<p>Not that WM is not a good school…however it is more than “just a little shy” of Northwestern. Having said that, I would say that Delaware Honors at little cost would be a better option than WM.</p>
<p>W&M vs NU is a coin flip. But both are in another universe compared to UDelaware.</p>
<p>W&M is every bit the equal of NU.</p>
<p>I am absolutely apalled by some of these comments. I suggest posting this thread in the parent’s forum to get more balanced responses. Sometimes students do not understand the “real world” - they think their school is so much better than everyone else’s, and they think it’s worth the 50K. Easy for them to say. Of course.</p>
<p>Everyone knows financial aid jips middle class/upper middle class families (er, at least I THOUGHT everyone knew this). An EFC of 50K is possibly the worst you can have in terms of ability to pay versus aid granted…it’s not as if your EFC is 100K…and it’s not as if it’s 10K…so this really sucks. You are right at the cusp where they expect you to throw away your life just to pay for the private school “name”. You got a real bad deal there. STOP feeling guilty. You did your best. It is the system that is at fault. Not you. NU is a good school but it is not “leagues above” any of the others. No-one is going to look at a resume and think the name on the degree is more important than the grades, the ECs, the internship experience, the recommendations, etc. </p>
<p>Your D didn’t work hard in HS just to go to the “best” and most “prestigious” college. If she did, that was a mistake. She worked hard to give herself a good foundation to succeed anywhere. She worked hard to get that scholarship at UDel, or to be ready for the challenges that lie ahead. You clearly care a lot about her, and the fact that you are about to foot the bill for a college education - whether it’s at NU, W&M, or UDel - shows you still care about her. She KNOWS this. She will NOT hold it against you that your financial situation makes certain colleges undoable (if, of course, you are honest with her and say that that’s case - some parents are way too private with finances and it leaves the kids feeling like you just didn’t feel like their dream was “worth it” and not that you really couldn’t do it without ruining yourself). I truly believe that with 3 other kids on the way an EFC of exactly 50K, NU could be a terrible mistake. W&M could even be bad…but you seem financially savvy so do the calculations and see. </p>
<p>I think this comes down to W&M and UDel. They are different but not too different - they are both small/midsized. Both in “college towns” and not in big cities. Etc. A little less desirable than NU (Chicago is awesome - you can’t beat that), but in the end it is the connections you make with your classmates and profs that count, and your D will find plenty of great profs and classmates at either school. W&M is much more similar to NU in terms of academic environment. UDel has more of a typical state school feel - probably lots of smart kids, but lots of not so smart kids as well. In terms of being a journalist, what matters most is not the journalism program but opportunities to write for a student newspaper, especially a daily paper. W&M has a pretty good paper - I don’t know if it’s daily though. Has she checked out UDel’s? </p>
<p>In the end, you find your peers at whatever college you go to. UDel is a state flagship and will attract very bright students. She will find her smart intellectual friends even there. DO NOT ruin your finances and college opportunities for your younger 3 based on a “name”. Good luck. Please don’t feel guilty. You did a great job. I think W&M is a great option. Strong in her desired fields of interest. I think UDel could work as well, though I know a lot less about it. Most state schools however, have honors programs and then departmental honors for upper level classes, and UDel is much smaller than the avg. state school which will be a plus when it comes to humanities classes. Have your D look into it - she might like what she sees.</p>
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<p>Most people here are <em>not</em> suggesting NU is worth 50k/yr extra. I also think the OP should seriously consider UDel and forget about NU. But if you put money aside, W&M is not “every bit equal to NU”. That’s what some of us were having problem with. Stats for diversity, selectivity, overall college ranking, peer assessment, graduate rankings…etc pretty much all favor NU by not-so-negligible margins.</p>
<p>I definitely agree that the OP should consider UDelaware. I have had classmates who attended the school. As far as academics, Northwestern is superior to W&M by a significant margin.</p>
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<p>Since you can’t travel both roads, you wouldn’t know what “the lost opportunity” is exactly (if any) and therefore there’s nothing to regret. But what is certain is you won’t have to deal with all the financial stress associated with NU tuition.</p>
<p>haha i like this logic… so if Northwestern is equal to W&M then Harvard is equal to Northwestern. does that make sense?</p>
<p>Sam Lee, you give too much credence to rankings.</p>
<p>In the end, I am sure W&M’s faculty in OP’s area of interest (humanities, etc.) is pretty well-qualified. I think the difference in the faculty is probably negligible. Additionally, they may, on the off chance, actually be better teachers - no “ranking” or “stat” that’s out there measures how good at teaching a prof actually is. There is quite a bit of faculty-mixing when it comes to schools, anyway - faculty leaving top schools to go to state schools (we have tons of former NU profs here for some reason?), state school faculty leaving state schools for top schools, etc. </p>
<p>While NU may be overall more “selective”, I would say W&M actually has a more academic/nerdy “reputation” than even NU. Probably because their sports teams are terrible haha. W&M is also known for grade deflation . Plus, it has the benefit of being more affordable for many families. A lot of people turn down Ivies (even the “best” Ivies, Harvard, Yale, etc.) for state schools. I imagine less turn down these Ivies for NU. Your peer group in honors/departmental honors or heck, just the peer group you FIND on your own by being discerning like that, may actually be of higher academic quality than you would find at NU.</p>
<p>Ultimately, state schools usually have a wider range of students, and sometimes a wider range of faculty. But being in honors, picking your friends, picking challenging classes, etc…all of this narrows the gap and can actually make things quite equal.</p>
<p>Throw in the price difference and then you don’t even have a contest.</p>
<p>UDel is a slightly different beast as it does not have the intellectual rep W&M does. However, one of my favorite history profs of all time (better than any college prof I’ve ever had) was a huge fan of UDel. I think that says a lot. It comes down to picking your teachers and classes, picking your friends, trying for honors and otherwise taking advantage of your opportunities. All of this levels the playing field dramatically. </p>
<p>Although, this is starting to take away from the point of the thread. Basically we agree when it comes to the OP’s dilemma. NU is clearly not worth it. OP is flippin here. W&M /might/ be but should be strongly considered. UDel should be strongly considered too.</p>
<p>umcp11,</p>
<p>I can make very similar arguments for NU vs Harvard, just like aabbcc1789 sarcastically suggested. I am not giving too much credence to rankings; I am giving credence to things that are quantifiable. You are talking about things that are difficult to quantify and by definition, the difference is “probably negligible” by default.</p>
<p>
SAT range:
NU 2030 - 2280
UDel Honors 1980 - 2130
W&M 1850 - 2150</p>
<p>You have a point and it applies very well to UDel Honors vs W&M (not NU). We already know NU is simply unaffordable for OP so I think you may want to divert your energy to W&M vs UDel HP. I find it a bit contradictory on your part to say W&M “should be strongly considered” given that (1) W&M is still about 100K more expensive than UDel HP and (2) students in UDel Honors are just as good as, if not better than, those in W&M. Maybe you can write the following instead:
I personally think W&M is not worth 100k extra.</p>
<p>I mean, I would argue that you CAN make a comparison between NU and Harvard, to be honest. The problem with this quantitative data is that it’s unreliable as a measure of the “academics” at a particular school. It has nothing to do with the faculty, for one, which is a HUGE factor. So, throwing up the SAT scores is irrelevant there. And two, many universities admit that the SAT does not accurately reflect students’ intelligence or who would make the best/most creative/etc. contribution to a class discussion - wasn’t it a Harvard adcom that said there was no discernable intellectual difference between a student who scored 2100 on the SAT and a student who scored 2400, and that Harvard turns away hoards of kids every year who would do just fine there (I could be mixing quotes here lol, but you get the point)? It’s also been proven that the more money you have the higher your score - you can pay for the books, the SAT tutors, etc (so, it makes sense the range is a bit tighter on the high end for a private school than for two public flagships)…The SAT makes some jabs at the “quality” of a student but overall it’s more than a little flawed - the margin of error here is quite large. Yes, there’s a difference between the education at Harvard and at some third tier commuter school, and that can probably be measured by the quantitative data to a certain extent. Is there a big difference or simply a slight difference between the education at Harvard and NU? A big difference or simply a slight difference between the education at NU and W&M? It’s much harder to say.</p>
<p>In terms of W&M versus UDel, I simply said W&M should be considered because I don’t know much about UDel. I know W&M has a very intellectual reputation, it is strong in the fields the OP’s D is interested in, and has honors and departmental honors, I’m sure. It also has a good/decent student newspaper. I’m uncertain about what the environment is like at UDel and so I can’t really make a comparison there. But I think UDel could also be a great option, which I said - it’s smaller than most state schools and a lot of people I really respect love it. I also pointed out that it has a strong honors program. I’ve just had a lot of experience with W&M so I felt more comfortable plugging that. I have no problem with UDel and I apologize if it came off that way…I did mean to make the argument for both…though you’re statistics were again misleading as you failed to find any honors program at W&M and compare those statistics to the honors program at UDel…
But again I don’t really find that particularly telling or useful when the difference is only by a couple hundred points (the difference between the first time I took the test and the 2nd time LOL).</p>
<p>sympathize with the tough decisions. What is your daughter like? Is she independent and the type that would thrive at a large school where she may not know her professors and be in large lecture classes for the first year and a half? (Delaware) Albeit, the honors program would make it feel smaller and give her an instant group…Is she the type that would enjoy a big school?</p>
<p>Or would she prefer the smaller, more liberal arts college/academic environment/small town of Williamsburg? William and Mary is an intense study/work environment. Yes, they have fun. Yes there are fraternities, sororities and football games, so it’s got the whole college vibe. But the kids also study. a lot. </p>
<p>No judgment either way – it’s just that some kids really tend toward one or the other.</p>
<p>as for journalism … my recommendation is for her to major in something other than journalism, taking extra classes in communications and other journalism-type subjects and working for the college paper instead. Great majors for that kind of thing? Political Science, International Relations, Economics, Environmental Science, Sciences, any kind of subject matter that she may end up wanting to write about later. </p>
<p>she can hone her craft on the job and sharpen her skills in grad school. and i say this as a working journalist</p>
<p>I definitely think there’s a difference between a big school and a small school, but the difference ISN’T that you don’t get to know your profs at the bigger school. It’s just that you have to put in “extra” effort at a larger school. Even in a 300 person lecture very few are going to want to go to office hours regularly. You can get to know your prof if you want. </p>
<p>And UDel is pretty small for a state uni. It is more “medium sized” than “large” imho. I don’t know how the honors program at UDel works, but at MD small seminar classes replace many of the large intro classes.</p>
<p>But there’s no doubt that W&M probably “feels” safer/smaller/etc. You shouldn’t discount this “feeling” as it does help people succeed to feel like they are cared about.</p>
<p>I agree with your advice about the journalism ;). WORK FOR THE PAPER. That’s what matters.</p>
<p>Looks like UDel is coming out on top haha…interesting…</p>
<p>You only go to college once. Send her to NU.</p>
<p>I would just like to point out the complete hypocrisy of the Harvard Dean going around telling everyone that the SAT’s don’t matter but yet somehow the typical Harvard admit without a hook ends up with SAT’s over 2350 year after year. Clearly SAT’s do matter once the hooks are admitted. Clearly small SAT differences mean little but score differences of 200-300 points do matter to admission committees.</p>
<p>^That wasn’t the point.</p>
<p>The point was that SAT differences are as much of an indicator of socioeconomic status, test-taking ability, etc. as they are an indicator of intellect. Sometimes 200-300 point differences DO NOT translate into differences in intellect. However I don’t think anyone said that they “don’t matter” for admissions puproses (esp. not a Harvard Dean) despite this well-acknowledged flaw.</p>
<p>Harvard’s enrollment is only so large. They may get X number of people who apply and can succeed there, but they can only take Y. So what can they do besides turn down some perfectly smart, creative, and qualified people who would fit in great in the class of 20-whatever? Nothing. So they turn them down and the kids end up at NU or their state school or another Ivy or somewhere else, and admissions people have been admitting to this for years. A lot of smaller liberal arts colleges are SAT optional in light of the flaws with the SAT, but they get way less applicants, so its much easier for them to take that stance on principle.</p>
<p>That said, SAT is NOT a good indicator of “this college is better academically than this one because look at the difference in SAT scores.” That’s just a silly comparison to make on a number of levels, EVEN IF one assumes the SAT is a flawless measure of intelligence (and it’s nowhere close).</p>
<p>THank you to everyone who has responded. It really is so helpful to have all the different perspectives. We have about 48 hours to submit something on-line, and I just haven’t been able to pull the trigger either way. One minute I am convinced the financial sacrifice for NU is worth it, the next I am sure it is ridiculous to consider. We did visit UD and W&M last weekend, and she liked what she saw of the UD Honors program enough that she decided that if she can’t go to NU, she would be just as happy at UD than spending the extra $ at W&M. So we’re down to NU v. UD. I have always firmly believed that a smart person will achieve at any school (I have worked with enough ivy league grads to know that that degree does not universally mean smart or competent). But I still cannot help from wanting so badly to give her that Northwestern/Medill credential, and the academic experience, potential contacts and instant credibility that go with it. She worked so hard in high school, and is just one of those kids who never asks for anything and always wants to make you happy. I am just so mad at all those articles that say “don’t not apply to a school because of finances! You never know what you’ll get!” In our situation, we just got alot of heartbreak and guilt. At least I’ll know better with my other 2 kids.</p>
<p>What2do468,</p>
<p>Maybe you can put some/significant portion of the cost difference aside into her savings/investment account that she will find handy for her grad school/first down payment…etc in her future. This way, you give her a nice reward without putting your finances into jeapardy.</p>
<p>Also, there’s always the opportunity to transfer as a junior. By the fall/early winter of her sophomore year, if going to a prestigious school and “instant credibility” are still on the agenda, she can always pursue that route and you will pay the expensive tuition for that school for just two years, which will be much more manageable.</p>
<p>^ Ditto with what Sam Lee said.</p>