<p>Please rank these large state universities, either in order of academics, prestige, quality of life, or whatever criteria you want (just so long as you name your criteria):</p>
<p>Kansas State
University of Kentucky
University of Nebraska
Oklahoma State
Oregon State
Texas Tech
Virginia Tech
West Virginia</p>
<p>Student is a possible business major, but that's subject to change.</p>
<p>Well, I’m only familiar with two - WVU and VTech.</p>
<p>Of those two, VTech has the best reputation. It’s seen as a pretty intellectual campus - good choice for engineering majors and pre-vet. I’m not sure if it’s known for business, but I assume its good standing in other departments rubs off a bit. It’s in a very rural location. Beautiful campus, however.</p>
<p>The kids I know who went to WVU were nice but not the most academically inclined (I mean, they were decently smart but I didn’t think of them as the academic type per se). </p>
<p>I have also heard that Texas Tech has a good reputation in the Texas area but I’m not familiar with the school or anyone who goes to it.</p>
<p>Oregon St.
Then maybe Kentucky</p>
<p>Then all the rest in any order you choose.
Why: look at other states - who would want to live there?</p>
<p><<…ducks and runs for cover…>> :)</p>
<p>I like the way you have ranked them – alphabetically by state. That criterion is objective, produces an unambiguous ordering, applies to each of the colleges in exactly the same way, and is fully verifiable by third parties. It also makes about as much sense as any other ranking criterion. Does any one person have actual information sufficient to make a comparison about more than two or three of these colleges, on any other criterion? (Well, I suppose various people could meaningfully rank their football or basketball programs, or their distance from a specified point.)</p>
<p>Okay, then rank the two or three with which you are familiar.</p>
<p>“Why: look at other states - who would want to live there?”</p>
<p>Well, Virginia is a pretty nice place. Good schools, proximity to the nation’s capital, some cute towns (Alexandria, etc.). I would live there over Kentucky for sure. Also over Oregon though my opinion on that is less strong.</p>
<p>I don’t think rankings are useful when you’re getting down to the nitty gritty - would I be better off at X school or X school - but if you’re comparing a wide swath of institutions and trying to narrow down where you’re applying, it behooves one to look at the relative prestige of the program you’re interested in, in addition to other “big picture” things like cost, location, etc.</p>
<p>JHS made me laugh. In part because he is right.</p>
<p>I often say to my clients that the worst financial bargain in higher education is to go to a large state university outside your home state. There might be a few exceptions to this rule, to wit:</p>
<p>1) The large public university is one of the “public ivies”: UNC, UVA, Michigan, Berkeley, UCLA
2) You receive scholarship money or tuition discounts that make that out-of-state public university cheaper than your home state. I have students i have worked with in Colorado that have been given great deals by the University of Wyoming and Montana State, for example.
3) Your own state university does not have the program or major you really want or need.
4) You have money to burn and the price of tuition is not an issue.</p>
<p>The reason I believe that paying the out-of-state premium is not worth it is that the qualitative difference in the educational experience is not that great from one big public university to the next. Further, the reputation issue is a red herring, especially since there is so much variation in the strength of various departments from one university to the next. </p>
<p>One other little factor to keep in mind: many families rule out the private universities because they are too pricey. But rarely do good students pay full price at a private institution (if you want more info about that, let me know). My clients often find that the total offer at a private university rivals that of an in-state option, and is usually cheaper than an out-of-state public option. </p>
<p>So, with that in mind, what are your real criteria for choosing an appropriate university? Only with a good understanding of your preference can one make suggestions. Tell me how you define “good” and I’ll tell you which universities fit your definition.</p>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>
<p>Mark</p>
<p>Mark, you are not supposed to advertise your services on this site:</p>
<p>“Posts promoting web sites, products, or services are not allowed. Affiliate links and URL or promotional signatures are not allowed. Please don’t create extra work for our moderators by posting promotional notices on our boards.”</p>
<p>I reported Mark as a “problem post.”</p>
<p>But he does raise some good points. D wants to go to school OOS. Some state Us are less expensive than private Us. Many of the private schools that give large merit aid are very small LACs and that isn’t what D is looking for.</p>
<p>I do agree that many OOS publics are not worth the tuition. I’m trying to figure out if any of these are worth a visit, or the cost of an application.</p>
<p>Don’t need no spam, Mark. Homepage link was bad enough but the sig line…too much, bro.</p>
<p>Rank them by your personal criteria…the criteria will be different family to family… my criteria would be strongest business program in a region of the country the student might want to remain in after college that has bearable financial costs.</p>
<p>Sorry folks. I made a mistake.</p>
<p>I will reform. Thanks for calling me out.</p>
<p>Vtech then everything else in any random order.</p>
<p>Mark makes good points. Though, for the student who expects to receive little/no aid at privates, it’s not very comforting (pretty sure you can go to the FAFSA website and find out your EFC yourself).</p>
<p>“my criteria would be strongest business program in a region of the country the student might want to remain in after college that has bearable financial costs.”</p>
<p>I agree.</p>
<p>I can’t be the only one on CC who has a child who wants to go out of state just to go out of state. D hates the heat and wants to be as far from home as possible. We won’t qualify for need-based aid and have three kids to put through college. It’s not the best OOS school she can get into; it’s the best OOS fit that we can *pay *for.</p>
<p>Hi, Missypie. Sorry about my transgression.</p>
<p>I just wanted to say that there is no real problem with your D wanting to go OOS to a big public university. I know plenty of kids for whom location is the number one criterion in choosing a college. </p>
<p>My main point is that you need not worry too much about rating this university over that one on some sort of objective scale, because your daughter’s criterion is not objective: it is a preference. So let her look at the schools and see which one she prefers.</p>
<p>My secondary point is that if D wants OOS, she might do just as well (and you, as the payers of the tuition, might do better) to look at private institutions to match her criteria–again, assuming she has some stronger criterion than “escaping the heat.” If money is the primary issue, then you need to hunt for the bargains in higher education that match your daughter’s preferences. And hunt for those (mostly private) schools that have merit money (I’m not talking about strict need-based financial aid). A good fit may also mean a bargain.</p>
<p>Again, sorry for the mistake. Good luck.</p>
<p>^^OK, well there’s your criteria for ranking: Out of state at a price that is affordable with a decent business program. I have two that will be attending out of region public schools but the merit money (for four years) moved them into the affordable category. Is this list final? Did she pick these states?</p>
<p>No, missypie, mine both wanted to go out of state - one out of Texas and one out of Alaska. Both ended up at Virginia Tech. Both loved/love it, neither in business, though. </p>
<p>The only other school I have any familiarity with at all is Texas Tech; we’ve known several kids who have gone there and loved it. Of course, that doesn’t help your D with the heat or with getting out of state! </p>
<p>Oh, and several of the kids from our former Texas hometown went to Oklahoma State and all seemed very happy there -and they do a great job marketing to Texas kids and, if I remember correctly, giving tuition breaks.</p>
<p>Since mine are WAY out of state, one more bit of advice: be sure to factor in those travel costs when you’re thinking about affordability. It was worth it in our case, but can add up fast!</p>
<p>Something else to consider for out-of-state schools is whether your state participates in any of the reciprocal agreements like Education Common Market on the East Coast. It is in the “your state doesn’t offer it” category mentioned, but it means in-state tuition.</p>
<p>I know nothing useful about these colleges. But I have a couple of questions/observations:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Given that we are talking about a business major (i.e., not an “academic” field, indicates that gainful employment is important to the student), isn’t it relevant to ask where the student wants to live? I imagine that in Dallas Texas Tech means a heck of a lot more than West Virginia does, or Oregon State. In Pittsburgh, West Virginia would be a clear winner. Since the OP is in Texas, right?, doesn’t that kind of stick the thumb in the scales for Texas Tech or Oklahoma State? Unless of course the kid wants out of Texas, in which case the big question is where does he want to go?, because at any of these colleges chances are his first job is going to be within a particular region.</p></li>
<li><p>I have kind of a longstanding prejudice in favor of state “flagships”, on the notion that the best, most creative in-state students go there. It’s a rebuttable presumption, of course; I don’t think it ever applied to, say Georgia vs. Georgia Tech. But the people I know from Oregon are all Ducks, not Beavers; my Kansas friend went to Kansas, not K-State. Don’t even talk to me about Michigan vs. State. I did a bunch of work in Kentucky for a time, and all of the great people there had gone to the University of Kentucky (or Harvard). Saddle Creek Records was founded in a business class at Nebraska, and most of its artists went there at least for a while. (On the other hand, I have another friend who hung around Lincoln NE for two years while his wife was in grad school there, and he hated the University of Nebraska so much that he makes certain to watch the Oklahoma-Nebraska football game every fall so he can root for Oklahoma.) I don’t know if this prejudice is valid or not, or whether it means that Kentucky would be more attractive than Texas Tech, Virginia Tech, or K-State.</p></li>
<li><p>Around here, the only ones with any real profile at all are West Virginia and Virginia Tech. Most of that is due to sports and national tragedies, but some kids do make their ways to those schools and return. (I know some people whose nephew went to West Virginia and did very well . . . when he was drafted by the NFL.) If the proposed landing strip is the Northeast Corridor, I suspect Virginia Tech is the best choice.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>EDIT: I missed the “hates the heat” criterion while I was writing this. Aren’t a bunch of these choices awfully Texan and/or heat-impacted? Anyway, Oregon State seems like a clear winner on the “as far as possible away from home” criterion, and also the “lack of heat” criterion (with it’s implied corollary “We still don’t want any blizzards if possible”).</p>