The biggest mistake you can make is...

College Search & Selection
1

<p>...going to a school where you are overqualified.</p>

<p>By overqualified, I mean that you are in the top half of your class based on admissions criteria.</p>

<p>Why? Because students in the bottom half of their class grow the most. They are challenged and stretched.</p>

<p>Why go to a school where YOU are setting the standard for others? Go somewhere where others are setting the standard for you.</p>

<p>Settling for an easy school is a common mistake, I think. Many students are intimidated by challenge and seek safe haven.</p>

<p>So, I am saying that 100% of students should be in the bottom 50% of their class......well, I am saying that YOU should be in the bottom half.</p>

<p>I am sure you all agree.</p>

2

<p>Haha, 100% being in the bottom half. Hard to do, but I definitely agree with you. I’m not sure where I fall with BMC, and I doubt I’m ever going to care/think about it. I’m 100% sure that I’m going to grow academically like crazy no matter what happens to me there, and if for some reason I want to grow a little more I can take a couple classes at Swat (where I would be in the bottom 10%, haha).</p>

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<p>Heh heh…I agree with ya collegehelp, but I imagine some young pre-med majors may have a different opinion…;)</p>

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<p>That’s not true at all. Being in the top 50% means you can shine, grab the attention of professors and faculty, as well as gain easier access to research.</p>

<p>You grow as much as you want yourself to grow. Sure, if you do the minimum at an easy university vs doing the minimum at a challenging university, you’ll grow more at the challenging one. If you’re in the top 50% of the student body, you can compensate by taking harder classes, getting coveted interships, and of course independent projects. Plus you’ll walk away with a high GPA that employers and grad schools love. You might even find yourself taking an extra major.</p>

<p>If you’re in a class where you’re at the bottom, say, 25%, you’ll be struggling to keep up with your peers. Sure you’ll grow, but you won’t be able to go above and beyond your professors’ expectations, you’ll lose out on opportunities to do research, and you’ll find yourself constantly spending extra energy just to keep up. If you were at an easier school, you could use that extra energy to not only grow but also take advantage of the myriad opportunities offered only to the best.</p>

<p>Though many people choose easy schools for all the wrong reasons (which I assume you mean). People choose an easy school to slack off, which gets them nowhere. Granted, going to a harder school makes it impossible to slack off, but it’s more of your mindset than your school. If you’re motivated and always work to the best of your ability, you’ll perform optimally no matter where you study.</p>

<p>EDIT: Granted, this doesn’t apply if there’s a monstrous difference between the competition at the two schools. Yeah if you are a Harvard-caliber student, it wouldn’t make sense to go to a community college (though this isn’t really top 50% of the student body, it’s more like top .05%). But a student who’d be at the bottom 50% of harvard studying at a solid state flagship (think berkeley, michigan, virginia, etc) or lower ivy (cornell, dartmouth, brown) would be able to achieve just as much as they could if they were a crimson.</p>

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<p>You make it seem like college is one monolithic class with all the same students in all the same classes. Fact is at any large school the less academic kids will cluster in less demanding majors such as education, communications, social studies, and a few others. the more academic types will be in the sciences, engineering, math/econ and other tougher majors. Outside of a few gen ed classes you will never see most of them in a class again. But the hot comm arts and elem ed girls do improve the landscape over some of the math/engineering majors. It all works together.</p>

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<p>Dude, get a grip. Being in the top half of the admissions standards in no way means you will be at the top half of the college class. Waaaay too many factors. Once you start college, the population will self-redistribute. There are PLENTY of high achieving high schoolers who fail out, plenty of low achievers who flourish and never mind the fact you won’t be competing with people with different majors. Oh and don’t forget rampant grade inflation that takes a bit part of competition out of the equation. The A grade is harder to come by at mid tier state schools than it is at Harvard, Duke or Dartmouth. That is verifiable fact. ( <a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com)%5B/url%5D”>www.gradeinflation.com)</a>. The fact that you think this is the biggest mistake a high school student can make when going to college is an indication of your maturity. News Flash- People make mistakes in college that can get them addicted, hurt, raped or even dead. Choosing a college were you think you are intellectually superior isn’t even on the list.</p>

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<p>collegehelp - </p>

<p>Where on earth do you come up with nonsense like this? The kids who need “merit-based” aid in order to keep from strangling from their debt loads had better apply to schools where they are going to be in the top 50% if not the top 25% or even 10% if they are going to have a prayer of being awarded that “merit-based” aid! To imply that somehow they will never achieve their full human potential by electing affordability, is plain and simply evil.</p>

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<p>while this is true for most schools outside of USNEWS top 150… </p>

<p>what defines if you are top half or bottom half? if you are at Harvard, does getting a 1600, 4.0, National Merit Scholar mean you are top half? College is an entirely different animal.</p>

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<p>agree with happymom. affordability is a huge factor for many in deciding which college to go to. College is a huge expense. Merit aid helps in making it manageable and affordable both for the kids and parents. The chances of getting any kind of merit aid when you are in the bottom 50% is unlikely.</p>

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<p>Here’s the thing: yes, if you are WAY overqualified for a school, you probably won’t grow, and you shouldn’t chose such a school (unless money comes into play). But being in the top 50%of the entering class does not make you way overqualified, or overqualified at all, and I doubt it will mean you hav a less satisfying acedemic experiance. Now, if your stats put you well above the stats for the 75th+%? Then maybe you should look elsewhere (even for merit money), though I’m sure you could make the best of that situation. But any motivated student could learn a lot at Harvard, big state U, or top 100 LAC were they get a lot of merit money. They might have different experiances, but they could have good ones at any of the places.</p>

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<p>A mind is a terrible thing to waste. It is such a shame when kids fail to go to the best school they can.</p>

<p>Regarding the money issue…what I have seen are lots of parents with upside-down priorities. They make their poor kid commute to a community college but what were they doing for the prior 18 years? They overspent on a house, vacations, cars, clothes, entertainment, and so on. They lived above their means. I feel sorry for their kids. They have lousy parents. What should be more important than your kid? Nothing. Even then, what’s wrong with taking out a parent PLUS loan? It’s your child’s future for crying out loud. Parents who love their children will find a way…</p>

<p>By the way, happymom, you are lucky to live in a state with a great public university.</p>

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<p>“What should be more important than your kid? Nothing. Even then, what’s wrong with taking out a parent PLUS loan? It’s your child’s future for crying out loud. Parents who love their children will find a way…”</p>

<p>That’s one of the most ignorant things I have ever heard. For some, the idea of keeping their children and themselves out of tens of thousands of dollars of debt before they are even 20 years old is the most sensible move anyone can make. If a student goes to a “lesser” school for financial reasons, that too is an investment in their future. </p>

<p>Graduating with no loans means one has more money available or can take out loans for: travelling abroad, putting a downpayment on a house, buying a car, financing a family, living more comfortably. </p>

<p>Just because someone doesn’t think the same way as you doesn’t mean they don’t love their children.</p>

<p>If kids love their parents they shouldn’t force their parents to go into debt for them or make them feel guilty for ruining the next 10-25 years of their own lives, 18 years of love should be enough. For our parents’ generation and their parents’ before them, many didn’t have the option to go to any school at all. We should be greatful for anything we can get, even if it is simply community college.</p>

<p>“They overspent on a house, vacations, cars, clothes, entertainment, and so on. They lived above their means. I feel sorry for their kids.”</p>

<p>I always feel bad for the kids with a comfortable house that take elaborate vacations and have great access to clothes and entertainment. <em>insert sarcasm</em> </p>

<p>The ultimate goal in one’s life is to be happy and to have enough to live comfortably. That doesn’t necesarily mean college for everyone.</p>

13

<p>

“best” is such a subjective thing. A school might simply be a better fit for a student, even if some ppl consider it to be “worse”.</p>

<p>Also, it’s not like you’re “wasting” your mind, you’re using it to save money, in some cases as much as $100,000+ dollars.</p>

<p>

Sometimes it simply isn’t practical to spend an extra $100,000 on your kid’s education for a marginal and subjective difference in quality.</p>

<p>Regarding the “living above your means” issue, I do agree that the practice should be frowned upon. Guess what? Taking out your life savings to send your kid to an expensive private college is also “living above your means”.</p>

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<p>“A mind is a terrible thing to waste. It is such a shame when kids fail to go to the best school they can.”</p>

<p>“Go somewhere where others are setting the standard for you.” </p>

<p>From these comments I think you fail to understand that a truly great mind and a great learner is self-challenging. A real learner isn’t dependent upon others to set the bar, but does so on his/her own. Learners and brilliant minds enjoy learning and exploring for the sense of discovery, not because it meets someone else’s standards. </p>

<p>Your other statements about priorities and going into debt for our children sounds like the rants of a spoiled child not getting his or her way.</p>

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<p>Trying to fit with your friends by chosing a college based on populartiy amongst your peers. Go to a college you felt like a shoe-in</p>

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<p>Collegehelp,</p>

<p>I good majority of the state schools I’ll be applying to, I’m confident - really confident, I’ll be in the top 50% or even higher since I need the aid. By no means would I call myself a poor-but-brilliant-student, but I would like to graduate from my undergraduate studies debt free. It would an extra bonus for my parents since they sent my older siblings to college w/o debt.</p>

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<p>Grade inflation is crap. Really, it comes down to whether or not you believe a grade should just indicate a person’s position in that class relative to their peers, or whether it should indicate their mastery of the material. Considering the point of college is to get an education and learn, I think grades should be more based on the latter. You still need to compare grades to get the relative order right, but there’s no logical reasons grades need to follow any specific type of distribution. Yes, people at better schools are going to have more difficult material to cover in their classes, but you can only make things so much more difficult before it stops being about education and starts being pointless competition for a grade (or you lose focus on the important aspects of a subject). The capabilities of students at top universities generally exceeds how difficult you can reasonably make a course, so it’s not surprising lots of people are able to get A’s. You could also reasonably argue that it’s easier for students to do well in a class if you have more knowledgeable professors who are able to very clearly present the material.</p>

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<p>“Go to the college where you felt like a shoe-in”</p>

<p>Everyone says that. What happens when you’re rejected from all of your “shoe-in” feeling schools?</p>

<p>Right now, my only options are schools where I will be in the top 5-15% of the class based on my admission criteria.</p>

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<p>Do the best you can…</p>

<p>If you goto a good state school or Harvard, sure it will make a difference, but not the grand canyon difference people make it out to be.</p>

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<p>I think that the idea that it is so much harder at mid-tier schools then at schools like Harvard is plain ignorant. Sure, Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and Yale give out alot more A’s then other schools do. But look at the students that attend. 80%-90% of those kids are the hardest working kids in their high schools. I know I am. They dedicate their lives to studying in high school and then in college. Almost everyone who attends Stanford has received less then a handful of B’s in their lives. Unless you believe every college class should be curved I don’t see how you can expect students who have done everything it takes to get A’s in high school to stop once they get to the Ivy league.</p>