careers (law, medical, research, comp sci, finance especially), I do think this matters some (and even more so for graduate school). But for many careers, your college only matters for your first job. I work in a financial firm (on the tech side), and our company will not even interview someone for a financial job out of college unless they are in one of the top 50 universities ranking wise. People like me snuck in based on our careers and not our alma matta.
I do have a brother in law who went to Yale. To this day, he is in his 50ās now, and he gets calls just because he went to Yale 30 years ago, and not at all for what is on his resume. But these are the exceptions to the rule.
But itās also important to remember that Florida is ranked #30, largely because of the parties, the sports teams, the campus, the food. Academically it canāt even hang with schools like RPI or WPI, but they ranked lower by US News. Employers know the difference, however, between a strong academic school, and a strong all around campus experience like Florida.
Well said Hank!! That last paragraph is so true. Mine got into Washington & Lee but loves regional #8 College of Charleston where she is in Honors, an International Scholar, and will get individual attention. She loves the town and program even if the WSJ ranks it 500-600, Niche gives it a B+ and US Newsā¦calls it regional.
I, on the other hand, donāt love the $40K after merit it will cost me!! Of course, itās better than #9 LAC Washington & Lee - $81K. Yikes.
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US News doesnāt take into account sports, parties. Florida is #30 US News, right behind #28 UNC. Yet, most would put #39 William and Mary ahead of it and UT Austin which is even further below.
See - you have perception too. Everyone bases stuff on perception.
Florida is #30 based on its academic recordā¦but outside of Miami, i doubt an employer would care.
My son is interning this Summer - he goes to Bama - with a Ga Tech engineer and a U of Houston engineer.
Maybe at the creme de al creme of companies or consultancies it matters - but not for most. Not for the jobs the Miami kids will be going for.
You are right! As someone from up in the Northeast, we certainly donāt think of U Florida as more than a large state school, and not in an academically competitive part of the country. Perception does matter, though. Around here employers would certainly rank William & Mary far higher, as you said.
I agree with all talking about rankings. It is a gamed system and very skewed to keep those on top, there for the long haul. It also disadvantages schools that are not in āprimeā locations as they will ultimately get far fewer applications (Miami fits the location problem, though the campus is beautiful).
There is so much more to it all. Like I said earlier, the percentage of kids that get into med and law school are HUGE indicators of how other academic institutions respect the ones the kids are coming from, regardless of if your kid is going to med/law school or not. An Alumni network is hugely important, as that will be there for the student for their entire lives and a big school may/may not have the power of a smaller LAC, as an example (take Colgate, where my other son goes. There alum network is leaps and bounds over most large schools even though the school is 3200 kids. Colgate makes alum a huge priority and it shows by how easy it is for students to connect and get jobs throughout their lifetimes). I also look at Niche and also Unigo. Unigo is a great resource for how the students feel about the school (go to reviews and then go the question they ask and you will find a wealth of info). Is it really what it poses to be? And ranking is not everything anyway. I want a school that teaches my kid to think on their own, not what to think, as that is a skill that many colleges no longer emphasize and it will take a student further than much of what they learn in college. Free thought and debate used to be the norm, unfortunately, that is no longer true and it is harming our studentsā long-term ability to grow and think.
As an example of the rankings issue, one of my twins is going to major in engineering (he also got into Miami). In the end, it came down to Colorado School of Mines (ranked nationally as a doctoral program) and Rose Hulman (ranked as a non doctoral as they go up to Masters). Mines would technically look better in rankings, but Rose is #1 in non doctoral. Rose is a smaller school in Indiana (not a preferred location for many college students). Income is around $10K higher upon graduation than Mines (which already has an impressive income). I had never heard of the school, but clearly the engineering firms have. Rose never uses TAs to teach, the kids get far better LORs as they know the students as class sizes are small and most have been in person all year (I highly recommend a small LAC type school for any of your kids wanting to go to med/law school as the LORs are notoriously far better and that makes a huge difference). There is way more to this than rankings. With getting # 3 and 4 in college this year, I have been on more campuses than I care to admit and know the game it has become and have identified things that are far more important to look at than rankings. Not to say I donāt put them in the pros, but they are far down the list.
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Rose (tiny campus) and Mines are both FANTASTIC. Congrats.
Rose is known to be extremely rigorous - and yes, their salaries are through the roof!!!
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