<p>I was just wondering what the difference between public and private are. Is admission different between them, or are they the same?</p>
<p>The admissions process is the same. Where you'll see differences is:
- public schools are cheaper, while private schools tend to give more aid;
- public schools have in-state & out-of-state tuitions, while private schools charge all students the same amount;
- public schools rely more on state funds, private schools more on endowments.</p>
<p>In terms of admissions, one impotant thing to know is that most state schools have an OOS quota. Meaning that only a certain percentage of admitted students can be from out of state. Depening on which publics you're looking at, it might be hard to get in OOS.</p>
<p>This is especially true at top privates, such as UNC and the UCs.</p>
<p>Private schools generally have more complex applications and more essays to write. In many states you can apply to all state schools with a single application.</p>
<p>My son applied to a mix of private and high-ranked publics (as an out-of-state applicant). There were some general differences in the applications. </p>
<p>1.The publics required fewer letters of recommendation, and decisions about admission and scholarships are far more stats-driven (less flexible). </p>
<p>2.Many of the merit scholarships at publics are restricted to in-state students (although there are major exceptions to this), while privates are usually anxious to attract students from a wide variety of locales, so the opposite may be true. </p>
<p>3.Private schools may require parents to file both the FAFSA and the Profile financial aid forms.</p>
<p>For public schools like the UCs no recommendations or interviews.</p>
<p>comparing and contrasting elite private colleges to elite public colleges, in general, i personally have found the following (i transferred from a public school to a private school)</p>
<ol>
<li><p>private schools take care of their students better. they are interested in endowment and alumni contributions and make sure you are comfortable during your time there so you will donate money to ensure the succeeding generations are also comfortable</p></li>
<li><p>public schools and medium to large-sized research universities tend to have about the same accessibility of professors (if you think going to a private university is going to allow you more professor access vs. a public school, you are likely wrong, that's what liberal arts schools are for)</p></li>
<li><p>private schools grade much harder, and there is much more competition from your classmates (at any public school, even the very best ones, there are kids there who are essentially in 13th grade, they don't care about schoolwork and are just there because they want to keep socializing with their high school buddies. this phenomenon does not exist at elite private schools, where there are no slackers</p></li>
<li><p>teachers at private schools tend to be more snooty, self-important (but not necessarily more decorated or better teachers). teaching quality is essentially the same.</p></li>
<li><p>students at private schools just care more, about school, about careers, about their hobbies. (talk about a subjective/controversial statement, but i stand by it, maybe it's the extra essays needed to get into private schools and the further dimension of admissions evaluations)</p></li>
<li><p>large public schools are actually easier to get involved at, extracurricularly. (at elite privates, leadership positions in extracurricular activities are competitive, all of them are already filled - see #s 3 and 5)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>"at any public school, even the very best ones, there are kids there who are essentially in 13th grade, they don't care about schoolwork and are just there because they want to keep socializing with their high school buddies. **this phenomenon does not exist at elite private schools, where there are no slackers"</p>
<p>I can't quite tell if you were kidding. That's a ridiculous statement. Pretty much every school has slackers. Even HYP. I don't have the link on me, but I remember awhile back coming across a list of quotes from prominent people who came right out and said that they went to Harvard and slacked off for 4 years.</p>
<p>"private schools grade much harder, and there is much more competition from your classmates (at any public school, even the very best ones, there are kids there who are essentially in 13th grade, they don't care about schoolwork and are just there because they want to keep socializing with their high school buddies. this phenomenon does not exist at elite private schools, where there are no slackers"</p>
<p>"students at private schools just care more, about school, about careers, about their hobbies. (talk about a subjective/controversial statement, but i stand by it, maybe it's the extra essays needed to get into private schools and the further dimension of admissions evaluations)"</p>
<p>"large public schools are actually easier to get involved at, extracurricularly. (at elite privates, leadership positions in extracurricular activities are competitive, all of them are already filled - see #s 3 and 5)"</p>
<p>-haha i hope this is a joke... are you on crack? too stereotype all privates as one way and all publics as another is crazy. i just hope you are joking and not as ignorant as you come off as.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I can't quite tell if you were kidding. That's a ridiculous statement. Pretty much every school has slackers. Even HYP.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>not in nearly the multitude or percentage of the class that a large state school does.</p>
<p>
[quote]
haha i hope this is a joke... are you on crack?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>how would i be on crack, SAT score at top privats vs. top publics are ENORMOUSLY weighted in the private schools' favors, especially at the bottom 25%.</p>
<p>take brown (#15) vs. Berkeley (#21)</p>
<p>brown 25th percentile: 1350
berkeley 25th percentile: 1200</p>
<p>and that doesn't even count berkeley's enormous number of community college transfers, which are likely even lower.</p>
<p>and FYI that's a difference between the 93rd percentile (for brown) and the seventy ninth percentile for berkeley</p>
<p>so go ahead, tell me there is equal competition at top publics as there is at top privates, and that top privates don't grade harder. back it up with anything but "i hope this is a joke."</p>
<p>oh also.. i've attended both a public and private university and experienced the grading practices firsthand... more than you can say? i think so.</p>
<p>i wasnt referring to equality in admissions ..i was referring to the specific quotes where you made. read what i quoted you on. the broad statements you made cannot be justified by stating one school has a higher sat or such. im not stating they are equally competitive to gain admissions too. read the quotes i posted that you stated. dont you see how ridiculous you sound by saying that top public school students arent as focused on their careers and such. why because the sat score at brown is higher than at berkeley? haha that doesnt validate your quote. furthermore, if you want ot get into stats, uc berkeley has a higher GPA average for incoming freshmen than does brown. also 99% of berkeleys incoming class is in the top 10% of their high school class, significantly higher than browns. so im not sure how this meens they are not focused on their future. quite the opposite. i doubt it is much more competitive at brown than at berkeley once you are admitted. the competition in your classes at berkeley is quite fierce. and stating that students at top publics are actually just in 13th grade and many only care about partying and socializing. right. like this isnt the case in almost all colleges. many top privates have quite a party scene as well. your statements are just so broad and ignorant its ridiculous.</p>
<p>ok, the other statements about extracurricular activities and opportunities for involvment, you're right, were my own personal observations from being involved in extracurriculars at both a private and a public school, and, you're right, i have no way of justifying with any sort of data (because the data does not exist)</p>
<p>CC is a forum where, when people ask "what's a school like" or "what is the difference between a public and private school" people offer their impressions, because such information is not always available by looking at charts or at reading the schools' websites.</p>
<p>I'll reiterate what i said with a disclaimer: those were my impressions of the difference between a public and private school, after having attended both. They may not be comprehensive, and they may not be categorical. It is just what i observed from attending each type of institution.</p>
<p>but those are your experiences most likely at one public you attended and one private. you cant sum up all public and private schools by the one private and one public you attended. thats like saying i went to Duke and it has a party scene, and since MIT is a private and ranked similarly, it must be a party school too. To say that students at top publics are not focused on their careers is nuts. I have attended two top publics and a top liberal arts school, and if anything my peers at UCSD and UCLA were just as focused on their future and careers than were the students at Claremont. Also remember, top publics like top UC's, Michigan, etc may have their transfer students, however many top privates have legacies. At some privates, legacies account for well over 20% of the student population. And it is obvious that they are often not as well qualified as the rest of the student body. So its not like their arent avenues for not as well qualified students to take to get into top privates.</p>
<p>i was in the business school at a public school with a top 10 business program. similarly, i now am at a private school with a top 10 economics program. So presumably, they are both highly preprofessional environments.</p>
<p>i can say, without hesitation, that the amount of preprofessionalism at my privavte school is monumentally larger than at my public school.</p>
<p>if a difference this pronounced can exist between a top public business school and a top private economics program, i shudder to think how far it extends when less competitive models are used.</p>
<p>again, you are using one private school vs one public school to compare all privates vs publics. not exactly a great scale to compare.</p>
<p>The question of "public vs private" is one that I think about a lot. Part of the problem with making broad statements is that there are frequently exceptions to the rule. Still there are probably some general differences:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Size: Public universities tend to be much larger than privates, but this is not always the case. William & Mary with its 5734 undergrads, is about the same size as Carnegie Mellon or Columbia or Yale. U Virginia, with its 14,676 undergrads, is about the same size as Cornell and is smaller than USC or NYU. Still, when you think about publics, you often are thinking about schools like UC Berkeley (23,863 undergrads), U Michigan (25,555 undergrads), UCLA (25,432), U Washington (27,836) and even bigger schools like U Wisconsin (30,055), U Illinois (31,472), Penn State (36,613), U Florida (35,110), and U Texas (37,037).</p></li>
<li><p>IS requirements: Nearly all public universities have limits placed on how many students they can enroll from outside of their state. Smaller states like U Delaware avoid this (only 31% IS), but usually the numbers are 67% or more are from the state. In some prominent states (CA, TX, FL), the IS percentage is 93% or higher. Private colleges don't have such limits except where there are charter requirements, eg, Duke's mandate to have 13% from NC. </p></li>
<li><p>Average student quality: Because of the IS student requirements, this can lead to the enrollment of lower statistically qualified students as measured by standardized test scores. State schools tend to have very percentages of Top 10% students as school admissions folks will use this as a necessary guideline to aid in the admissions process and provide a diversity of students from the entire state and from a variety of different school districts. It should be pointed out that many state universities have a subset of students who are highly qualified and would be competitive to many of the most selective universities. It should also be pointed that these same schools commonly have a subset that is significantly weaker. </p></li>
<li><p>Admission Policies: This is mostly an extension of #2 and #3, but generally public universities are more statistically driven than their private counterparts and typically accept higher percentages of students than similarly ranked privates. Publics are almost always easier for IS students (CA might be an exception), but they can be very difficult for OOS students, eg, U North Carolina enrolls only 18% OOS students and competition for these spots is fierce with an estimated acceptance rate of 20-25%. </p></li>
<li><p>Class sizes: Public colleges tend to have larger class sizes on average and they usually make greater use of Teaching Assistants to instruct students. There is plenty of data to demonstrate this, eg, class size data from the CDS, USNWR class size data, student-faculty ratios, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>Academic Breadth: Public universities will often have more academic departments and greater resources to lower profile areas of study. If a student has little idea of what they want to study, the public university usually offers the greater amount of choice. </p></li>
<li><p>Postgraduate opportunities: Due to their generally larger size and the presence of at least a subset of very high grade students, public universities can and do attract a lot of corporate recruitment. Within their home regions, top public school graduates compete very effectively against students from other schools, public or private. However, outside of their home region, they usually do not have near the same power and attraction. Students from publics can also compete effectively for graduate school opportunities and top students from top publics are commonly found at America's top graduate schools. </p></li>
<li><p>Graduate schools Resources: While this can be found on the campuses of both public and privates, it is more common on the public's campus and probably plays a larger role in the academic reputation of the institution. One caveat is that many public universities will have strong graduate programs and reputations, but the undergraduate experience may be less of a priority and the value added of these resources is not enjoyed by most undergraduates. </p></li>
<li><p>Cost: Public universities are almost always less expensive than their private counterparts. This is particularly true for IS students although the cost for OOS students can be relatively close to (and occasionally more than) comparable private schools. </p></li>
<li><p>Environment: Public schools often will have a greater diversity of students and social scenes and well as athletic scenes. Many students LOVE this aspect of the undergraduate experience and this is a key differentiator with most of the top private where the comparable scenes are much smaller and less developed. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>There are other differences, but these are most of the major ones.</p>