<p>alh, once you figure it out, don’t forget the passage:</p>
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<p>well if you would explain how it would help!!</p>
<p>I already said</p>
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<p>what I don’t believe is that NO students are better served by an elite school</p>
<p>Holy Cross and Gettysburg are not second rate schools…</p>
<p>^^right</p>
<p>and then the side discussion about LACs which also are seen as “elite” and “prestigious” in many circles</p>
<p>the book likes LACs</p>
<p>annasdad, I get and agree with your bottom line statement, that a student can be a success anywhere. That’s an important message for a lot of people to hear, especially newcomers to CC. Especially those who might think that they are doing their children a horrible disservice by not being able or willing to spend big money on a college education. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I’m not getting why you have an issue with the idea that people who can afford to pay for a luxury good choose to do so. Especially people who’ve carefully considered a lot of different options for college all along the price scale. If people can afford it, and they’ve done their homework, why should you care? There are some people who doggedly insist that only an “elite” school is “acceptable”. They’re just as annoying to me as people who doggedly insist that “elite” schools are always overrated.</p>
<p>alh, don’t do what annasdad does, it is illegal. There is a copyright restriction stated on the excerpts he is citing. Selectively copying entire passages is illegal.</p>
<p>annasdad, the last quote you illegally promoted is actually the author’s paraphrase with credit of stuff written by Malcolm Gladwell in The Outliers.</p>
<p>And everything else you selectively excerpt is misleading without the context of the entire book. Either you didn’t read it, you read it and don’t understand it or you read it and choose to selectively excerpt only those portions that support your bias. </p>
<p>The author doesn’t say Podunk U = Harvard. </p>
<p>The whole point of the book is your success depends on your engagement.</p>
<p>You can go to Harvard, not engage, graduate and do well–but you will have spent $200K and taken advantage of a fraction of the resources. Or you can go to “reasonably selective,” less-costly college and “suck the juice out of it,” and be wildly successful however you choose to define it. </p>
<p>He says selectivity matters because while you can find smart kids at lesser schools and a “less academic subculture” at more prestigious schools, on average, being surrounded by the more impressive students a highly-ranked school attracts will help you get a better education. ** He says studies show this is vital for URMs and other disadvantaged – they should aim for the most prestigious schools they can get into. **</p>
<p>There are highly selective schools that offer intelligent and interesting student bodies, as well as a highly academic subculture, that are neither expensive nor prestigious.</p>
<p>When I chose my college years ago, I chose a school with smart kids, tiny class size (often 1, 2, 5 students in a class), lots of student-professor interaction, and an “honors college” designation. It was dirt cheap. A public school with the same benefits as a private LAC, except the prestige and the “connections,” though it was great for grad school acceptances. So I am looking for the same in schools for my kids, and hoping that SUNY Geneseo ( have you heard of it? Probably not, unless you live in NY) fits the bill (I haven’t visited).</p>
<p>So my kids and I won’t have the status, but we will have the substance. People argue that there are fewer really good students that will elevate discussions in the public schools, and use this to argue in favor of a pricey private. Maybe they just haven’t looked hard enough to discover the treasures under the rocks. Or maybe what they just really want is prestige.</p>
<p>TXArtemis: Thank you. Have you been able to locate any serious reviews of these two works annasdad keeps citing? I am looking without success.</p>
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<p>I agree. Although there are far more of the former than the latter here on CC.</p>
<p>redpoint, the SUNYs, including Geneseo, are indeed well-known here on CC. Even to those of us on the opposite coast. I talk up the SUNYs to high schoolers here in California who are itching to be out of state as one great affordable option that can be cheaper than UCs. They’re of course not affordable for all OOS students (or even in-staters).</p>
<p>OP.
If you have unlimited resources or simply want to pay, why not? Why are you debating? In our family case, D. applied only to colleges known for good Merit awards. But this was important to us. Since your kid applied to others, I assumed that you were considering paying at the time of application. What has changed since then? If you were ready to pay, then there is no question now. Correct?
BTW, D. graduted from State UG where she was on full tuition Merit awards for all 4 years and is currently at Med. School. Looking back, she considers her UG a perfect fit for her. She has received Merit awards at every UG (including private) that she applied, as was planned according to our research.
So, I woud stick to whatever was intended based on original research. Seems to work.</p>
<p>No ,i would say there is significantly more that ’ insist ‘elite school are overated’ then those who post bragging about how wonderful pricey,‘elite’ schools are…and when it is mentioned, it usually is in respnse to a post berating elite type schools</p>
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<p>Would anyone say that there’s no difference between U Mass and MIT? I think everyone would agree that MIT courses are much more rigorous than courses almost anywhere else. My math coach advised all but the most capable and diligent students not to go to MIT or Caltech (even if they were accepted) because of the tremendous workload. She knew people who were accepted and dropped out because of the overwhelming amount of work. These are the same students who could have breezed through a college degree at almost any state school.</p>
<p>I’m taking two math courses right now that I feel have challenged my thinking skills exceptionally and provided me with a tremendous amount of knowledge. Two students in the classes were in the top 20 USA high school students in the most important national math competition, and even they frequently found themselves having difficulty solving certain problems. Such courses could not be offered at a typical state university. Indeed, the Real Analysis course I took last semester covered almost all of the combined material in Case Western’s two-course Analysis series, and I don’t believe that they have an accelerated version. I’m not saying this to brag–my point is that I could not have been nearly as challenged at most other universities. An even more striking example would be Harvard’s Math 55: in the past, this course has even been too hard for some of the very smartest math students at Harvard–there is not way you could get a class that was anywhere near this challenging from most state schools.</p>
<p>Here are some personal experiences from other students who have taken classes at both lower-tier and higher-tier universities:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/11269581-post9.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/11269581-post9.html</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/11272453-post38.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/11272453-post38.html</a></p>
<p>I don’t intend to sound elitist. For a while now I’ve tended to overvalue educations at elite universities and undervalue those at state schools, and I’m beginning to realize that the differences between places like MIT and the University of Washington aren’t as large as I realized. However, there absolutely are differences. I know from personal experience that the level of academic challenge at a place like Caltech far exceeds that of a typical state school. You can always learn and find yourself challenged, but for some people, higher-tier universities will make it much easier to do this than other institutions will.</p>
<p>^I cannot get it, how people compare? To compare fairly, one got to be at 2 different places taking the same exact classes adn looking for the same exact opportunites? How is that possible? I understand that every one is bragging about her UG, why not if they got what they wanted out of it. So while some are bragging about Ivy/Elite, other are doing the same about their state schools. Do not get it when one is saying that her UG is better than others’, it was undeniably better for her, others were happy with their own choices and if they were not, then there is a tranfer option.</p>
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<p>Well, as one whose lifestyle, such as it was, was sustained for 17 of the first 20 years of his life by a faculty salary at one of those schools, I would not claim otherwise. But the quote to which you were responding said they are “not viewed as the most prestigious,” which when compared to HYP, they clearly are not.</p>
<p>@Redpoint; As a lifelong New Yorker, I would say that from my high school there was a notable difference between my classmates going to Geneseo and those going to elite private schools. I went to a strong public high school that sends a lot of kids to top schools and the kids going to top schools are stronger and more interesting students than those going to SUNYs. Particularly interesting to note is that many going to elite schools for non-scientific fields outperformed intended science majors in high school AP sciences.</p>
<p>annasdad: your response to #66 and #73?</p>
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<p>Then there’s a lot of illegal copying going on here. Actually, it probably falls well within the bounds of fair use for, as the US Copyright Office ([U.S</a>. Copyright Office - Fair Use](<a href=“http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html]U.S”>U.S. Copyright Office Fair Use Index)) says, "The distinction between fair use and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission. "</p>
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<p>Actually, I did read the whole book (have you?); I bought a copy for my college-bound daughter as a Christmas present, and after I gave it to her borrowed it back to read it. </p>
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<p>No, but he does say</p>
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<p>Now i get it, a disgruntled professor…:)</p>
<p>Kidding of course</p>
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<p>I will admit exceptions for MIT and Caltech, insofar as I doubt it is possible to get through either of those places without rigor. But that does not mean that a student who seeks out rigor cannot get an equally rigorous education elsewhere. And there is ample anecdotal evidence to support the view that it is possible to go through places like Harvard, Yale, or Northwestern without really learning all that much.</p>