Mount Holyoke or Community College?

College Search & Selection
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<p>Hey guys,</p>

<p>Due to fairly tumultuous personal and academic circumstances, I no longer attend college. Truth be told, I am terrified of the current job market and know so many fresh grads struggling to get placement in what they want. I have friends at urban colleges who don't seem to share the same sentiment, largely because of the vast array of resources available in their respective locations.<br>
Ideally, I want to lose myself in rigorous study of the liberal arts and gain work experience [who doesn't?] but my academic foundation is faulty.</p>

<p>I had roughly a 2.8-3.3 GPA, 1680ish SAT and never picked up a book in high school. My usual routine [throughout all four years, mind you] consisted of passively sitting in classrooms half-asleep, turning in half-assed work (except in my English and history classes, lololol), going home and watching reruns of Glee and Greek with a bag of popcorn in my lap. </p>

<p>I was astonished to find out that any school, especially a "7 Sister" one, could accept someone with such bad marks as me. </p>

<p>I also want to explore various (hopefully high-paying) jobs in the ever-changing media, entertainment and tech sectors, dreaming of an executive career in marketing, market research or something of the like.</p>

<p>However, I know that with my current habits, my lofty dreams are incredibly unlikely to come true.</p>

<p>Should I go back to college? Will Mt. Holyoke prepare me well for what I want, or would I possess a better set of advantages at schools like NYU, Columbia, USC, Loyola Marymount, Fordham, Barnard, Occidental, BU, Tulane, Vandy and/or UCLA? </p>

<p>I want to major in communications. Ideally, I'd pick up a second major in statistics, but for now, I'm planning to take a bunch of math courses to supplement a comm major.<br>
That's another thing- MHC doesn't have a comm major in place- I'd have to head over to UMass for most related classes and work out a special major with the admins. </p>

<p>Or should I stick it out at a junior college and transfer? Thoughts?</p>

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<p>Not trying to discount the value of an all-women’s education, but the vast majority of Seven Sister schools are incredibly easy to get into (except Smith + Wellesley- they’re a little harder.) If you can make the cut for schools like UC Santa Barbara, University of Florida, SUNY Purchase, or UC Davis, Mount Holyoke and similar schools will be a walk in the park to gain admission to. </p>

<p>No idea why girls with 4.1+ GPAs are stressing over getting in.</p>

<p>Now… getting a full ride? That’s a different story. Probably a bit harder, but still doable. </p>

<p>Don’t listen to the elitist naysayers who claim Mount Holyoke is some gem of enlightenment, the Harvard of women’s colleges or whatever else. I’ve come across a handful of young women who scraped by with 2’s on AP tests and 2.5 HS GPAs, and got in just fine. And a lot of them have stayed in. Hopefully that speaks volumes about how ‘rigorous’ it is. </p>

<p>And just for the record… I got into Mount Holyoke and chose to go based on a high school record of a 4.0 HS GPA, 3.2 college GPA [CAME OUT TO ROUGHLY 3.0, but I got a 2.9 my second semester of senior year…] and by LITERALLY GOING HOME EVERY DAY TO WATCH HULU RERUNS AND EAT POPCORN ALL DAY. I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING ANYONE.</p>

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<p>These two posts, taken together, make no sense. Are you just trying out different stories?</p>

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<p>What doesn’t make sense about the two posts to you? </p>

<p>The point about the HS/college GPA- I went to an alternative HS program and took comm. college courses in high school, so I had a separate transcript for my HS-credited courses and college ones. </p>

<p>But for the record, I wish I could say I’m trying out different stories. But I’m not.
I simply perused CC and saw a thread of anxious, eager girls ‘chancing’ themselves for the likes of MHC, Bryn Mawr, Smith, etc. who are wayyyy overqualified in my opinion.</p>

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<p>CONFUSED - is there a question here?</p>

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<p>seems like a slam against the seven sisters.</p>

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<p>@maidenMom: Look down below at the OP, there is a question. Is it a better deal to go with the trad. 4-year path at a 7sister like Mt. Holyoke or would a junior college be a better option, since clearly I got in by doing…nothing. Would it be better to work my butt off locally, save money and get into a school that reflects my “true potential”, so to speak?</p>

<p>@MAdad: No, actually. This isn’t a slam against the Seven Sisters- this is a slam against the people who believe it still retains the same prestige it did fifty odd years ago (when traditional Smithies married Harvard men, etc.)</p>

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<p>To clarify, you received a 4.0 GPA in high school, attended college (community college) and received a 2.8-3.2 GPA, and are now reapplying as a transfer student? </p>

<p>You seem to have formed very definite opinions about the academics at Mount Holyoke and all the remaining Seven Sisters schools. If you feel such strong disdain for the school’s academic program and believe that Mount Holyoke is beneath your “true potential”, I’m not sure why you’re asking whether or not you should attend.</p>

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<p>@Pavlovian: I don’t feel strong disdain for the school’s academic program, nor do I think MHC is ‘below me’, so to speak. I don’t understand why it’s so great if they let in someone with grades and scores as low as mine (and others too!)</p>

<p>Sorry if I offended some people here. I know my post came across as kinda ******y.</p>

<p>I’m sure MHC can be a great place for anyone to grow, but I don’t know if it would be worth it to go back and flourish (or not…) </p>

<p>Why do people think I’m attacking the academics of the school? If anything, I’m taking a blow to the admissions process. It’s too easy to get in, given the historical prestige of the schools.</p>

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<p>“I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.”</p>

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<p>Hmm might have my kid apply…</p>

<p>Not sure what to tell YOU though - go? don’t go? You gotta care about yourself sweetie maybe they saw something in your application that they thought you would benefit from (a holistic admissions approach).</p>

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<p>Love this post though, and think it’s normal to soul search a bit especially when you KNOW you are underperforming…</p>

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<p>Maybe MHC’s holistic admissions process happened to pick up on the fact that you were underperforming (as opposed to producing mediocre results with your best efforts) and thought that you were the kind of woman who might blossom and reach her potential at their college?</p>

<p>My SIL is an MHC alumna. She and her friends (and, yes, they still gather and travel together some 20 years after graduation – post “7 Sisters are Lady Ivies because the Ivies Fear Women” era, but long enough ago that her enduring connections are impressive) are some of the most intellectually engaged and interesting women I know. I went to a NESCAC LAC during the same period, one that statistically appears to be a more challenging admissions game…and, I tell you, the MHC women I know are easily the intellectual peers of men and women I know who have attended schools like Middlebury, Bates, Colby, Trinity, etc. </p>

<p>Sorry, but for all the “Community College is just fine!” posting on CC? You can’t legitimately compare what you’ll get from an MHC to a Community college.</p>

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<p>@BossyMommy I appreciate the input and am glad you know a Seven Sister grad on par with you intellectually.<br>
However, as times get tough and the likes of MoHo, Smith, Bryn Mawr, etc. lose funding and appeal to the mainstream college-bound crowd (esp. MoHo- if you look closely, they’ve been SLIPPING in rankings pretty steadily), they’ll take whatever they can get. MoHo may have attracted the best and the brightest 10-15 years ago, but I highly doubt it does today.</p>

<p>I can name literally 10 girls (classmates) at the top of my head who had less than a 4.0 (weighted, that is…) by taking less than 6 AP or college-level classes TOTAL. </p>

<p>[TOTAL= by the time HS graduation rolled around (not by semester, mind you…I know some current Ivy students who took 6-7 APs per quarter/semester/trimester…crazy right?)]</p>

<p>Nowadays you barely have a shot at a top 20 school (both universities and LACs) without a minimum 4.2, unless you come from abject poverty- colleges love rewarding brainy, talented, hardworking disadvantaged students with unlimited incentives to enroll.</p>

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<p>@Californya The rakings that MoHo is dropping is the US News and World. In the rakings they take into account the increase in tuition every year. MoHo has not raised the tuition, thus they are penalized for that. Last year the admission rate was 42%; each year the admitt rate has dropped. </p>

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<p>@greengriffins How do you know that Us News takes tuition raises into account? Am I to believe that a higher-ranked school is such partly because they charge more for tuition? </p>

<p>If that was the case, why has NYU’s ranking dropped several places in the last few years? They </p>

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<p>have a pretty solid rep for outrageous tuition and fees (not to mention their ranking as #1 school with highest rate of student debt in the US.</p>

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<p>Californya: the reality is that as long as you have 6-8 AP’s (or if your school offers 5 or fewer, have taken all of them), how many more you take doesn’t matter, they move on to other criteria. Yes, even Ivies. So, those kids you speak about? They’re totally fine. Taking 6 or 7 APs in a year is O_O. In fact, some adcoms think that stockpiling AP classes when you could take a further level at your local community college isn’t that impressive for what it reveals of your approach to education. Same principle as kids who retake the SAT five times.
In the same way, some colleges look at academic rigor and potential. They may have seen you for what you were able to do, not for what you see in yourself even now.
It’s also dubious you could go from a community college to one of the college you name, since they admit very, very few transfers and those may be lateral (from other 4-year colleges).
However if you want a lot of homework you could try transferring to Reed ot Swarthmore :)</p>

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<p>@MYOS1634 Haha, thank you for the kind words. I’d love to think that maybe they just examined me closely and “saw potential” (whatever that actually means), but frankly I received little to no financial aid from the school. I knew kids from wealthier neighborhoods who received better aid packages and wondered whether or not Mt. Holyoke just needed me for the money. I also heard through the grapevine that MHC accepts many young women, yet notoriously gives out little aid to “typical middle class students…” (don’t know what this means…)</p>

<p>Also, the retention rate from last year was REALLY crappy… I’m talking 65% (from 2012-13 school year)</p>

<p>LOL but Mt. Holyoke would never post that on its website…</p>

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<p>@Californya Where did you get the 65% retention rate? On MoHo’s common data set it lists it as 89%. NYU has been rasing their tution every year. It’s the increase that is taken into accout.
MoHo gives out a lot of finaid even to the middle class.</p>