@twoinanddone, to be fair, UMich, UW-Madison, and UT-Austin are a clear notch or two above any public in NYS or New England. Arguably any public north of VA.
And UF is getting close to UT-Austin/UW-Madison’s level now. Plus, when were you in FL? Because there sure seems to be a lot of FL kids on CC who want to go somewhere other than an FL public these days.
My kids graduated from a Florida school 2 years ago. My nephew graduated 5 years ago. Their high schools were considered top schools from top districts (lots of schools and districts claim to be the top, so I’ll just say they were in the top group). Nephew went to UF, and he was accepted to Brown, Cornell, NYU and several other top schools but felt the value was the best at UF. Val and other top 20 kids at our school went to UF and FSU, not as a default, but as their first choice. I grew up in Wisconsin and very few considered going anywhere other than Madison or to our local UW. A few went to smaller schools in Minn or Wisconsin, but usually it was for sports or music or nursing.
I’m not arguing that the flagships are or aren’t better in places other than NE, but that those from the Midwest, Texas, California and Florida grow up thinking the flagships are the best, that they are the goal. Obviously 20,000+ kids find UMass and UConn and even the dreaded Rutgers to be the right schools, but is the mindset that those are the best schools, really good schools? My daughter is dating a boy from NJ and he and his brothers never considered schools in NJ.
My father went to UMass 60 years ago, his brother went to Williams. Brother felt UMass was a lesser school and would not have wanted to go there, didn’t even look at it for his own children. Different mindset. My side of the family grew up thinking public schools (even UMass where one of my brothers attended) were where we were headed. My sister went to an LAC, but never thought Madison was a lesser school. Good things, too, as she ended up there (and loved it).
@twoinanddone, OK, but I’m arguing that you can’t separate the quality of the flagship from the desire of in-state kids to go there. Obviously, there’s a bunch of variables such as history, etc.
What would be interesting to see is where NMS or 1500 SAT kids end up from each state.
My nephew was a 2300+ kid. He was offered honors college at UF but wasn’t interested.
Other states like Nebraska also have kids who grow up wanting to be a Cornhusker, or Kansas kids deciding between KU and KSU.
In my DS’s class there were 3 NMF, Duke, Vandy, and our state flagship with full COA scholarship are where they are headed. There were 11 commended. That is harder but I will try: Cornellx 2; Rose-Huhlman, neighboring state flagship, another neighboring state flagship; our state flagship 2; state regional 2, GA Tech, BC. I know it is a small sample but does show how the flagships are valued in the Midwest. Those going to Duke and Cornell have parents originally from the NE.
Out of the top 10 graduating seniors at my HS several are headed to OSU. The $$ offered, and big 10 love trumped acceptances from Cornell, MIT, CMU, Boston, etc (sample of the schools where I know the kids were accepted)
Imagine all those poor kids heading to Storrs et al who don’t realize that a bunch of folks on the internet think they don’t value their state flagship U.
As a Midwesterner I agree with much of what has been written. About 30 percent of the class attends the state flagship. But not kids in the top 1 -2 percent. They generally attend ivys or Ivy equivalents. The top 2 percent of my daughters class went Stanford, Yale, Columbia, Penn, Duke and U Chicago. That’s pretty typical. The top kids have it drilled into them ( from other kids) that while the flagship is good and highly highly selective for Engineering, it’s not something they should be considering. I thought that was a shame.
@Cheeringsection, well, there are also a lot of good public schools & programs in the original B10 footprint. I have UMich and UW-Madison as near-Ivies, so kids in MI, WI, and MN may attend one at in-state rates. Of the other states, UIUC engineering, CS, and accounting are among the tops in the country. In IN, there are terrific in-state options in PU engineering, Kelley, and IU Music. OH has a bunch of publics that have a strong point or two: UCincy has one of the top design schools in the country, OSU accounting is strong, Ohio has the Oxbridge tutorial system and an old picturesque campus, MiamiU has the pretty campus and is an original public Ivy, and several of the regionals like Toledo, etc. have engineering specialties where they are among the best in the country. Iowa has a nationally-renown writing program. A little east (and OK, we’re leaving the original B10 footprint now), PSU has a strong alumni network (arguably the strongest of any public school) and Pitt has a high-ranked philosophy department. UMinny and OSU (also Pitt) are also located in thriving cities.
Compare with the states to the east and north of PA. I know RU’s philosophy department is one of the best in the world. Don’t know of much other strong points among the publics there. Meanwhile, that region is chock-full of elite private unis. In the original B10 footprint, UChicago and Northwestern are true Ivy-equivalents. Then you have CMU and CWRU on the edge to the east and WashU on the edge to the southwest. That’s about it (if you don’t look at LACs).
I’d love to chime in on this thread since many of our high achieving kids choose OSU, but I have to ask…how do you all know who is in the top x% of your kids’ classes? Other than a general sense of who has a high GPA from awards nights (honor roll lists published in the paper, NHS and Cum Laude induction, etc), I have absolutely no idea what rank was for any of these kids. Do some schools publish that or do you all discuss it or what?
@OHMomof2 - mine comes from teaching at the school- I attended a ceremony for the top 10 in our class 2 weeks ago. And speeches about each kid given by admin included where they had been accepted and where they are attending 
“This restricted funding for SUNY and UMass etc whereas in other places such as MI there was no such lobbying effort. One would think by now the northeastern publics could have overcome this, but they are not fully recovered.”
Actually, it was not a matter of restricted funding but complete obstruction. Whereas the public school systems in other states (Georgia (1785), North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1789) and William and Mary (1693 or 1888 depending upon what you count) were established to provide its residents with excellent higher learning, NY had no public university system until the 1950s. There were public “trade schools” and “normal schools” for those who were not from the economic classes (leisure classes) that could afford private liberal arts. Officials vigorously opposed development of an educational system in NY. When some officials were able to advocate successfully for a system (because the return of the vets from WW2 put too much pressure on the private schools which could not accommodate them and because the GI bill meant those who could not have afforded college otherwise now could), 150 years after many states had excellent systems, they did so by promising that the public system would not compete with the private schools for at least a decade (which lasted much longer) and they would not build endowments and they would not attract those who could afford a private school. The promise was that they would only attract those who could not afford to go anywhere else. And, that was part of the plan-not a mistake!
Anyone thinking that the extent to which the 4 SUNYs have a utilitarian (ugly) look to them is coincidence is simply naive. That is part of the non-compete. To boot, the system has been deprived of proper funding in good economic times and in miserable times. Buildings planned decades ago are on again and off again. The result is that the academic buildings are sadly dated as soon as they are built. On one campus they are building with the goal of expanding numbers just at the time the college population in NY is dwindling. Why? Can’t you guess.
At my daughters’ graduation they listed the val, sal, top 20, then the summa, magna and cum laude students, then the rest. At the awards night, they listed all the NMF and commended students (many in the top 20 also). That pretty much told you who the top 1-2% were, and you could figure out the top 10-15% from the list through magna list.
One of daugher’s good friends was in the top 20. She applied to one school, FSU. Mother, father, brother all went to FSU and she was going there too.
@lostaccount - there were actually a wide variety of colleges est by the Morrill Land Grant in the 1860s - including Cornell, Penn State, UMass, Rutgers, Uconn etc…
Our school didn’t officially rank but gave out to the kids the GPA that you had to be in to be in the top 2 percent, that represented about 10 kids and they were told they were all in the running for Val or Sal ( technically ) And those kids are all together when they are told. Word spreads like wildfire.
toowonderful, yes of course other states established colleges via the Morrill Land Grant. And other states established public universities using a range of funding methods. I simply listed the 3 that are thought to be among the first public schools as a demonstration for how delayed the SYNY system was.
There were public schools in NY but there was no state system. As noted, there were trade schools. Cornell was intended as a way to educate “industrial” classes and thus was not competing with the private schools but was more similar to the existing public normal and trade schools. Other states also had industrial training schools. NY was not alone in the need to educate a subsection of society to meet industrial and other trade needs.
But most other states also established public educational institutions that were intended to be the very best possible and to provide the very best education that could be offered. These state systems were not inferior, by design, to the private schools. In contrast, the SUNY system was, by design, intended to appeal only to those who could not afford to attend private (primarily liberal arts) colleges. In fact, that was the promise made to the private schools-a condition of approving the founding of SUNY. New York State was the very last state to establish a public school system and it did so (not to offer the very best education available but) to offer one that was merely adequate and that was expressly for students from low income families. This is not my opinion; This is history. And, nobody who knows the history would disagree.
"The state university made its inauspicious beginning in 1949 as a 29-unit creature with 11 teachers college for a back-bone. IN the university's pocket was an agreement with the private institutions: No four-year liberal arts colleges-except Harpur at Binghamton-would be needed for "approximately a decade".
"Griping the university's heart was the persistent feeling that the then 87 private colleges and universities would continue to include the distinguished, the first-rate, the "quality" institutions in the state. The state university would "supplement" them." (quote from Farber's article-see below)
Further, while the original agreement was for 10 years, the constraints, including the prohibition over establishing an endowment, continued far longer. Further, restrictions in funding, partly driven by the legislators who had vested interest in the private schools, ensured a bare bones system. And, yes other states have funding issues but most were not developed with that as a goal.
Read:
M.A. Farber’s article "Education for All by 1974 is goal of state university. In NY Times June 6, 1966 page 1.
Benjamin Fine’s article "Master plan offers prospect of early start on $200 Million State University. New York Times. Jan 22 1950 p139.
It is difficult to analyze State flagship attendance and desirability without looking at finances. A state like NJ, Conn, or Mass have a lot of wealthier areas. Kids in those areas come from “better” high schools and those with good stats may have enough money to go to privates or OOS publics. Other kids end up out of state because they don’t get into the State flagship. Kids with less money but good stats may take the scholarship money at the in-state public or even be full pay there rather than paying more for a private or OOS public.
The one NMF finalist at my daughters school is going to attend The University of Houston, of the approximately 10 NMSF - 1 to the Air Force Academy, 1 to TAMU, 2 to UT-Austin, 1 to MIT, 1 to TCU and 2 to Baylor. Most kids who are auto accept at UT - Austin or TAMU take it., so far I have only heard 1 kids going to Rice. Baylor scoops a lot of the top 10 or 20. Val last year went to Baylor.