Need your opinions: which college to go?

Parent Cafe
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<p>My daughter got accepted to all the colleges she applied. Now we need to decide which one to attend. Here are the colleges and their pros and cons IMO. They are listed in the order of their admission dates.</p>

<p>UC Irvin: Biological Sciences major. Pros: regent’s scholarship ($9,000/academic year, $1,500/summer, renewable), Campus Honors Program (honors academic counseling, small honor classes, priority enrollment, 4-year housing, research opportunity…). Cons: far from home (6+ hour driving), relative low ranking (US News: 40th overall, 10th public).</p>

<p>UCLA: Biochemistry major. Pros: relative high ranking (25th overall, and 3rd public), nice campus. Cons: very competitive, far from home (5+ hour driving), not in honors or getting scholarship.</p>

<p>UC Davis: Biomedical Engineering major. Pros: regent’s scholarship ($7,500/academic year, renewable), IS Honors Program (similar to but slightly less than UCI’s, e.g., priority enrollment starts at 2nd quarter, 1 year honor housing…), close to home (2 hour driving). Cons: relative low ranking (48th overall, 15th public).</p>

<p>UCSD: Bioengineering: Premed. Pros: strong major (2nd or 3rd in Biomedical Engineering). Cons: farthest from home (7+ hour driving), not in honors or getting scholarship.</p>

<p>UCB: Molecular Cell Biology major. Pros: high ranking (20th overall, 1st public), closest to home (1 hour driving). Cons: cut-throat competitive, not in honors or getting scholarship.</p>

<p>Background information on my daughter: Very focused, highly self-motivated and hard working. 4.0 UW and 4.5 W GPA for sophomore and junior years (those are what UC counts). In addition to 9 AP’s, have finished 9 college classes and are taking two more at CC, including 4 math and 3 chemistry classes. 1 B and all others A. She plans to go to medical school.</p>

<p>Our family has discussed on which college to attend many times but with no conclusions. My daughter has always set UCB as her college goal since elementary school mainly due to its academic reputation and proximity to home. But recently we have read lots of discussions on medical school admission, and found out that college GPA is more a selection criterion than the reputation of the undergraduate college. We have this feeling (maybe not true?) that it will be very difficult to maintain a high GPA at Cal due to the extreme competitiveness.</p>

<p>Money is a factor, but not a determining factor. We can afford the costs of any of the five colleges if needed. However, considering the huge tuition of 4-year medical school, any saving for undergraduate will be a reduction to my daughter's debt if she gets into medical school. </p>

<p>Actually my biggest concern is on my daughter’s physical and mental health. The by-products of her dedication to academics are her self-imposed stress/anxiety and less-than-ideal social life IMO. We’d like to see her successful academically, but would even more like to see her enjoy her life more happily. We want her to go to a college with a friendly and relaxing environment, if it exists among these 5 colleges (my undergraduate experience was in another country). We’d also like to visit her often, especially during her first year of college.</p>

<p>So far may daughter has attended the Honors Day Experience at UCI and the Welcome Reception meeting of UCLA at a local hotel. She will attend the Regent’s day at UCD and the Calday at UCB. We have not made any plan to go to UCSD or UCLA. They are far away and we briefly toured their campuses last summer. At the beginning she applied to UCI only because she received the guaranteed admission from UCI. However, she started liking their Honors Program after we attended their Honors Day Experience. So far she has no clear idea about which college to go.</p>

<p>We'd like to know your experience/opinions/advice.</p>

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<p>What comes with the Honors programs? Research opportunities (first or second year)? Better mentoring? Advising? Summer programs? I see some of that specified for Irvine. Davis?</p>

<p>One shouldn't just be comparing the schools, but what is likely to be her experience of them. It is easy to rank schools (you've already done that), but not so easy to evaluate what an Honors Program might add to the experience.</p>

<p>Being top of your class, with good mentoring, research opportunities, and money saved for med. school (it will be $200k plus by the time she goes) has a lot to say for it.</p>

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<ol>
<li><p>How does your daughter feel about being close to home/far away from home?</p></li>
<li><p>Does she agree that a friendly/relaxing environment would be desirable for her?</p></li>
<li><p>Does she agree that she has "self-imposed stress/anxiety and less-than-ideal social life"?</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>Well, it sounds like you been deeply involved in your daughters academic life. </p>

<p>The schools you've described only define their costs and academic rankings. Academic rankings are deceptive. They're nice to brag about to your relatives, and coworkers, but beyond that there isn't much value to rankings. </p>

<p>Are you not considering college life beyond academics? </p>

<p>I know it's difficult to quantify, but during your visits to each campus did your daughter interact with any current students? Did she get a feel for any clubs she might join? Did she like the area, campus, housing...etc. If she doesn't satisfy these needs, then I doubt a college's ranking is gonna help her get past some of the challenges she faces. </p>

<p>Perhaps it's time to step back a little and let her decide which school she likes best? Letting go is always difficult, but it'll help her develop her own identity.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Actually my biggest concern is on my daughter’s physical and mental health. The by-products of her dedication to academics are her self-imposed stress/anxiety and less-than-ideal social life IMO. We’d like to see her successful academically, but would even more like to see her enjoy her life more happily. We want her to go to a college with a friendly and relaxing environment, if it exists among these 5 colleges (my undergraduate experience was in another country). We’d also like to visit her often, especially during her first year of college.

[/quote]
I think this will best be determined by her visits to EACH college - including the far away ones (I'm thinking that if you can afford any of the colleges, you can afford the visits; apologies if I am incorrect). More importantly, I'm thinking that she will best determine this if parents are in the "deep background" during the visits - ie, not along at all or doing totally different activities and maybe seeing her for just a lunch or dinner or drop-off/pick-up.</p>

<p>Visits plus answers to the questions mini has raised is what I would have her use to decide. Just mho.</p>

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<p>Don't let the distances in California be a big hindrance. From your distances, I take it you live around the Bay Area. I just checked the Southwest Airlines website, and if you book online, you can get tickets from Oakland or San Jose to San Diego for a low as $59 each way! (Gas to drive to SD would probably cost that much, and the flight takes less than 90 minutes.) So for trips home and back during the school year, a little advanced planning can make this very affordable.
[quote]
We’d also like to visit her often, especially during her first year of college.

[/quote]
Just a note on this: you may want to consider why you want to visit her often, and whether this is something she would welcome. Most students are excited to begin their transition into their college careers and a new phase of their lives. It may be more appropriate for her to take a quick flight home to visit you throughout the year, rather than you visiting her at college. Just something to consider and talk about....</p>

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<p>Hi mini, ADad, Spicoli, jmmom, and mootmom,</p>

<p>Thanks for your replies and help. UCI has all the things mini listed. The research opportunities are available to Honors students as soon as they are ready (according to their assistant dean). We don't know much about Davis'. We will find it out on their Regarnt's Schalors Day on April 15. Here is what I found from their web site (only for the freshmen year):</p>

<p>to help high-achieving students integrate knowledge gained from science & engineering, arts & humanities, and social sciences;
to provide excellent teaching for selected freshmen in small, personalized, learning communities;
to provide students with challenging, participatory learning experiences through interdisciplinary approaches;
to provide, within a large research university, an academic residential community similar to those of the best small colleges;
to provide exposure to contemporary scholarly methodology and to encourage students to participate in undergraduate research;
to encourage student-faculty interactions on a more personal level than that realized in many large-classroom learning situations common to public research universities;
to provide effective, personalized advising on academic matters.</p>

<p>ADad has good points. I will talk to her tonight.</p>

<p>Spicoli, jmmom, and mootmom, you all have good points. We do live in the Bay Area. In addition to the campus visit we have planned for UC Davis and UC Berkeley, we should probably plan to visit UC San Deigo, UC Los Angeles, and even again UC Irvine. </p>

<p>The reason we plan to visit her often when college starts is because we may want to see her over a weekend how she is doing. Most likely she will flies home during college breaks. </p>

<p>Of course, it will be mostly her decision after all. But it looks like so far she has no clear preference and wants to have our input. Well, she may have something as time goes on. The Berkeley admission was just posted on line yesterday afternoon.</p>

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<p>Hi, Congrats to your daughter!!! I'm wondering if there is any way she could do some overnights at these schools? If there are students she or your family know, maybe from some activity at her high school last year, could she possibly stay in the dorm with them and attend a couple of classes? My daughter stayed with students who had been in her high school EC with her (one grade ahead of her) at several colleges and it made a huge difference in helping her decide how she felt about colleges. In fact, what had been her top choice on paper became one of her bottom choices after she had stayed there. If the admissions offices at UC's set up overnights for admitted students, that also might be a way to set it up. In our case, these visits were definitely worth missing a few days of high school. Good luck!</p>

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<p>My daughter and her two best friends all went off to college a few years ago thinking pre-med. Their colleges are Cornell, Wash. U and Northwestern. The extreme difficulty and competitiveness of the premed courses (ex: brand new material not found in book or lecture on each chem test) caused them all to wash out.</p>

<p>My alma mater, St. Olaf College, has excellent med school admissions stats for its graduates and the program, though demanding, is much less competitive. My advice to pre-meds who want to be "mere" doctors and don't seek medical research careers at high levels of academia: go to an "easier" school that has good med admissions.</p>

<p>Of course I know there are other factors in your decision. Just my two cents.</p>

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<p>I agree that less competitive atmosphere is better for social life and happiness. She will do better academically, big fish in a small pond theory. Last fall I heard the MD for the Mayor of Boston speak. She said she was glad she went to Wellesley before she hit Harvard Med School. She felt better prepared and more self confident for all the support she had gotten in a more nurturing and less competitive environment.</p>

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<p>CCSurfer, UCI has a stay overnight program but we may have missed the registration already. We will check other colleges.</p>

<p>SuNa and Mizo, you points are very improtant. They are in agreement with what we have learnt from the CC Premed. It looks like UCI and UCD may be good choices.</p>

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<p>SunnySky I think level of competitivness has a very big importance in your D choices. How tough she wants this competition to be? Is she ready to fight for tiniest points? Or she would prefer atmosphere where she competes agains herself?
OTOH, she might need to have around her tons of kids who are smarter than she is and therefor give her enough challenge.
If possible I suggest visit all those schools, maybe shadowing, staying overnight at some of them. While transferring later is not a tragedy it is certainly nicer to find a good fit first time around. You still have time left. At the worst you can send deposits to two schools and over the summer figure things out some more. Most schools do know that over the summer certain procentage of students will change their mind and usually make provision for that.</p>

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<p>Wow! I'm so impressed by your D! congrats</p>

<p>If she wants to go to medical school, I'd suggest UCLA. I know someone who's gone there and I think it offers a lot of good programs to help prepare for medicine.</p>

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<p>SunnySky -- My D only did one overnight the school arranged. She mostly stayed with students she knew who graduated from her high school the year before. Once the schools knew she was coming, they were mostly very cooperative in terms of her attending class, giving her a dining hall pass, etc. And Admissions Offices with formal sleepover programs might be willing to help despite deadlines; they really like it when accepted students choose their schools and might want to court your D!</p>

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<p>I think UCLA would be the best fit; it's a top school (above the tier of the other UCs) that is similar to Berkeley without having the same high levels of competitiveness. Moreover, students seem to happier at LA than at Cal.</p>

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<p>lindalana, xgyrosx, CCSurfer, and pennorbust, thanks all for the great suggestions.</p>

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<p>SunnySky-My D is in Boston and her freshman year has been too far away for this Momma Bear..we are very close so the distance has been bridged by cell phones, web cams and the strong bond we forged over her 1st 18 years. She has been home 3 times and will be home soon for the summer. UCSD would have been closer and USC even closer than that but I am glad she made the best choice for her..not for me...trust your daughter- she needs to be happy so that she can soar. My D has sailed through with A's and loves school..which is what we all want for our girls!</p>