<p>Myth- I am ambivalent on the question of paying more for “elite” undergrad since there are so many variables. On the subject of law schools there are many fewer variables. If your D is at all in the running for a top 14 law school she needs to run those numbers-- and the calculus is very, very different than it was when deciding how much debt to take on for undergrad.</p>
<p>I am watching so many young lawyers and law students struggling to find work right now-- and although there are no guarantees in life, the career opportunities at the very top schools seem so disproportionate to what is available even a tier down from that.</p>
<p>So assuming your D could be a full freight payer at Columbia might mean generous merit aid at Northwestern or Cornell law school. She needs to take a hard look at her career options coming from an “elite” law school vs. everywhere else.</p>
<p>I know too many young people struggling with high debt from “middle of the road” law schools-- the alumni networks aren’t very helpful, there isn’t a strong pipeline of grads who populate the clerkships and the DA offices or the DOJ (all very important if your D is interested in public sector law), and the top firms have cut back their hiring targets at all but the top schools.</p>
<p>But she should evaluate the debt on the margin and not the absolute.</p>
<p>FAMM, you put your finger on one of the reasons I would take a hard look at <em>some</em> private school options (not all): the peer component.</p>
<p>I’ll inevitably step on some toes here but D took a class this past year at American U. to knock off a class that will be expected she have when she applies to some grad programs (different undergrad degrees than grad field). The “on it” factor between what she was used to at her T20 LAC and American was staggering. She was royally ****ed at having spent $3K for a class where all but one of her classmates were grade grubbers not interested in the material but in getting their tickets punched. She was accustomed to students not only being engaged with the class but continuing discussions & arguments outside of class. Here, the poor prof was trying to teach via the Socratic method and D got tired of being the only one who would raise her hand.</p>
<p>It didn’t occur to me until after D had graduated but after listening to quite a few tales, here’s a quick-and-dirty litmus test for the rigor of the academic environment: how many tests are given via Scantron forms? More relevant than student/faculty ratio, imho. (The best answer is “zero.”)</p>
<p>===</p>
<p>MM: funny you should say that. For years, I prayed every night that I would become a singer. One morning I woke up and I was a sewing machine.</p>
<p>S took a course at SUNY this summer because he was 3 credits short after being told to drop a class because he wasn’t going to pass (good think he decided to change his major.)</p>
<p>He got an A+ for doing work that he says would earn him a C- at best at Williams. Now it wasn’t that he wouldn’t do better work; it’s all that was asked of them. Short answer tests, etc, in a field that he would have worked really hard for a B and been beyond ecstatic if by some miracle he could have earned a A- with a really thoughtful, well done paper.</p>
<p>This was a blessing for a summer course, though, because now he knows he can ace things; he’s just being asked to perform at a MUCH different level, and thank goodness.</p>
<p>blossom: D is not at that level. He desire is NYU; more realistic is Fordham. (She wants to come back to NY.)</p>
<p>She wants public interest law and not corporate law. How would she pay her huge loans if she goes to Fordham and does public interest law? CUNY is advertising themselves as a strong program for public interest. Is that just propaganda? She would be happy to be a DA and work at that level. She does not want a corporate experience at all.</p>
<p>“CUNY is advertising themselves as a strong program for public interest.”</p>
<p>Ask them very specifically about placement. Ask a few lawyers who are working in public interest where they earned their degrees, and where the network for that kind of job is built up.</p>
<p>I disagree with parents that say you should visit schools during the week, that are known to empty out on the weekend or have nothing much going on during the weekend. I view this as deceitful at best and downright self serving at the very least. I would allow your daughter to apply where ever she wants as long as she has a full and complete understanding about the financial situation. As I said earlier, your daughter has done very well without the benefit of having the cash flying her way and she deserves a shot at the best possible outcome. It does not hurt to apply and her school guidance councelor should have made the fee waivers available to her.
These pricey schools ARE NOT earmarked only for the wealthy. I think there are still many people that see need here and would say there is nothing wrong with her going to a CC and then transfer to a state. This young lady is not CC material or some of the other schools that are being considered. Just give her the opportunity for the very best school that she could get into and what you could afford—She needs to take the chance and apply to the more selective schools where the money is.</p>
<p>momma-three: I respect your points, absolutely. And I don’t mean to be the PC police, but I will assert that I have some brilliant students at the community college where I teach.</p>
<p>It’s true that it is an exceptional and well respected school, but colleagues on the faculty have advanced degrees from Columbia, Yale, Brown and other very good programs.</p>
<p>My S, who attends Williams, sat in on a mythological class I was teaching and expressed admiration for the class discussion. I think the discussion was a bit freer, the kids less concerned about the impression they were making.</p>
<p>So, I know you meant only to support the OP and her daughter, but I thought I give a shout out to community college kids.</p>
<p>In fact, the new president of Mount Holyoke started her career at community college.</p>
<p>For most, a good four year school would be preferable, but for some, community college is a great launching pad for illustrious academic and professional careers.</p>
<p>i taught many years at a pretty good cc. Yes, there were some excellent students but I would not recommend that experience for high scoring low income apps. Your best chance is to get into the best college you can, directly after high school and make the most of your 4 years there.</p>
<p>RE top law schools and public interest law-- It depends on the state of the legal profession once your daughter is thinking about going to law school- but at this moment public interest law is a really hot field bc so many corporate lawyers are getting delayed start dates. Friends at HLS are having some difficulty finding public interest jobs, and they are really only hiring from the t14</p>
<p>“I disagree with parents that say you should visit schools during the week, that are known to empty out on the weekend or have nothing much going on during the weekend.”</p>
<p>momma, can you say something about why you think a weekend visit is better? I, for one, think sitting in on classes is the single best aspect of a visit for a prospie to learn about a school’s educational culture.</p>
<p>Yes vossron, I think when schools that are “known to be” empty during the weekend should be seen during the week but also on the weekend. There were many schools that we visited as many as three times to really understand the culture of the school. Many of the New Jersey state or private schools do empty out on the weekend or else have very little going on. I also believe that the decision to select the place where you are spending four years should mean that you have a really good view of the campus at different days in the week. I guess that is why I always liked Friday visits that allowed us to stay over in the nearby town. We would go to the restaurants that students went to and of course chat with as many people as posssible.
If a student is going to a known great school, I actually think the classroom visits are less important than the “feel” of the school because you know what you are getting so to speak. When the school is of the average type, than a student really needs to see it all. I remember revisiting a state school after my daughter was accepted and she told us to send in the deposit. We sent in the deposit but something was just not hitting we right,so we went back on a Friday night and I was a bit nervous to even walk around the campus. My daughter looked horrified and that week we decided that she would not attend that school. This school had her intended major but there was no way it was a school for daughter.</p>
<p>I recommend visiting during the school week (not weekends or summer) for other reasons. </p>
<p>I like a student to be able to “sit in” a class or two. </p>
<p>I also like to see how the kids dress for class - this gives some insight to the school’s culture - preppy, laid-back, etc.</p>
<p>Also, even “residential campuses” can look rather dead when classes aren’t in session. College kids tend to “sleep in” on weekends (oh yeah!!!). Colleges that have weekend activities are usually busy at night (not during “tour times” in the morning or early afternoon). Usually only on a “home game day” are kids running around campus on a Saturday during the daytime hours. </p>
<p>Residential kids often go off-campus on weekends to explore the college town. </p>
<p>Even at residential schools, campus venues operate on reduced hours because kids sleep in, they eat off-campus, etc.</p>
<p>So, if the concern is about “deceit” - it’s better to simply know ahead of time whether a school is a suitcase or commuter school. If neither is desired, cross it off your list and don’t visit at all.</p>
<p>a bit more about sleeping in on weekends…my sis recently went to parents weekend at Vandy. The school hosted a brunch. Most of the kids slept thru it; the parents enjoyed the brunch sans kids. LOL</p>
<p>“Suitcase” reputations, in particular, can be misleading. For instance, I have a friend at TCNJ, in-state, who lives on campus and is happy. They have a housing shortage for upperclassmen.</p>
<p>I’m a fan of Fri-Sat visits. Sit in on a class and go to admissions stuff on Friday, a weekday with full programming; you’ll also see what Friday night is like. Then Saturday afternoon there ought to be students sunning on the quad if it’s nice out, etc. If a school is only bustling on a “home game day,” that says something else about the school’s culture (emphasis on sports, usually football, and perhaps less enthusiasm for alternative events).</p>
<p>True about kids on a Saturday afternoon sunning or playing Frisbee. We have seen that pretty regularly when the weather is decent. But, often, many weekend campus activities are evening events (campus concerts, etc - these aren’t going on during the day) The exception is typically sporting events. </p>
<p>But, if a person tours on a Saturday morning while most of the students have only been asleep for about 3 hours ( ), you’re not going to see much campus action til about 1pm when the sleepyheads wander out of bed looking for their caffeine fix ( ).</p>
<p>However, as I said, you’re not going to get a real taste for a campus when you visit on a day that classes aren’t in session. If the concern is that your out-of-the-area kid is going to be lonely on weekends, it’s more important to find out if many/most students leave the campus on Friday afternoons and don’t return until Sunday night.</p>
<p>There are 2 sides to the coin. My son also saw the contrast between education at an elite LAC and at a 2nd-tier state university (CSU, roughly equivalent to most SUNY’s). Yes, the work was much harder at the LAC, the academic expectations higher. But there was an advantage to being a top performer at a publicly-funded university as well. After he transferred, my son was able to take a heavier course load and qualify for honors and special recognition that he never would have earned at his first college. He successfully petitioned to waive some of the introductory courses required for his major and substitute higher level seminars geared to seniors in his major, and the upper level courses were somewhat more challenging. He shifted his major to something slightly more practical - and more conventional – and within 2 weeks of graduating he had a good-paying job appropriate for that degree. And no debt to worry about – particularly valuable as it now turns out that he is getting married and soon will have a wife & kid to support. </p>
<p>So yes, you can get a “better” education at a top school – but is it $50K or $100K “better”? Is it worth a significant amount of debt? Or is my son better off for having ended up taking a more practical route, at a public university more geared to preparing its students for the world of employment rather than the world of academia?</p>
<p>calmom: I’m sure you’re right. And believe me, it was a relief to my S to see that he’d see a solid A ever again.</p>
<p>But he does want to go into academia, God help him. The SUNY course was ridiculous even if very appreciated. And I doubt if it was typical of the school either. Bad, lazy teacher over the summer teaching somewhat out of her own discipline wanting to put in as little as possible. I know this is not the case for most of the teachers there.</p>
<p>Still, it was an eye opener.</p>
<p>And truth be told, sometimes I think the grading policies at a school like Williams crush the spirits of the kids.</p>
I’d just point out that there are bad teachers everywhere – my d. has a few “bad teacher” tales from Barnard & Columbia. (Some of which are easily confirmed with a quick visit to CULPA). And my son had a handful of CSU teachers who he described as "amazing’ and “brilliant” – as well as his own CSU bad teacher stories. </p>
<p>I think some of the best and most devoted teachers are to be found on community college campuses --(they certainly aren’t there for the money! - so love of teaching their field is often the primary draw). And there’s a burnout factor that often means that some of the most highly respected scholars don’t do a good job teaching their classes, especially after having taught a number of years – they may simply go through the motions of repeating the same lectures they have given dozens of time before, administering the same recycled exams along the way. </p>
<p>My daughter’s personal experience has been that her best teachers at Barnard were all adjunct profs, rather than full tenured profs. When she told me that, I did some thinking and realized that my most memorable college and law school instructors were also adjuncts. That’s not to say that adjuncts are better than tenured profs in general – but it may be that they are less prone to that burnout factor as they may be teaching only one class each semester rather than a full course load. </p>
<p>Anyway, I’m sure you can think of at least one community college prof who is pretty darn good … if you look in the mirror. ;)</p>
<p>Calmom: D had the opposite experience. Her favorite teacher was the chair of her department, and D became her research assistant.</p>
<p>Thank you for the sweet compliment. I am devoted to my students. No, money isn’t the factor – it’s the relationships I have with them and the idea that I can really do good for these students.</p>
<p>Yes, I know there are bad teachers everywhere. And I don’t hold this one teacher against Stony Brook. And as I said, S was very, very happy not ot have to write papers over the summer. Since he was working and got his license, it was great.</p>
<p>^^^^^ True, most formal “events” happen at night. But an active campus should have lots of kids participating in casual fun, too, on a Saturday afternoon (not morning). If most kids choose a sporting event over casual fun, that’s indicative of school culture and something you may/may not want. JMHO.</p>
<p>Sorry for my delay in answering; Im busy working OT, and Im totally exhausted when I come home from work. I havent had much time to go over college stuff with my D, but I did use a mommy choice when I had her apply to Fairleigh Dickinson. She qualifies for a full-tuition scholarship, based on her grades and SAT scores. Plus, she would get the New Jersey Tuition Aid Grant, along with federal grants. I already mentioned Seton Hall, which she applied to, as well. She also applied to Drexel, but I know they dont meet 100% of need. </p>
<p>I suggested Richmond (she only wants to consider schools with International Relations or Global Studies majors), even though its a reach. However, it does offer generous institutional grants. Shes still thinking about that. Also, she still wants to apply to Virginia or William & Mary, but she hasnt applied to them yet. Its hard to offer suggestions, since she has a geographical limit (the northeast; nothing south of Virginia; nothing north of Mass; nothing west of Pennsylvania). Shes still considering TCNJ, though.</p>
<p>Plus, with the problems with noncustodial parent issues, she needs schools that dont ask for that information. I cannot get professional third-party verification, which is what some schools require for a waiver of the noncustodial parents financial info. There are significantly more schools that dont require that info than ones that do (the 3 shes applied to are FAFSA only), thankfully. </p>
<p>However, shes stated in the past couple of days that shes upset that schools such as NYU dont offer more aid, so hopefully shes starting to realize what kind of financial burden it would be to borrow heavily</p>
<p>I don’t know how to advise my D, sometimes. She wants to major in international relations/studies, and wants to attend grad school. But she believes that she needs to attend a more highly-ranked school in order to get into grad school, so it would be more “worth it” to get into debt in order to attend one. Does it really affect a person’s career if someone wants to work in IR, but attends a lesser-known school as an undergraduate? Isn’t it more important to have excellent undergraduate grades and GRE scores, or does the brand-name of a school really affect grad school admissions? </p>
<p>On a totally different note, I am sometimes made to feel guilty by some people because I won’t borrow on my D’s behalf, and I won’t cosign for any private loans. I really cannot afford to add any monthly payments on top of the bills that I already have. I’m a recent graduate of nursing school, and I’m currently paying that off. Plus, I don’t have any family members who can help my D financially. I really, really wish I could help my D out more with money, but I’ve only recently started earning an income that will allow that. I worked for years as a nursing assistant before becoming a nurse, and it’s a low-income job. I wish I could have saved more money to help her, and I do feel bad about that. </p>
<p>Concerning college, all I want is for my D to get a great education, a job that she enjoys, and to not be burdened with student loan debt (and credit card debt). Also, I believe she can get a great education or job at numerous schools that are second, third, or fourth-tier (according to the rankings), in addition to ones in the Top 100.</p>
), you’re not going to see much campus action til about 1pm when the sleepyheads wander out of bed looking for their caffeine fix (