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<p>Your point is good, but just as a point of clarification, Swarthmore’s financial aid packages are loan-free for all students. Loans are not expected as a part of any financial aid package at Swarthmore. All loans were replaced by additional grants a couple years ago.</p>
<p>To me $13K/yr delta to go to the a school that is a much better fit doesn’t sound too bad. (Alas we struggle with a much higher delta… college choice still tbd, tick tock). But a lot depends on how much it will burden you and your family.</p>
<p>The idea that Swarthmore is a truly diverse institution is absurd. The student body is a self-selected group who generally share the values of the chattering classes–whether those students be white, Asian-American, African-American, Hispanic or “other.” Indeed, most people outside the intelligentsia have never even HEARD of Swarthmore, let alone attend there.</p>
<p>If you want true diversity, there is no question that a flagship state university is the place to go.</p>
<p>EMMI, while I honestly don’t care about diversity, I completely agree with you. A big flagship university will be more diverse over that of Swarthmore in all ways EXCEPT geographically. OSU won’t get a huge percentage of their population from outside of Ohio. However as for economic and racial diversity, a big state university has to be one of the most diverse educational institutions on the planet.</p>
<p>I also agree with weighing each factor as was suggested by 50isthenew40. However, please note that professioal schools are completely unconcerned with a student’s undergraduate school’s name. Given the same scores and grades, it will be just as easy or hard to get into a top law or medical school from OSU as it is from Swarthmore. The cache from attending a top school is ignored, as it should be in my opinion.</p>
<p>For grad school, alot depends on the research experience of the student, they quality of their recommendations and the connections that the student can make with potential professors. Again, the cache of the undergraduate school is irrelevant. We know someone who participated in the publication of three papers at the University of Pittsburgh and graduated with a 3.8+. She got into most top notch grad programs , even though Pittsburgh is not considered on the level of an Ivy. </p>
<p>Bottom Line: Swarthmore will NOT give an edge for graduate and professional school admission solely based on their reputation. In fact, attending any top school won’t necessarily give you an admission edge solely because of the reputation of the school. This seems to be a widespread myth among CC participants and parents. </p>
<p>What, however, should be considered are:
<p>There are probably many other factors,but this should get you started.</p>
<p>Taxguy, we are basically on the same page. I do, however, think that going to an “elite” LAC provides an advantage in the marketplace for one group of students–athletes. Because of their academic profile, they are not as likely to excel at flagship state school But at the same time, a business person that I know explained that being a good enough student to be admitted to an elite LAC confirms that they are “smart enough” to do most business jobs, and many employers value athletes for other reasons.</p>
<p>Now, is that advantage worth the extra cost? Hard to know (very, very few DIII are good enough to get full rides at flagship DI schools, and the difference in cost will vary dramatically). I am not even sure that we made the right decision a few years ago with my own student-athlete. But there is at least some tangible benefit there.</p>
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Even at that price, they are a better value than Swarthmore football tickets.</p>
<p>Particularly since Swat dropped football a few years back.</p>
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This is not <em>quite</em> true when you get to the T3 level schools. At that point all applicants to med and law schools have the top grades and the top scores. So the letters of recommendations become exceedingly important, as well as the student’s statement of purpose, etc. Close relationships with professors and the professors’ genuine interest in their students’ success play a huge role in the amount of guidance and support the student gets. So it is not the name of the school that makes the difference, but the substance that gave the school its reputation in the first place.</p>
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<p>Haha, good one!</p>
<p>But jokes aside, cutting of football, which had been discussed at great length on this forum, certainly reflects what Swarthmore’s priorities are.</p>
<p>I can now add one more piece of advice. If you are concerned, as EMM1 appears to be, about sharing “the values of the chattering classes” during college, then I would suggest that Swarthmore probably isn’t the right choice.</p>
<p>Let me also say this - assuming that you split the $52K burden of debt with your parents in some way, having some debt is NOT a bad thing. And take this from me, who chose a second-tier LAC over Emory due to cost issues (and didn’t even apply to my “dream” schools because of cost). Let’s say you borrow $30,000 (and your parents make up the difference). Your monthly loan payment will be $350 for 10 years. The recommended salary level to make those payments comfortably is a bit over $40,000, which I think you can reasonably expect to make as a first-year out. Even if you don’t, if all your loans are federal you can do income-based repayment to make your payments affordable.</p>
<p>Let me also say that the experience of being at a small liberal arts college - with faculty that are 100% focused on you - whose job, even in their research, is to be focused on you (faculty who get hired at elite private colleges are expected to be good teachers AND are expected to have research that is appealing to the LAC’s students and expected to mentor those students in research); where all the resources at the school are being expended on YOU and there’s nothing else competing for those resources, not graduate students, not a national research agenda or anything - is amazing and incomparable.</p>
<p>A lot of people say LACs are not the place to be if you want to do research and I wholeheartedly disagree. Swarthmore is my dream college to teach at (I’m earning my PhD now) and they highly value professors with interesting compelling research plans (look at the websites of the professors in each department! Their research plans are as detailed as any of the professors’ at my graduate university).</p>
<p>But I want to concur with taxguy and stress that the name of your undergraduate school is irrelevant for all intents and purposes when applying to graduate and professional school. Neither OSU nor Swarthmore in name only will give you an edge; what will be important is what you DO there. I’m a doctoral student at Columbia and my colleagues come from all over the place - from Ivies to places I’ve never heard of before.</p>
<p>I see you guys are still at it. This has been a pretty entertaining debate. It would be even funnier if it were not that briguy is pulled in two separate directions with two great choices. I DO believe he has two great choices. I honestly wonder if some of you had difficulty sleeping last night you take HIS choice so personally. He is not a prize to be won. He is a person trying to make a decision. In the end it will be a decision, I predict, based very little on anything that is written here.</p>
<p>Did anyone take notice that briguy’s last post noted that the loans he would need to take out for Swarthmore would not be an unbearable burden? To me that was an important statement. If the family is not able to pay the 13K a year for Swat without taking a loan of any amount, in my mind, it is a burden, that in this case, is unnecessary.</p>
<p>I am from Ohio. My D, along with 1,500 other bright HS seniors, all with ACT’s over 32, competed in the Maximus Competition. Briguy won one of 10 scholarships this year. Great for him. My D chose not to go to OSU, but not because she felt it was of inferior quality. If she had won the competition she most likely would have taken the scholarship, because there is a lot great about OSU. There is more than “one true fit”. There are strengths and weakness for all schools–yes, even the “elite” have their weaknesses.</p>
<p>When catty remarks are made about state schools having Honors Programs it only serves to make one look silly and childish. How lucky we are to have affordable options for our brightest students. Many highly qualified kids don’t get into the top tier schools. We all know that. Many highly qualified kids get into highly selective colleges but can’t afford the hefty inflated tuitions. Thank goodness for the state Honors Programs so our talented and gifted kids can get the high quality education they deserve at a cost they can handle. And it is quality–I sat listening to the profs and student panels at the state university presentation and thought, “If this room was a little smaller, I would swear I was sitting at ----(Highly selective LAC, D’s first choice, but too costly even with their scholarship).” I am buying a quality education for D in a state Honors Program at a reasonable price. Quite pretentious to belittle this option.</p>
<p>“If you are concerned, as EMM1 appears to be, about sharing “the values of the chattering classes” during college, then I would suggest that Swarthmore probably isn’t the right choice.”</p>
<p>People can have whatever values they want. My point is that there is going to be a LOT more diversity of virtually every significant kind at a flagship state university than at places like Swat for all of their vaunted diversity initiatives–a point which is made clearly by the quotation above.</p>
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<p>I think that depends on the state university. UC-Berkeley certainly has impressive diversity.
I don’t personally think that having 87% of the students from Ohio is notably diverse. Nor do I think that any school where 82% of the students are white can be considered diverse.</p>
<p>There should be more economic diversity at a state flagship, although that’s not always the case.</p>
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<p>What catty? Go back and read the motivations for funding Honors Colleges at flagship universities. It was a specific move towards merit based price cutting (as opposed to need-based price cutting) with the intention of attracting customers with better academic qualifications. It’s a pretty simple concept. Pretty standard practice by both private (and now public) colleges to compete for top students. They aren’t giving away free tuition for nuttin’.</p>
<p>Interestingly enough, the very first Honors program in the United States was started by Frank Adylotte at Swarthmore College in the 1920s. It was based on his experience at Oxford and featured a completely separate track of seminars with two faculty members and a handful of students, totally ungraded, with Honors awards given by panels of outside experts from other schools who come to campus to give oral and written exams to the Honors students. What ended up happening is that the seminar style of interactive-education wagged the dog, and became a widespread style of teaching/learning at Swarthmore. It was the interest among “the chattering classes” in the cutting-edge Honors Program and support from outfits like the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Foundation that put Swarthmore on the map as an academic heavyweight.</p>
<p>It has never been tied to financial aid, which has always been need-based at Swarthmore (with the exception of three or so full merit scholarships in each entering class offered to residents of the surrounding Pennsylvania counties and DeMarVa Peninsula).</p>
<p>And what is wrong with that?? It certainly is a win for the consumer! I get what I want for less than one third the cost of the LAC–who is the fool?</p>
<p>Well, there many more African-Americans at OSU than at Swat.</p>
<p>But beyond that, try being a conservative Christian, or pro-life, or anti same sex marriage at Swat. As post #150 suggests, at Swat they have affluent, highly intellectualized whites whose values set the tone for the school, less affluent highly intellectualized whites who share those values, highly intellectualized African Americans who share those values, highly intellectualized Hispanic Americans who share those values, and highly intellectualized Asian Americans who share those values. It’s a regular diversity fest!</p>
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<p>It’s a win for the customer getting the merit discount. May not be a win for the low income kid who isn’t getting enough need-based aid at his state univerisity because the limited money has been shifted to merit discounts for higher income kids. That’s a philosophical discussion about the role of public universities and access to higher education.</p>
<p>I would agree that, if you don’t want a school where the members of the community are “highly intellectualized”, then Swarthmore College is probably not the right place. I would think that most Swarthmore students view “highly intellectualized” students as a desireable quality in an academic institution, but I’m sure there are many students who would prefer a college that doesn’t have a “highly intellectualized” culture.</p>
<p>Before you made such a comment you should have looked at OSU’s web page with their scholarships. Although there are only 10 Presidential Scholarships awarded for full rides, a minority can apply for this:</p>
<p>Morrill Scholars Program (MSP) December 1 deadline!</p>
<p>The Morrill Scholars Program is named in honor of Senator Justin Morrill, author of the 1862 Morrill Act that facilitated access to higher education for students previously underrepresented at Americas colleges. The Office of Minority Affairs offers this program to promote diversity, multiculturalism, and leadership.</p>
<p>Award amount </p>
<p>Distinction Scholarship</p>
<p>The Distinction Scholarship is equivalent to the value of full tuition (for both Ohio residents and nonresidents), room and board, book allowance, and miscellaneous expenses. Other merit scholarships may be included in the value of this award.
Prominence Scholarship</p>
<p>The Prominence Scholarship is awarded to nonresidents required to pay the out-of-state surcharge. Students earning a Prominence Scholarship will receive the value of both in-state tuition and the nonresident surcharge. Other merit scholarships may be included in the value of this award.
Excellence Scholarship</p>
<p>The Excellence Scholarship is available to both Ohio residents and nonresidents and is equivalent to the value of full in-state tuition. Other merit scholarships may be included in the value of this award.
Criteria
MSP scholarships are awarded on a competitive basis to students admitted to the Columbus campus for the autumn quarter following high school graduation. Applicants must submit an application for admission, MSP essay, and recommendations from two people who are not relatives, and they must meet two of the three following criteria:</p>
<p>rank in the top 20 percent of graduating class
have a 3.3 or higher (on a 4.0 scale) cumulative high school GPA
receive an ACT composite score of 23 or higher or combined SAT Critical Reading and Math score of 1070 or higher
Additional criteria to be considered include:</p>
<p>applicants status as a potential first-generation college graduate
applicants racial/ethnic/tribal background
socio-economic factors
Ohio county of residence
Notes:</p>
<p>Candidates must submit an application for admission to Ohio State by December 1.
Upon receipt of the admission application, candidates will receive an e-mail from the Office of Minority Affairs outlining the MSP application process and materials needed for submission.
Once a candidate is admitted, and upon receipt of all required materials for the MSP application, he or she will be reviewed for consideration.</p>
<p>OSU is taking care of not just the cream of the crop!</p>
<p>It’s not just the highly intellectualized parts–its the “we all share the same values” part (which I do not understand you to challenge) that belies the claim of meaningful intellectual diversity.</p>
<p>In that sense, I suspect that Swat is less diverse than even say, Washington and Lee.</p>