<p>JHS:</p>
<p>Granted, the comparisons overwhelmingly favor HYPSM, but this does not take into account students who do not bother, for one reason or another, to apply to HYPSM. This is particularly striking at TJHS, which should be an incubator of more applicants to those schools. I've seen some of the TJ students at competitions, and boy, there are impressive! The same could be said of the UCs.</p>
<p>Of course. The kid who will be valedictorian of my son's class did not apply to any of those schools, either. He didn't want to leave home yet. But my impression, at least here, is that most of the really outstanding students do tend to apply to at least one or two of the HYPSM schools. I think it's interesting that, while the CC debate seems fairly even, when push comes to shove it's only a very small number of kids who choose cheaper over more prestigious at the top, even when "cheaper" is pretty damn prestigious itself.</p>
<p>The numbers go down pretty fast. Virginia holds its own vs. Cornell, Duke, and Georgetown, and solidly beats the other non-Ivy schools included in the data. It gets 1/3 of the kids who choose between it and Penn, which probably is a fair reflection of the sentiment in this thread. (I assume that the 1/3 is heavily weighted to Virginia kids who would pay substantially less for UVa vs. Penn, so that UVa probably gets a majority of its in-state kids who could go to Penn.) </p>
<p>This corresponds to what I have seen at ground level: Kids turning down Ivies to go to school for free elsewhere, state or lower-tier privates, but no one (yet) turning down Harvard or Yale (except curmudgeon's daughter, of course).</p>
<p>JHS, you may be right. At my kid's school, 85 kids applied to UCLA and 3 applied to Virginia last year. If those 3 applied to both Virginia and UCLA, and chose Virginia, yep, I can see Virginia higher ranked in the survey.</p>
<p>Girls at D's h.s. turned down Harvard & Yale lat year. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Granted, the comparisons overwhelmingly favor HYPSM, but this does not take into account students who do not bother, for one reason or another, to apply to HYPSM.
[/quote]
Good point, marite. </p>
<p>It's anecdotal, of course...but I'm also seeing kids at "ground level" turn down prestige for $$$.</p>
<p>dstark -- </p>
<p>I wasn't commenting on the relationship between UVa and Berkeley in the survey, which I think was slightly but not overwhelmingly weighted to UVa. I was commenting on the state school (Berkeley, UCLA, UVa) vs. HYPS issue. With the UCs, the difference was even more striking: Only 1-2% of kids with a choice chose Berkeley or UCLA. Now, obviously lots of kids are applying to Berkeley and/or UCLA and not to Harvard or Yale; each of those UC schools gets almost 3 times the applications Harvard or Yale does. But it doesn't cost that much to apply to Harvard, either, and I'm sure lots of kids do apply, to see whether they get in, what kind of financial aid, etc. </p>
<p>And then, if they get accepted at Harvard, practically none of them choose to go to Berkeley or UCLA.</p>
<p>I'm not saying they are right to decide that way. I think the arguments are strong both ways. My memory of the actual studies, and my subjective sense of the world, is that there is no compelling economic argument for paying an extra $100,000 for Harvard over a top state school. I'm saying that the near unanimity of actual choices in the face of strong arguments both ways is fascinating. </p>
<p>StickerShock: What did the "girls at D's h.s." turn down Harvard & Yale for?</p>
<p>I know a local example of a young man who last year turned down an admission to Harvard to attend Notre Dame. The size of the surrounding town and the nurturing atmosphere of the school seemed to be important factors for him. Harvard's yield here in the upper Midwest is probably lower than its yield in other places, because of regional cultural factors. But, yes, some young people here turn down full rides at the state university honors program to attend Harvard at personal expense out of pocket, so there are still applicants who perceive a value difference along the dimension that the OP is asking about.</p>
<p>MilwDad, I was glad to read your post, as it seems to validate my D's strategy. Her career goal is International Law. She's a HS senior and is applying to several universities. So far, she's been accepted at two state universities, including our state flagship school. Her plan is that she'll most likely choose between the two state u's, and consider the private colleges only with significant merit aid. Basically, she's shifted her focus from attending her "dream" undergraduate school to her "dream" law school, in hopes that, as you suggested in your post, that the law school would have a greater impact upon her career opportunities.</p>
<p>
I think it kind of surprised them , too. ;) </p>
<p>Now to be fair, both my D and I placed a great premium on Yale, even moreso than Amherst. That's why the final decision was Rhodes/Yale. Had Yale come in near our Fafsa amount instead of $10K over it I think we could have had a different outcome, but I'm not sure what she would have done. Had they given D the package that Colgate gave her, it would have been a done deal had she liked Bulldog Days. Oh well, their loss. ;) She's happy as a clam and setting the world on fire.</p>
<p>I also know of a student who was accepted to Harvard but attended an LAC instead -- probably for financial reasons. The case was notable to me because it is the exception, in my experience. It's one thing to debate the value of prestige when the question is academic. It's quite another thing for the specific student and his/her parents when HYP vs any other school is the choice. Most parents, I believe, would hesitate to push their student to decline an HYP acceptance. I know that we would have always wondered "what if?" if DS had attended a different school for financial reasons.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Most parents, I believe, would hesitate to push their student to decline an HYP acceptance.
[/quote]
I would hope that all parents would be hesitant to push. Who in God's name wants THAT pressure? It's the kids call. All you should do is advise. And anyway, that's all mine would have ever let us do. She's a bit independent. ;)</p>
<p>As to the "what if's"? I've got big giant honker ones. I don't think I'll stop having those until she's firmly esconced in her professional life. Probably not even then. But that's part of the job description when you raise a child who thinks for themselves.</p>
<p>Cur, my comment was not directed at you personally. I firmly believe that your D has a mind of her own!</p>
<p>But how many 17 or 18 years olds feel comfortable if mom and dad say, "Sure, you can go to HYP. But we'll be in debt for the rest of our lives, eating dog food." Personally, I don't think that this should really be the kids decision, unless they have a trust fund set aside for college. When a parent asks a kid if they really think it's worth $160 k to attend a certain college, few kids really understand what that means. I think it's up to the parents to make the decision about what they can afford financially, and give that number to the kid.</p>
<p>At least in our area, there is a growing trend in students turning down Ivy's (including HYP) and other top 15 schools for state U honors programs. The general consensus is that the difference in education, if any, is not greater than the difference in money. What is increasingly at play is the claim by the flagship U that its honors grads are often out-placing Ivy grads in head-to-head competition for grad and professional school slots. This is particularly true for neurosciences. If this is, in fact, true, the cost differential may contribute less and less to a student's decision to forgo the private in favor of the state honors program.</p>
<p>Let me approach it this way:</p>
<p>Yale accepts 1,800 for a class of 1,350. Harvard accepts 2,000 for a class of 1,600. But since there is some meaningful overlap between the schools in terms of the kids they accept (and also, overlap with Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Dartmouth, Columbia, etc.), I think it's pretty clear that the majority, maybe the vast majority, of those 850 aggregate "declines" Harvard and Yale receive are in favor of (a) each other or (b) a similar need-only high-prestige private university or college.</p>
<p>When you get down to it, there can't be more than a couple hundred kids, nationally, any year, who turn down an actual acceptance to Harvard or Yale on economic grounds, even for very good alternatives. And I suspect that 200 is a very high estimate (after all, some of those kids may be turning BOTH Harvard and Yale down); the number could easily be less than 100. If StickerShock, idad, or anyone else knows two of them, that's not a trivial percentage of the total.</p>
<p>JHS, I don't remember mentioning Berkeley. :)
I don't like the survey. I think it is shoddy research.
I used UCLA and Virginia because I know where I live, people love UCLA and don't know Virginia (well, actually my son likes Virginia:)).
Yet, Virginia is ranked higher in the west. BS.</p>
<p>I've used this example before.</p>
<p>Vanilla ice cream is the best selling ice cream. If I take a sample of 30 people and they have a choice between vanilla and bubble gum ice cream, and 27 people would never consider bubble gum ice cream, but do like vanilla, those people would be dropped from the survey.
You would end up with 3 people in the survey. If 2 out of 3 people would then prefer bubble gum ice cream over vanilla, the revealed preference survey would announce to the world... people prefer bubble gum ice cream over vanilla, 2 to 1.</p>
<p>That's not really true, is it?
It's really 28 to 2 for vanilla.</p>
<p>Pretty bad survey.</p>
<p>Substitute schools for ice cream.</p>
<p>Where I live, Stanford is more popular than Harvard (I do live in Nor Cal). UCLA might be too.</p>
<p>
Yep. That was our plan, too. All it takes is a Yale or Amherst acceptance to screw that up. LOL. You are right back crunching numbers to see if you really need that extra kidney (or in our case that much land).</p>
<p>I've always admitted that the parents' number changed for Yale. That's the only way she would have had a choice. We were way out of budget when we told her we could do some more if she could do some more if Yale was THE place. We can't borrow. For a variety of reasons it wouldn't be prudent. ;) </p>
<p>It's a very difficult time but you muddle through being as honest as you can, hoping (and trusting) she's doing the same.</p>
<p>JHS, I don't know. I remember last year's graduating seniors were listed on a graduation program with the names of the schools they were attending next to their names. I was a bit surprised to see only two or three ivys. I just chalked it up to the increased competitiveness/baby boomlet we hear so much about. Later in the summer, the school's website published a list of acceptances by school, with no numbers or names. I believe 7 out of 8 ivys were on the list, as well as many other elite schools that had not been on the previous attending list. Now, I know this could indicate one or two superstars applied to all the prestige schools & won a ton of acceptances. But I posed that question to the school's social worker at an open house & she said that was not the case. She was seeing a trend where more & more girls who were admitted to elites were happily choosing to go elsewhere. I felt too nosey to pry further & ask what schools won out, was $$ the main issue, etc. I didn't want to breech confidentiality. So I can't say what schools were chosen over H & Y. </p>
<p>In past years, I've seen accepted lists with the number of girls accepted in parenthesis. I wish the school would go back to reporting that data to get a real feel for how successful the girls' school search had turned out. Even better would be data on the number who had applied to each college, accompanied by number accepted. As a Catholic h.s., there are very heavy numbers heading to the north east Catholic colleges, with smaller numbers heading to the midwest or further.</p>
<p>I might add that many of the girls at this school are extremely wealthy. Anecdote: One of the wealthiest girls who is a top student, likely a NMS or at least semi-finalist, etc., accepted a soccer scholarship to a local Div1 program at a third tier university. THis girl would have been in the running for a full tuition merit at this school, as well. Certainly a candidate for admisions into higher ranked schools. So something is convincing girls & their families to consider schools with lower selectivity. There are probably different considerations for each & every kid, but this is just one example where the family could make a decision wihtout money being a critical factor. Yet they happily chose a lower ranked school.</p>
<p>Stickershock, I wonder if the families that you think are wealthy could possible just have a lot of debt! I also know families that I think must be very affluent, based on their cars and homes, but may not have much cash on hand.</p>
<p>
[quote]
In that time I will drive 2 Honda Civics bought on the cheap and I will drive them until they die while my best friend flips SUV leases every few years .... the difference in our car strategies over 18 years ... pretty darn close to 4-year difference between paying fro a top private school and my local state U.
[/quote]
Good point!</p>
<p>By the way, someone in an earlier post asked why I thought our son would have been less likely to visit China if he had attended a different school. The answer is, because it was never on the radar before! Yet, his roommate is Chinese, and because they were visiting relatives, it all worked out. Maybe he would have done something similar if he had attended a different school, but you never know.</p>
<p>FYI in reply 158 .. sjmom replied to a reply I wrote but then deleted after trying to edit ... sorry sjmom. I deleted it because I can't seem to make my point in a well written neutral way.</p>
<p>curmudgeon, I can imagine that it's easy to offer to send one's kid to Yale if there is no chance in hell that she'll get in. Knowing your D's stats made her a valid candidate, it had to be emotional crunching numbers & trying to make her best possible college fit a reality. </p>
<p>Honesty is important. I remember vividly when D was doing competitive Irish dancing. The first year she was old enough to compete at Nationals, she asked H & me if she could have a dog if she won. Now, I never thought she'd even recall her first time out. I was a dancing-world neophyte. So I said, "Sure!," even though I'm not a dog person. H chimed in that he'd spring for a camel or lama, too. What the heck. Wouldn't you know she made it into the top ten. I confess to being torn between wanting her to advance to the podium and wanting her to drop out so I wasn't stuck cleaning up after a dog. That was a close one, & we are still a dogless family. It made me realize that you just never know....our kids can surprise us with amazing accomplishments & we at least owe them an honest, realistic discussion of how much support we can provide if these accomplishments lead to wonderful, albeit expensive, opportunities.</p>