OSU Full Ride or Swarthmore? Parent's perspective would be greatly appreciated!

Parents Forum
341

<p>My son turned down a large school experience for a smaller LAC like Swarthmore. It cost us more, but he felt strongly that it was worth the personal attention. For him, it has panned out beautifully. There is no way he would have had the opportunities he has had at this small college at any of the big schools in his first two years. The professors have been wonderful, and the personal touch has been beyond belief. </p>

<p>My son who is a junior is doing the college tours now, and he loved one of the big state schools. He also really liked a small LAC. He could see himself in either school and happy. What he did not really see in the tour is that he would not be having the interaction with professors but with grad students in the large state school. No grad students at the LAC. The professors have the ug students as their main priority unlike the large school where there are many grad students, research and publishing demands. It can make a very big difference.</p>

<p>Now if the financial gap were unmanageable, I would not even consider it. As much as it pained me, I had to tell my college kid that we just could not afford Private LAC two years ago. The gap was just too much. State U was well below our stretch point. The college did up its merit money, and son committed to two summer jobs, to make it barely affordable. We will have to borrow senior year to make it, but I feel it is worth the stretch. However, it would not have been worth turning our family finances into a total turmoil, or saddling my son with horrible debt. You have to decide if you can live with the loan burden or come up with the money with work, if you want to go to Swarthmore.</p>

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<p>CPT- agree with some of what you say but not all. One of our kids spent a semester and then the next summer working for a professor at a large research university. The professor had a huge team of grad students in various stages of their dissertation research plus a couple of post-docs. </p>

<p>The common stereotype is that professors ignore undergrads but that was not his experience. The professor was available, open, ready to engage, happy to answer questions or supervise. There were teams of experienced grad students available and ready to answer questions which S deemed “too moronic” to bother the professor about. There were always people “hanging out” just talking about their work which S found hugely motivating and stimulating. You could wander in a hallway at midnight and someone would be eating lunch (what they called any meal not consumed between 12-2) and ready to talk about some bizarre finding or anomalous result.</p>

<p>And of course-- most obviously, there was grant money pouring in, hence the need for so many students working for this professor.</p>

<p>Not every large research U ignores its undergrads. Not every large research U puts 23 year old grad students in charge of 18 year old undergrads. It is indeed the unusual LAC to have the long-term and sustained commitments from industry and the government to keep big and complex research projects going. It is all well and good to romanticize the professor/student relationship at a small college and indeed, many of those relationships are life altering and profound. But don’t underestimate the value of a mentor at a large U who can keep undergrads happily employed on a range of important projects. The personal touch isn’t just for sitting in a seminar room. We were surprised at the ease with which this S got professors to write his grad school applications- a few years after he’d graduated. Even in a non-LAC, professors are able to remember their students a few years later, and amazingly, are able to grind out the kind of highly specific, anecdote ridden letters which get their students into desirable programs. But they’re professors- and getting their students into desirable programs is what they do, after spending the undergrad years trying to fill their students with the passion that they feel about their field. Somehow this thread has romanticized the faculty of Swarthmore to such an extent that one worries about the mental health of a professor who is condemned to all eternity to teach the lifeless dolts who populate large universities.</p>

<p>And for all the vaunted connections at small schools- professors at big U’s are also able to pick up the phone. It is just not accurate to characterize large U interactions as being with grad students and not professors. Even in Ohio.</p>

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<p>"What he did not really see in the tour is that he would not be having the interaction with professors but with grad students in the large state school. No grad students at the LAC.'</p>

<p>Wow, I don’t know what school you’re talking about but that is REALLY not true across the board. At DS’s school, professors welcome student contact. Granted, if a student makes NO effort to reach out, they might blend into the background. Perhaps that’s what they want. But motivated students can and do develop relationships with their professors. And our experience has been that not only are honors classes smaller, but honors students get noticed by professors in the larger classes. Or maybe it’s because they’re speaking up and dropping by for office hours :slight_smile: </p>

<p>I would think Ohio State has some excellent professors. And that a smart achievement oriented student like our OP would have no trouble getting to know them. And yes, maybe even work on some big research projects - along with other smart TAs and RAs.</p>

<p>I guess the difference is - hey…if you WANT to disappear at a large state school…no problem. You can stay in the back of the room the whole time, collect your grades and have not ONE professor claim to really know you. But that’s not what most of the smart motivated kids do (these are the same kids who tend to get into the honors college). Many of them rise to the top and drink in the opportunities. </p>

<p>One thing I know, most parents cannot say that a particular school would have been the ONLY school to give them “special” opportunities. Really, it’s nice that it all worked out…great in fact. But don’t assume that they never would have studied abroad, or that they never would have made deep professor relationships if they went to the other “bigger” school. There are some amazing kids doing amazing things at my son’s big state u. It’s not a surprise really…these kids are exceptional and stay that way.</p>

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<p>

I can’t really comment on the effectiveness of TA-led lab sections, since I hate lab science and don’t plan to take any aside from CS. But given that discussion-based classes are called “seminars” when taught by a professor, I don’t see why the accepted teaching credential should be lower for a discussion “section.”</p>

<p>

I’m not sure where you got this impression; I would not agree with it as a summary of the thread discussion. Certainly LAC teaching has been romanticized to an extent, a side effect that I’ve consciously tried to avoid (cf. my back-and-forth with noimagination). But I believe I also stated explicitly (and if not, I state explicitly now) that the glut of hum/socsci professors has led to a strongly positive trickle-down effect in professor quality. I separate professor quality from teaching quality (which includes TAs) and peer quality.</p>

<p>My inquiry/advice to the OP remains the same: how much do you care about easy, intimate professor interaction and being surrounded by intellectual peers? Enough to pay 13k a year for the luxury? (Consider it as if you alone were responsible for the cost. 5k/year from work and the max Stafford loans would just about do it–in reality, I hope that your parents would be willing to contribute at least a few thousand.)</p>

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<p>Sorry about the generality. I am talking about Pitt, specifically. I should have known better than to make such sweeping statements. My second son went to a large state school, and had small classes and attention that would be the envy of those going to the smallest of LACs. He was in a department and program, however, that gave him those things. Had he been a kid with no idea of what he wanted, without AP credit in classes, and had to take the general required classes, he would have been in auditoriums with 300-400 students, and with recitations with grad students, some who were not trained to teach that specific course. As it was, he did have a few courses like that, but it was just a dab in the pot for him, and no big deal.</p>

<p>However, my current junior has absolutely no idea what he wants to study. He will have to take most all of the intro level courses at any college. That is what he needs to investigate when he looks at schools. When you are taking Psych 100 and Poli Scie 101, you are going to be in the en masse classes most of the time. If you are in a program that has some directed attention in a big school, that is a whole different story.</p>

<p>My son who is currently a sophomore in college had no idea where he was going in terms of study either. He took all different kinds of general courses his freshman year, but the tiny college he attended really nurtured the kids and worked closely with him. The class sizes were no bigger than 25 for him and in some cases about 10 kids. His profs saw where his talents and interests lay, and worked with him so that he is now directed in a field with an internship taking advanced courses. I cannot imagine him getting to this point at Pitt or Ohio State, both school that I know well, and have friends who work there. My close friend at Pitt gets free tuition there for her kids, and sent both girls to smaller LACs for attention reasons. </p>

<p>That is not to say that some kids don’t thrive in that atmosphere either. I might have done well in classes like that, as I love anonymity and the ability to stay impersonal when doing work.</p>

<p>Also, the size of the school is not the only indicator of an emphasis on graduate rather than undergraduate students. There are small research universities too. </p>

<p>When you seriously check out a school, you should peek at the classes that you will likely be taking as a freshman. If you notice that they are mainly tiered lecture halls, you know what you are in for. These days students can get reviews for specific courses and instructors that will give them an excellent idea of how those courses are conducted so that they are not surprised. Some schools have departments that are taught enmasse at the lower levels while other majors are given more personal attention. So take a look at who will be teaching you when you go to college.</p>

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<p>

My use of the phrase “lab section” is equivalent to “discussion section”.</p>

<p>Is a PhD really a “teaching credential”? I was under the impression that it was meant to indicate mastery of a subject and ability to do research in that subject.</p>

<p>I think cptofthehouse makes a very good point in post #345.</p>

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<p>An excellent, nuanced clarification, cptofthehouse. Bravo.</p>

<p>noimagination - Well, perhaps lab sections require less “mentored” interaction than discussion sections. I really have no idea how they run. Wrt to “teaching credential,” I meant only that schools (whether LAC or university) do not see fit to allow TAs to teach upper-level discussion-based seminar classes… why should an intro-level discussion section be different? I think it’s vital to have a strong introductory foundation.</p>

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<p>Where I went to school, the attention was definitely on the grad students except for some of the smaller departments. As a result, any of the general courses were taught in lecture halls, and there were then recitations held twice a week. Labs were all done by TAs. In the maths and sciences, the grad students tended to be foreign students, many of whom did not speak the English needed to explain the course, many of whom had studied the material in a different format or sequence, many of whom had no instruction from the college or prof on how to hold the recitations, none of whom had any teaching experience, many of whom resented teaching,…I can go on. They did not have to be foreign grad student either, though in my major, they were the ones that made up the majority. </p>

<p>They graded the tests, prepared you for the tests, sometimes when they had no idea what was on the test, I never saw them sitting in the lecture hall so they didn’t know what was being covered in the lecture many times. </p>

<p>Close friends of mine work for major research universities. One is an adjunct professor who teaches large general classes. She hardly knows the grad students who run her recitations. In fact, she wasn’t given her own assignment till the last minute. When you see “faculty” or “dept” as the prof, there is a chance that is what happens. Another friend works at the university in administration, and she sees first hand how the priorities are the grad students. Also many grad students hate teaching the classes, considering a necessary financial burden in order to take the classes they need. Many have a low regard for the undergrad and take out their frustrations on them. </p>

<p>I think that it is a whole different climate at LACs where the focus of the professors is to teach the students not only the subject matter, but a love for the school, the field of study, and to motivate them further.</p>

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<p>Look at the bright side that came out of this thread - there are some who like the big flagships while others feel the same about small LACs. If they end up not competing for the same seat, both can get in and get the type of education they want & both have a good shot at a successful post-undergrad career. Score one for the system.</p>

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<p>Right now the two top schools on my junior’s list are a big state school in a city, and a small LAC out in a small town in the middle of no where. Gives them both the same high score, but in different areas. Both schools, I believe, are at the top of their game, in their own categories. But like the old apple vs orange argument, how can you compare such different things? It will have to come down to what will fit the individual the best. And blessed is the student who can do as well in both settings. There are many of them out there.</p>

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<p>

Discussion sections are complemented by lectures, so material comes from other sources as well. The same is not true of a full seminar course.</p>

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<p>Most PhD programs have a teaching practicum that often comes the first semester of the program. The TA’s may have already had supervised teaching experience.</p>

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<p>Gee, my son worked as assistant last year, helping to coordinate schedules, etc. In grad school, he doesn’t get to be an official TA until his second year. He won’t be expected to teach a regular class. I doubt he’ll be doing more than helping an UG with a problem set or a program.</p>

<p>I think if someone is concerned about this aspect of their UG experience, they should look at the grad school sites, and see what are the expectations of the grad school students.</p>

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<p>noimagination - Put me in the camp that believes lectures are best integrated with discussion, at the least taught by the same person (though this is not usually possible even at LACs in courses like Intro to Psych).</p>

<p>As I said before, reasonable minds can disagree on whether “section”-leading counts as teaching… it does for me.</p>

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<p>Whoever made the point that it is not just the large universities that are guilty of this situation is absolutely right. Where I went to college, there were nearly as many grad students as there were undergrads. That’s a pretty big tip off where the spotlight is at a school. The school is a small/medium sized research university. Those grad student nearly all get stipends and have to teach for their money. So the % of classes taught by profs and the time the profs spend on undergrads is small. </p>

<p>My son who went to a large state school enjoyed the few classes he had to take in the big lecture halls, by the way. They were a refreshing change in pace from the small departmental groups that were starting to get claustrophobic to him. However, at graduation when I saw pages of graduates under the three P’s, Philosophy, Political Science, and Psychology, it occurred to me that the vast, vast majority of those student could not have gotten to know the professors at the school. there were hundreds of them in that one graduating class (maybe even more than a thousand–I didn’t count), and not all that many profs. The ratios don’t take a math major to figure out that you are not going to get much of a prof’s time in those disciplines unless you are truly unusual.</p>

<p>Still, a young man I know, had a choice a few years ago among a $30K/yr education at Case Western, $10K/yr at Denison, or $5K/yr at Ohio State. His parents could afford Case, but not painlessly. He chose Ohio State, and is now a Phd candidate at a top Math program. He could not possibly have done better and gotten more than he did at Ohio State that had the math offerings right up to PHD levels so that there was absolutely no ceiling for this gifted young man’s learning. The internships, the opportunities were incredible. He got as much there as he would have gotten anywhere. But there are not all that many math majors at Ohio State, so that the student/prof ratio is not bad at all, especially in the advanced courses. But a psych major or any of the other popular disciplines? I don’t know.</p>

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<p>^Yes, I got my degree in Math from Ohio State. Once I got past Differential Equations, the last class math majors seemed to share with engineering majors, you suddenly ended up in Math classes with 4-8 people. I met with a Math professor at New College of Florida (where D was considering). This Math professor obtained both his bachelors and Masters from Ohio State (PhD from MIT), and said that he had classes at OSU sometimes where he was the only student. He said the professors took him under their wings and taught him more Math than they needed to, because he wanted to learn.</p>

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<p>Cpt has been making good sense in several posts but I want to recommend #341 for a re-read. Oh, heck…I’ll just quote it here.

</p>

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<p>Susan, ordinary or partial (DEs) ?</p>

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<p>H and I are both graduates of Universities. All my kids chose U’s over LAC’s. None of us were lacking in faculty attention; all managed to have enough personal interaction with advisors, professors in our majors as well as out, to get the personal and “you gotta take this student” recommendations required for grad school. And yes, professors willing to pick up the phone to call a colleague or a former student to help arrange a job, a fellowship, or to “grease the wheels” for grad school scholarships.</p>

<p>Not a Phi Beta Kappa in the bunch. No Rhodes scholars (i…e none of us were at the top of our classes or even our departments.) All different universities, all different fields. </p>

<p>There are classes at large U’s that enroll 800-900 students per semester because the professor is so highly regarded that students beg to get into the class even after it’s full (past capacity of the largest lecture hall.) These faculty members aren’t getting paid to tell grad students what to do- they get paid to transmit their passion to the next generation of scholars and many of them, yes, even at large U’s like Ohio State, are quite phenomenal at doing that- to Freshman, Sophomores, folks in the major and folks outside of it.</p>

<p>S told us about a chem professor at MIT whose massive lectures (Freshman Chem, a core requirement for every single student) routinely end in applause. The professor is beloved as a teacher and mentor; he is highly entertaining and engaging, all of this despite the fact that he is well regarded in his field for all that research, publishing, and grad-student mentoring which gets bashed on this thread as being tangential to his “worth” as a professor. There are Nobel Laureates who teach freshman, who eat lunch with random groups of students, and yes- some are foreign born but students manage to learn how to understand accented English.</p>

<p>I think Swat is a great place. But all of you Swat fans can extol the benefits (highly engaged students, a beautiful campus, a distinctive college culture) without implying that all students at all large U’s are automatons who glide un-noticed through their massive lecture halls with no faculty engagement. Not all lectures are bad and not all seminars are good. And in many large U’s the largest lectures are that way for a reason… students beg to get into the class even if the subject isn’t of interest to them, just to have the experience of hearing a renowned professor. (The psych class at Cornell which was the subject of a New York Times article comes to mind-- hundreds of kids at Cornell can’t all be crazy, even if the subject is psychology!)</p>

<p>I am a fan of LAC’s for kids who want that experience. But it is not accurate to tell a HS senior that “LAC’s mean lots of faculty involvement and U’s mean lots of TA’s and no faculty”. It’s not true, it fuels the mania that we see now on lots of other threads of kids furious at parents who won’t go into substantial debt for the dream school, and it sets up an elitist paradigm that anyone who truly values learning and education ends up at a place like Swarthmore. Pity the poor slobs who sleep their way through OSU.</p>

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<p>Blossom, both myself and TheMom are large uni grads and TheMom is a senior administrator at a large uni where she has worked for 30 years. If anything, our biases were towards large unis.</p>

<p>Perhaps you have to experience the advantages of an LAC to believe in them. We got enough of a feel during all the visits that we not only believed but largely tore up everything we thought we knew about colleges. D’s four years at an LAC validated that decision.</p>

<p>There are some students, and/or some fields of study, where I still might recommend a large uni. “Fit” is “fit” and is highly idiosyncratic. And there are a some students who will have similar qualitative experiences no matter where you plunk them down. But for a large percentage of students, the LAC experience will run rings around the large uni experience.</p>