@digmedia , did I read correctly before that your son came to OU from Colorado? If so, was there a reason he didn’t look at Colorado schools? Thanks !
I am a first year business major at Ohio State and have frriends who attend Miami as well as OU (I know two people in the honors tutorial college as well as someone in the HTC who is a business major.)
At the end of the day, I really love OSU but my friends at OU love it there. I think that if your son embraces the opportunities that whatever school he goes to offers him, he will be able to find a job after graduation at any of these schools.
My friends at OU say the atmosphere is pretty chill. There’s definitely a party atmosphere, but you don’t HAVE to participate. I’d say that’s pretty true for OSU and Miami as well. At OSU specifically, I have found a great group of friends who DON’T feel the need to party all the time but we still have fun. I don’t party or drink really, but I’ve still managed to have fun. This is true at all 3 schools.
Ultimately, I’d say that if OU is the most affordable option and your son likes the atmosphere, it’s a great choice. 
Thank you for your feedback @Pinkpoet !
Glad my input was helpful! I remember how stressful the process was for me last year, and I was in a similar position last year having to choose between UC, OSU, and Miami as the strongest and most affordable business programs that I was interested in. I hope your son is able to find a comfortable, affordable choice!
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19211403/#Comment_19211403
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19225630/#Comment_19225630
Thank you, @digmedia . Ironically my son is looking at CSU because he was offered a lot of merit aid there, which makes it cheaper than attending Pitt or Penn State. His dream school has been CU Boulder for years, ever since her began visiting his best friend’s family in Broomfield every summer. However I told him that unless his admissions letter from CU includes a winning lottery ticket, he can’t go there. I threw CSU Fort Collins into the mix as a cheaper version of a beautiful Colorado School. Now his final 2 choices are OU and CSU. We’re visiting Ohio tomorrow and Friday, then he and my husband head out to Colorado on Saturday for a CSU visit and a few days with friends in Denver and its suburbs… I’m hoping they bring back some compelling information, but all of you on CC have helped calm my agità so I realize that it is my son’s choice, within the financial parameters we’ve set, and he will have to own his experience. We’re trying to set up appointments with a few professors at each school, in addition to the tours, to get more perspective to add to his decision making. Being a Colorado resident, do you have any general impressions of CSU? I haven’t been exposed so far to many of any of his schools, beyond hearsay and information obtained via website. I’m also a branding and communications consultant, so I know that a lot of what is advertised is just a narrative that humans and consultants make up to position their brand to meet organizational goals…
I think he’ll like CSU. Ft. Collins is a fantastic college town. We lived in Boulder for a while and I thought we’d died and gone to heaven. But I’d be just as happy in Ft. Collins. PLEASE report back on his impression of both Ohio and CSU.
Both CU’s and CSU’s undergrad business schools are very closely ranked (#92 and #94):
http://www.businessweek.com/undergraduate_mba_profiles/bschools/rankings/
Will do @digmedia thank you!
We are waiting “With bated breath and whispering humbleness” to hear the impressions to the schools visited (even if they are not good impressions).
((((Wm. Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, 1596))))
Hi guys! Especially @digmedia
Sorry for taking so long to check in. We had a great visit, but my 15 y.o.middle daughter ended up having to go to the hospital last week for several days and it just threw off all my normal web checking, and I am no good typing long letters on a phone keypad… (Daughter is fine, btw.)
So we went to OU on March 17-18 and were VERY, VERY, VERY impressed. Actually, it completely blew me away, and I was glad that I didn’t let my elitism get in the way of considering a lower USNWR-ranked university. The student ambassadors were extremely on the ball–energetic, smart, organized, approachable, answered all manner of questions–even the most probing, like about the “Fests” and general party scene, student body and interests, career prospects… I was truly very, very impressed and got a lot of answers. The prospective student population we saw on the tour and throughout the days at either restaurants or student union activity fair type setups seemed smart, well-groomed, the parents were articulate, and generally gave a very good impression. That said, it was not J.Crew U., and I totally got the Berkely reference of @lvvcsf. There were plenty of either theater or performing arts, LGBT events, sports events, social causes, in addition to the usual college type things, including some well-kept-up fraternity and sorority houses. The Student Union or whatever they call that place (Baker?) was beautifully designed, functional and you really got an excellent feel for a cohesive student body with a level of diversity similar to many suburban high schools. It was significantly, but not exclusively, white. I liked the fact that it has the artsy–LGBT side as well as the sporty or business-focused side. (not because any of us are gay but because I think it tends to go along with people who feel safe being ‘out’, diversity and a community of respect).
On St. Patrick’s day evening, we went to the main street (Court Street) and looked around, had dinner, etc. It reminded me of how Georgetown’s M Street used to be in the late 80s before it got completely gentrified and Banana Republicanized. We walked the very picturesque, tree-lined main drag around 5pm (we had gotten up at 6am to drive the 7.5 hours so were hungry early) to explore the dining options and saw a couple of cute girls getting out of a cab and heading into a bar. They had green beads and short skirts, and were about to go have a good time. Charming. My husband and I smiled at each other, remembering that time of pheromones and Thursday night parties. Further down the street, there was a bar with a balcony on which some upperclassmen-looking guys stood socializing loudly in those tones you associate with fraternity members. It was obvious they were on their way to intoxication, but at 5pm they were not obnoxious. Again, this was no surprise to me. It was not like a horde of Saturnalians. I found out from the tour guides (one very pretty, straightforward education or nursing major who had just started a new sorority, and one quiet but very sharp-seeming girl who is in Scripps School of Journalism) that the majority of people who celebrate these “fests” are from out of town, and it is somewhat annoying to a lot of the students. The Halloween party is one of the best known in college life in USA apparently. Neither of them appeared to be tee-totalling nerd misfits. The students, and definitely the administration, dislike the party school label. The administration is trying very hard to quell this element of their community (and their brand). I learned that last week, they hired a new head of Student Affairs and I wondered if part of his charge would be to work on some of that. The university president is retiring too, apparently. There were students out playing basketball outside the dorms (son visibly exhaled seeing this), the rec center is state-of-the-art awesome. The football stadium charming, lots of greenery and beautiful brick buildings. It is a GORGEOUS campus, nestled in some low hills along the Hocking River (thus the nickname, Harvard on the Hocking). It is in the middle of NOWHERE. As one senior in the business school said, you are really in the bubble. A real college experience. Trivia point–Maya Lin, who designed the Vietnam Vet Memorial, is the daughter of two English professors from O.U. and grew up in Athens. She was on TV with Henry Louis Gates Jr, on the “Finding your Roots” series and speaks very lovingly of her “perfect childhood” growing up on the campus of O.U.
With the exception of first year, large, pre-req classes, the business school classrooms were small and follow the “Guide on the Side” collaborative teaching model, as opposed to the “Sage on the Stage” model of teaching, which most high schools and large universities use for big classes. Although the university is large by the numbers (16k students), it felt oddly smaller. I would have guessed 6-8k, based on what we saw. It could be the campus layout, or the fact that people were not ramming each other speeding through intersections… it had a very pleasant smaller town feel. Once you leave campus and the main streets, it gets rather rustic, rather quickly, but it is a naturally gorgeous part of the country. Not unlike Penn State’s environs.
The business school absolutely knocked my socks off. Once we had gone through the lecture, given by a B-school student leader and three panelists, along with the Dean of the Business school, I had a very good feel for a solid curriculum, very strong advisory model, strong career and internship placement support (they will actually FIND you an internship if you want) and huge commitment to undergraduate teaching. The commitment to undergraduate teaching and advisory model was the #1 differentiator for me.There are only 800 students in the business school and they get a lot of coaching, mentoring, networking instruction and real world focus, combined with a whole collaborative model of teaching. I met several TA’s and they were not blowhards. Some teachers, across the University, will actually allow students to earn extra points if they go to the Writing Center and have staff look over their papers and work with them to become better writers.
O.U. is not remotely pretentious. It almost has a West Coast feel of being very chilled out and open. The people we met (many from Ohio) seemed very Midwestern, kind, open, and genuinely interested in others. You did not get a sense of predatory/winner-take-all competition. It seemed like a place where young people could grow in confidence. The whole place is EXTREMELY geared towards collaborative learning and helping the whole group advance. It’s like the optimal outcome of game theory where, when you trust who you are working with, the best outcomes can occur. I’ve lived and worked in very competitive, backstabbing places, and there was absolutely none of this there. Frankly, O.U. could possibly benefit from a bit more braggadocio to tell an aggressive story to get more highly ranked, but it would contrast with their cultural values I had the sense.
The faculty of many of the schools met with students for a box lunch and free Q&A and networking. The commitment to see the heads of departments meeting with a bunch of 18 year olds and their parents was staggering. Super smart professors, freely answering any questions you had and talking with the kids finding out what they’re interested and how they are going to make it happen and how they could help. Yes, it was a sales pitch, but it was a powerful introduction to the openness of the profs and the potential of mentoring for the student. Again, I got the feeling that this was a PERFECT place for my very intellectually capable, kind son who is somewhat reticent to ask people for help. If you don’t take advantage of the professors, the whole model of the
Part 2 (from where previous message cut off…)
the whole model of the team/cluster learning (which is what they use in MBA programs like Columbia U. or Pitt, etc) will keep the student accountable and building interpersonal and professional/organizational skills. Frankly I should be a spokesperson for their program, I was that impressed.
The only thing that gave me pause was that the majority of B-school students take jobs in the Midwest. I didn’t get a feel for the big corporate or consulting names coming to recruit at O.U. which shocked me back into reality. My whole East Coast/Silicon Valley/Denver bias started to resurface, as I wondered if my son was on a trajectory to get a job with a Tier 2 or 3 corporation (lower prestige, salary, overall trajectory) if he went to a school with a stronger regional than national reputation. Because I am basically the doppelganger of Bev Goldberg, I will personally embark on a brand-building campaign for them. I would want to see students going to work for Fortune 100 companies, financial services, and consulting firms. Then again, that it is me, and may not be what my son is interested in. He wants to do a dual major in Data Analytics and Sports Management. The Sports Mgmt dream is a unicorn to me, I don’t see a lot of white collar upside in that. The Data Analytics has a strong trajectory across many potential industries and application, but hopefully U.S. companies will not just start using H1B1s or technology to address the need there. Also, hopefully hiring managers and HR departments will consider entry-level people beyond the top 25 ranked universities in the country.
The net takeaway:
O.U. is not remotely pretentious. It almost has a West Coast feel of being very chilled out and open. The people we met (many from Ohio) seemed very Midwestern, kind, open, and genuinely interested in others. You did not get a sense of predatory/winner-take-all competition. It seemed like a place where young people could grow in confidence. The whole place is EXTREMELY geared towards undergraduate teaching, collaborative learning and helping the whole group advance. It’s like the optimal outcome of game theory where, when you trust who you are working with, the best outcomes can occur. I’ve lived and worked in very competitive, backstabbing places, and there was absolutely none of this there. Frankly, O.U. could possibly benefit from a bit more braggadocio to tell an aggressive story to get more highly ranked, but it might contrast with their cultural values, I had the sense.
I think son is going to choose O.U. I certainly thought it would be tailor-made to his learning style and personal preferences.My husband made the mistake of continuously repeating the greatness of Ohio vs. Colorade State on their subsequent trip to Fort Collins, and it got son’s back up and started a number of tense father/son moments where son felt like he was getting railroaded. More on Fort Collins in my next post. We’ll at least leave this post virgin to O.U.
My only second thought since our visit to O.U. was a niggling feeling of jealousy about friend’s kids who are going to higher name brand universities (that my son got into, but where we couldn’t afford to send him). This is my issue, not his. It’s both personal (don’t flame me, I know it’s an unworthy sentiment!) and reflects my nervousness that son will be on a lower trajectory professionally since starting at a #135 school rather than a #48 or even #98 school according to USNWR. That said, I truly believe that from a learning experience perspective, O.U. will be the best environment for him. I just wish they had higher prestige. Although they do with the HTC and Scripps. Their Sports Mgmt undergrad program is ranked #2 nationwide, and their MBA in Sports Mgmt is ranked #1.
Notes on CSU to come…
Wow. I asked for a report and got… A REPORT! Thanks for taking the time to do that. I have said many times that my son’s body language changed as we toured OU and, as we drove away, I knew he had found his place, college-wise. And you are correct: OU is a BEAUTIFUL campus, and it is in the middle of nowhere.
That was an impressive review and in my biased opinion accurate. I look forward to your thought on CSU.
Thank you so much for such a detailed review.
Yikes. This is scary. Mass shooting at Ohio University thwarted: http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2016/03/gun_shop_owner_thwarts_possibl.html
Wow. My wife said she had seen that on FB over the weekend. Very on the ball shop owner.
Now for Colorado State review/comparison–this is as recounted to me by my husband, supplemented with pictures they sent and I pored over…
Setting: Breathtaking, wide open vistas, big sky, well-tended greens/trees on campus but generally on the arid side (Plus=zero humidity) Could be the setting for a Western film.
Campus Environment: Older buildings, a bit run down, with the exception of a couple of new ones. O.U. significantly more attractive. Very spread out campus, possibly because the buildings are low and architecturally non-descript, the campus seems bigger and sprawling. More so even than Penn State. Bikes are the mode of transportation between classes because there is a lot of ground to cover between buildings. You immediately get a feel that the natural sciences dominate here. Forestry mgmt, insectology, renowned veterinary school, agro-sciences.Young outdoorsy people.
Campus tour for admitted students: Extremely underwhelming, low energy, didn’t know all the answers to questions posed by parents. Son and husband said they would not have gone back for personal meetings with Admissions and Career Mgmt staff in the afternoon and next day, if they hadn’t had appointments which I had set up in advance for them. When I asked my husband about the kinds of people doing the tour, he claimed there were a number of typically Northwestern, laconic father/son duos, but that the whole tour seemed unorganized and dependent on desultory presenters. (As he put it, "Remember Seattle in the 90’s? Think people like that–smart, few words, not effusive with strangers.)
Recreation and student leisure time: On the Sunday they arrived, they walked the campus alone, and since it was the final day of spring break, there were few people outside. They since learned that 90% of people move off-campus after freshman year because the housing is so much cheaper. This changes the feel of the campus on the weekend and off hours more appreciably than one would realize. Son and husband introduced themselves to a friendly young woman running the outdoor track and asked about the school. Girl was a sophomore studying forestry mgmt and explained that she really liked the school, felt like she was getting a great education, etc. She asked son if he liked to snowboard, ski and hike, and he replied “Actually, I don’t really ski, I like to play basketball and baseball”, to which she made a barely perceptible flinch and said “well, there’s something for everyone to do here, I’m sure you find lots of things.”
Pot/drinking culture: not visible to the casual eye. The whole pot shop thing seems to be very overblown.
Attractive, fit students. Very outdoorsy seeming–you can rent tents and other outdoor recreational equipment from the Student Union very cheaply and the nature opportunities are endless and accessible.
Town of Fort Collins–Delightful! Great food, beer, ambiance, people. Seems like a great place to live.
Business climate: Lots of tech startups and other CS companies like HP and a few other big names. They get most of the same recruiters on campus as in Denver (Boulder, CU Denver, etc). Funny note on the tour that, “on the first day of school at Boulder, the private jets are lining up to drop off the rich kids there”. CSU is very down to earth, proud of its different, (perceived) culture of substance, as opposed to (perceived) Boulder dilettantes.
A couple of points.
First, check out the meal plans at OU. The cost of attendance quotes what they call the “Flex 14” plan. It allows for 14 meals per week plus $450 per year in flex dollars. They also have a “Traditional 20” meal plan which is a bit over $1000 cheaper. I have spoken with the dining dept. about the advantages of the flex 14 plan and the primary benefit I can discern is that it allows you more flexibility to use your swipes. The traditional meal plan has to be used in the dining halls, has to be used by the card owner and if you don’t use it you lose it. In my opinion I can save a thousand dollars, give my child $450 in cash for the year and be nearly $600 ahead.
https://www.ohio.edu/food/plans/residential.cfm
The prices listed are for 2015/16 non Ohio guarantee. The costs quoted in your FA package are a bit higher but the relative amounts are the same.
A second thought I had was that the transportation cost listed for each school (OU and CSU) are about the same. I imagine you could drive to OU. It would be a long trip but doable in a day. I suspect that those costs would be less at OU.
Finally, just in case you didn’t know. The GPA required to keep merit scholarships at OU is 3.3. I don’t know how that compares to CSU.
Continued–
Business School: 2,200 students (3x number as at O.U.). College of Business staff and administrators were EXTREMELY responsive, well-spoken and enthusiastic. The B-school culture is “white-collar training, blue-collar work ethic” per one administrator. Who succeeds there? “Someone who is Type A, willing to hustle and create the opportunities to get an internship and find the classes that will give them the academic program of their design.” (Although this was later contradicted by a B-school student guide who said he could count the number of Type A people on one hand) When asked about the 4 year graduation rate (which actually averages 4.5 years to graduate = add another semester of expenses to your TCOA) they were told "but there’s an easy way around that, you just stay and (pay to) take a summer semester to get those classes. Nice.
Advisory model is not as strong as at O.U. Teaching model is “Sage on the stage”, large lecture classes for freshman and sophomores, and you don’t get small Guide on the Side classes until Junior and Senior years. Professors and TAs are available to help students out of class, but they just have a lot more students on their case loads. So it is really up to the student to distinguish him or herself and aggressively and repeatedly seek help or feedback. Husband got the feeling that you’re on your own when you’re there. Metaphorically, it’s like they drop you in the prairie near Frontier town and you have to outwit, outlast, and outwork the forces of nature to get to the town. Maybe that’s a little extreme, but it definitely has the feel of the Rugged Individualist and Manifest Destiny. It is not an incubator.
Interested in the CSU/Denver Broncos Sports Management Institute? Good–so are another 10,000 people at school, all of whom have equal priority to apply for it. Again, if you want to be involved, you have to work hard, do the dirty work and be willing to work longer and harder to be in that program, which leads to… selling tickets for events and other unglamorous time-wasters where you are paying tuition while being dependent on the vagaries of low-level strangers to help you stand out and get to the next level of…trying to arrange sponsorships for events. Giant chimera to my cynical eye.
Net takeaway:
Beautiful setting, access to nature, sunshine and activity encourages good mental health. Friendly, but not effusive. Certainly not Midwestern, Southern or even SoCal cultural feel. Not pretentious or status-seeking at all. Like O.U. they are aggressively increasing merit aid to OOS students to compete with other national universities and boost their numbers. Business school claims to be actively recruiting top 10% of senior classes to mold Bschool in years to come. There is institutional excitement about where the B-school is going, in the context of a hot job market in a highly desirable place for young people to establish themselves. It seems a lot bigger than O.U., for good and for less good.
Just two very different schools. CSU has better recruiting options for top-tier post-grad jobs, riding on coattails of Colorado hot market in general. It is more impressive to an East Coast eye than O.U. However, you are more of a number there and it’s your 18 year old blood, sweat and tears that will make the difference.They kind of seem to expect that you know what you are doing. That works for some students more than others. Many of the country’s top undergraduate business programs are smaller than demand–Penn State 800, UMass Amherst 765, and they do this so they can control the learning experience and give a lot of support to individuals. CSU has a lot to offer, however it struck us that you could easily get lost there. It seems less of a hive of cooperation and mentoring, and more of a pre-professional program for very motivated self-starters.
For my son, O.U. was the better fit at this time in his life. O.U. also offers him the EXACT dual major he is looking for, with priority registration for classes, a guaranteed internship, and students who like sports and going to Buffalo Wild Wings and are also fans of the Cleveland Sports teams. Sounds silly, but another way for him to “belong”. It seemed to us, that after going to 3 different high schools, moving to a new place that he hated, making some nice “school friends” but having zero social life during high school, that O.U. offered him an opportunity to be part of a collaborative, supportive community of people who share interests with him and are generally relaxed and not Type A. Plus it was $40K cheaper over 4 years and 1,000 miles closer. I’m a believer! Go Bobcats!!
EXCELLENT points @lvvcsf
GPA requirements at CSU are similar, but with less tutoring to help you keep your grades up. Also even if son doesn’t keep GPA at 3.3, we can still afford it–it just will cost us the equivalent of in-state PA tuition (Pitt or PennState).
Thank you for tips about the meal plan!
For transportation, we can drive the 7.5 hours to O.U. from Philadelphia. It’s long, but doable. Also my husband’s family is in Warren and Akron, respectively, so if there were an emergency there is family even closer to go get him. Columbus is an easy flight to Philly.
We don’t have to buy airfare then rent a car, etc. as we would for CSU, so that means that we can actually go visit him for Parents weekend, etc. Selfishly this would be nice for us.
Any other tips, I’d love to hear. Thank you so much!