Specifically my mom. I tell her I’d like to apply to Amherst or Brown, and she tells me “I don’t like Brown. Why don’t you apply to better schools? Okay, you’re applying to Columbia, UPenn, Princeton, etc.”
She understands that things like location and majors matter, but when it comes down to it, she’s going to choose solely based on rankings. For example, if it was between Amherst or UChicago, she’d definitely try to make me go to UChicago. How can I convince her that that’s not the only thing that matters? My dad is pretty ambivalent and apathetic about all of this - he doesn’t want to upset my mom, and he wants me to somewhat make my decisions, but he also thinks rankings are important.
You need 2 things. A way to map out the way to make decisions that everyone can agree on, and a way to sell that approach. I suggest 2 books that can help you here. The first is "Getting More: How to Negotiate to Achieve Your Goals in the Real World " by Stuart Diamond. It isn’t magic, just say these 5 things and people are putty in your hands, but a well-presented way to negotiate fairly but firmly. Incidentally the suggestion about agreeing how to decide is one of the ideas he presents; when dealing with a more powerful party they can hardly object to choices made using their own rules about making those choices. If you want to see a summary he presented in a talk at Google watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOZo6Lx70ok (not a substitute for the whole book, though)
So what is that way to make decisions that isn’t just “look up the rankings”? You’ll find it in any good book about college admissions. Its understanding different types of colleges and dimensions on which colleges differ, how to select colleges that are a fit, understanding college finances, what to look for on college visits, ordinary stuff like that. Read one of these books and you’ll learn something, they’ll learn something. And you turn what has been so far an adversarial process into one you and your parents both believe in – find the best set of colleges for you. One book I recommend is “Admission Matters” (http://www.admissionmatters.com/); there are many others.
Looking at this and the others in your post, maybe you and mom both have prestige in your eyes…
Sounds like your mom goes for the literal off-the street name. College rankings (USWNR) isn’t the end all be all. Look at it this way. UChicago may impress the friends at the barbecue when your parents brag about how their child got in, but guess what the friends aren’t impressed about?
The debt.
Don’t just go off the name. If the name offers you a financially doable option, fine. But for the most part, it’s the smaller, not as prestigious places that give you the best bang for your buck. Especially if you’re going to grad school, it doesn’t matter where you go undergrad and it’s important that you save as much as possible.
I would tell your parents that while rankings may be important (you don’t want to just drop a bomb and tell them they’re not important!) the quality of the college, the financial compatibility, and your opinion matter too. If they’re paying though, you should listen to their input.
I grew up in Massachusetts, where Amherst probably enjoyed greater prestige than Chicago. Its acceptance rate is somewhat higher now, at 14%, but it is very different. Can you explain that you would prefer the rural, New England setting over Chicago? Do your parents also appreciate how brutally competitive the admissions process is, and that gaining admission to any of the colleges you mentioned is exceedingly difficult? Do they think that all but a tiny percentage of college-bound American students are utter losers? The President started at Occidental (although he graduated from Columbia). The Vice President went to Syracuse and University of Delaware. Parents who scoff at Brown and Amherst sound like parents who live in an alternative reality.
This is a little confusing… ask her to look at the LAC rankings. And realistically, you need some match & safety schools, too. So I’d say you should apply to a few reaches if you can get her to agree to them, then busy yourself with figuring out the rest of your list (making sure you have a couple that are truly affordable where you are almost sure to get in, and you would be willing to attend). The decision may be made for your mom, since those tippy top schools are really hard to get into anyway. Other things that might sway her: your GC, any relative who can talk sense into her, Naviance information for your high school, and the net price calculators on each school’s website.
All of the colleges you have mentioned above are exceptional. As noted above colleges like this belong on your list if you are a very strong student but you should also have safety and target colleges that you would be perfectly happy to attend. My wife at various points in time has expressed an opinion about this or that college based solely on anecdotal things she may have heard over the years which may be worse than going by USNWR. The question really is which college is better for you given your interests, way of learning and intended major. U.Chicago has a core curriculum while Brown is almost completely unstructured. Both are really great schools but if you want to study Egyptology or Astronomy freshman year, that’s going to be difficult at U.Chicago. While USNWR might list a college as Number 1 University or Number 1 LAC, your challenge is finding number 1 college for You given your unique academic interests and frankly financial situation. If you qualify for significant financial aid and you can get in, any of the Ivy League colleges are top LAC’s are great. If your family income is too high to qualify for financial aid you should consider also exceptional pulbic colleges like William & Mary or private colleges that give a lot of merit scholarships one or two steps down as you may have Law School or Med School to worry about later
I would suggest you apply to some of those schools your mom likes, and some that you like. She may not have a realistic idea of what it takes nowadays to get into top colleges. Nor does she seem to have knowledge of what most people deem top colleges. Pointing out the latter to her probably won’t help much, but every student needs safety schools. She can certainly (I hope) understand that. I don’t know that Brown is a safety school for many, by the way.
Lets face it. Since so many high stats kids don’t make it into Ivies, they are reaches for EVERYONE who applies. Everyone needs a safety both a school you will be happy with and has the program you want and that your parents can afford. That is very short sighted to just apply to reaches.
Did your Mom attend a highly (top 20) rated university/college? If not then the dialog that the two of you are having is quite typical. The real challenge is to end up with 2 or more acceptances at those highly rated colleges. Then the discussion about “which” one is best for me will have substance.
Challenge your mom to find some official rankings. Maybe you can tell her you like the Forbes Magazine rankings better than US News, Brown is 13, Chicago 24 and .Amherst 10 http://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/list/
The only rankings that exist are in order to sell magazines. When my daughter went to Brown, it was ‘ranked’ over Chicago. Now that Chicago has a big marketing program to get more applicants so they can turn down more it makes it go up in the rankings a little. Does that make it a better college all of a sudden? Did she choose wrong because it moved down? What will your mom do if the one she picks for you moves down later? Although Brown did make some error last year in the reporting which made it go down a little in the US News list, all top 30 schools are more than excellent. Even farther down the list is very excellent. It is ridiculous to split hairs. The Ivys and Amherst have long been considered elite schools and if your mom is a snob about only some of them being good enough for her I don’t know how to communicate with such a person. You have to make a deal, she picks one, you pick next.
“Did your Mom attend a highly (top 20) rated university/college? If not then the dialog that the two of you are having is quite typical. The real challenge is to end up with 2 or more acceptances at those highly rated colleges. Then the discussion about “which” one is best for me will have substance.”
I don’t think that’s “typical” at all. Here on CC, at least, those of us parents who attended elite colleges are often most likely to beat the drum of “there are quite a few excellent schools, and the differences between them are nowhere near as large as slavish following of USNWR seems to imply.” It’s not we are who doing the “#8 is superior to #11 which is vastlysuperior to #16 and at #21 you might as well go to community college” nonsense. It’s those who DON’T have experience with elite schools.
Thanks guys.
Of course I’ve got other safeties like state schools, etc. But if it comes down to it, she’s going to make me go to the school with more prestige. She doesn’t consider LACs as “real” schools other than Williams. She’s very particular about reputation and loves to brag to her friends, and that’s not anything I can change. This is affecting college visits, my college search process, etc. I just hope things will be better when it comes time to actually choose colleges…
Both posters are saying the SAME thing. Basically, that anyone who has been through the elite school tumbler may have a better perspective than someone who has not. Is that about right?
In my experience, the parents obsessed with highly selective schools did not attend one or even come close. They are either trying to live through their kids or are clueless about the realities of higher Ed or both.
There are also wealthy parents for whom kids’ college is another object of consumption to brag about. These families often think that Williams is the only LAC that’s equal to HYPSM and won’t budge.
An issue, of course, is that those schools are so impossible to get into that OP may be shut out. There has to be a compromise between top 10 and the state university (unless we’re talking UCs, in which case UCB/UCLA/UCSD have become crapshoots too).
I have a very different perspective most likely because I live in a very different class of people. I really don’t see “prestige” qualifying the education one gets. I feel that it is the individual that takes advantage of the education available that most affects what they learn and their outcomes. The one thing that won’t be replicated at a state university or less prestigious LAC is the stats of the incoming class. The outcomes of similar quality of students will likely be similar regardless of the university. I think sometimes both students and parents can either flat out disagree with me on this and believe that the more prestigious the university the better the education and outcome, be ignorant of the fact that studies have shown that the quality of the student affects outcomes more than the institution, or be so concerned what others might think that it truly doesn’t matter to them what the outcomes will be.