<p>I think going to a school where you stick out is better. At a top school, the people are just as smart or even smarter than you. A few may not be as smart. But in general, you’re just one in the many. I think going to a school where you’re the top opens doors to many opportunities and extra offers (research, internships) that they don’t otherwise give to students. I think you end up getting a better education that way, and you can have time to do research, internships, extra-cirriculars and get involved. At a top school you’re too busy trying to survive in the competition.</p>
<p>keshira wrote: “So you’re basically saying good students go into math/sci and ‘less academic’ ones into humanities?”</p>
<p>There are certainly majors in college that are very difficult to fail if you make minimal effort. To find them, simply follow football players around and see which classes they take. Let’s just say I’d be floored if more then 10 people out of an 60 member football team had a math/science major.</p>
<p>I usually get a kick out of football teams being announced player by player before a game. If I had a dollar for every time the major was “general studies” or “sports sociology”, or criminal studies, or education, and the like, I’d be rich. If you took away $10 for every math/science major, it wouldn’t put much of a dent in my riches.</p>
<p>By the way, the richest people in the world tend not to be that “academic”. They have a combination of drive, some academic skills, street smarts, and good people skills.</p>
<p>Dear JP_Omnipotence,</p>
<p>I assure you, Cornell students and alum do not consider Cornell a “lower ivy”. What the heck is a “lower ivy”?</p>
<p>Dear collegehelp,</p>
<p>“Find something you love to do early-on in high school or middle school and pursue it seriously.” You are kidding, right? Middle schoolers “seriously” planning their futures. That’s a good one.</p>
<p>othermusicdad-
middle schoolers pursue their interests seriously: sports, music, dance, skating, art, writing, reading…whatever</p>
<p>middle schoolers are probably not in a position to plan their futures seriously. they are mostly dreaming about their futures</p>
<p>How could you not grasp the difference?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Stunning logic.</p>
<p>I also enjoyed how you identified two classifications: “math/science” and “general studies, sports sociology, criminal studies, education, etc.”</p>
<p>Look: no one argues that science is easy. However, pointing out that poor students avoid science does not mean that every non-science major is full of less academic students or is easy: something you seem to have assumed based on the comment you were replying to, which asked if you believe the humanities are full of less academic students.</p>
<p>Your statement makes a good argument that math and science are hard; it doesn’t make a good argument that everything else is therefore easy.</p>
<p>As you can learn in a humanities class, Philosophy, that’s called a composition fallacy.
[Fallacy:</a> Composition](<a href=“http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/composition.html]Fallacy:”>http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/composition.html)</p>
<p>res ipsa, baby!</p>
<p>kelseyg – I’m not saying arts, humanities and social sciences are easy, only that they are more intuitively connected to everyday life than the technical, procedural math/science studies. </p>
<p>I will say that math/science is much harder for most people than other majors. I do not know if this is an intrinsic quality of the material, a result of poor teaching methods beginning in elementary school in the U.S., or a lack of interest from students (apparently math/science proficiency is 3-4 years ahead of US’ in many other countries), but it is what it is… much harder for most students than non math/science classes.</p>
<p>I think one of the biggest mistakes students make is attending a school based on its name and reputation rather than personal fit.</p>
<p>The biggest mistake you can make is going to a school just to make your parents - or anyone honestly - happy.</p>
<p>anyways i’ll play along with this…</p>
<p>the biggest mistake you can make is thinking you are overqualified. college is a brand new start, open your eyes, be open to new things, be the positive and humble guy that everyone will love. </p>
<p>at the end of the day, college choice isn’t as important as what u make of it, there are happy students at every school, and unhappy ones, it depends on your perspective.</p>
<p>I’m going to have to disagree with that beginning post.</p>
<p>If you are one of the top, there are so many more doors opened for you. I have an shadowing experience this summer that I wouldn’t have if I wasn’t one of the top in my class. I also will most likely get to research alongside some of my professors, something else I wouldn’t be able to do unless I was one of the top.</p>
<p>The amount of material I have learned at my not-so-competitive LAC this year is mind boggling for me. Not just in the classroom, but through my EC’s, and my experiences meeting an entirely new group of students from all over the country. </p>
<p>I would like to point out that I did not get into any schools that I would have been in the bottom half because I got waitlisted at all of them. Some were matches even, but if I had gotten into them I think I still would have chosen my current school. I love where I am going, and although ultimately I think I would have liked one of the other schools more, the difference in quality is not worth justifying an extra $120,000 to attend. And I have three younger siblings still at home, so asking my parents to foot that extra money wasn’t an option.</p>
<p>Also your statement about not going more than 500 miles away I do somewhat agree with, but not with some of your logic. I have lived in a few different parts of the country, and I can tell you that the Midwest and the South are two entirely different areas in about every aspect possible. I do think that I suffered a mild case of culture shock my first semester of HS in my new state because of how different everything was, even though I simply moved from one suburban area of the country to another.</p>
<p>erhswimming-
Very interesting perspective. I am learning from the discussion.</p>
<p>“The families that “can’t afford” the best college for their kids, despite all the financial aid available, are probably the same families that couldn’t afford books, museum memberships, visits to historical sites, plays, musicals, orchestral concerts, educational toys, and so on.”</p>
<p>collegehelp, evidently you have spent not one single second reading what is posted in the financial aid discussion forum! </p>
<p>There are plenty of parents out there who have been dragging their kids in and out of “historical sites, plays, musicals, orchestral concerts, … and so on” since those kids were in the womb, and who have done their level best to restrict their kids’ access to all but the most perfectly “educational toys”, and whose walls are lined with filled bookcases, and who have encouraged every little wisp of academic talent that their kids have shown, and who still PLEASE GET THIS ONCE AND FOR ALL are unwilling to sacrifice their kids’ financial futures, and their own much hoped for retirements on the altar of higher education.</p>
<p>When you have paid off your own parent plus loans, and have helped your own kids pay off all of their own loans, and you have managed to save enough money so that you aren’t a burden to your kids in your old age, and you have supported your own aged relatives through their final decades and safely into the grave, THEN AND ONLY THEN are you allowed to tell the rest of us how to handle our financial decisions.</p>
<p>And while I’m at it, if you think the whole country is just one Starbucks after another, I’d like to suggest that you really need to get on a Greyhound bus (so you can save money for your kids’ college educations) and travel around this place a bit. You could start by heading at least eight hundred miles inland from whichever coast it is you (presumably) are currently clinging to.</p>
<p>happymom-
There is nothing more important than a child’s furure. Some parents get it and their kids are better off. Some parents don’t get it and their kids suffer. It’s that simple.</p>
<p>You have greatly exagerrated in your mind the financial implications of paying for a college education.</p>
<p>You need to think long term, past the implications for yourself, into the future, and the implications for your child’s financial well-being and happiness.</p>
<p>collegehelp – like happymom said, unless you have carefully weighed the obligations of most parents – 1) their own retirement security, 2) the same for their own parents, 3) the long term effect of debt service on the student, it is not possible to comment on individual cases.</p>
<p>It has become painfully clear in these past few years that Americans are prone to racking up debt – not on education, but cars, trips, larger houses than needed, toys, etc., without proper respect for the long term consequences. Most of these (us), it is implied, would approach educational debt in an equally irresponsible way.</p>
<p>An excellent, world class education can be had for less than $10,000 per year tuition and fees, in about 40 of the top 100 ranked colleges in the U.S., by selecting one within driving distance. Another at least 75 would be ranked in the 100-200 tier – California alone has 23 Cal State campuses, and most people live within driving distance to one or two. These schools are less than $6,000 tuition/fees per year.</p>
<p>the discussions here on CC usually center around how much BETTER some other college is (usually the other 60 in the top 100), at 3-4 times the cost in loans, to pay the $37,000 tuition/fees plus room and board = $50,000.</p>
<p>DunninLA-
You are ignoring the quality-of-life benefits that might acrue to an elite college education.</p>
<p>But, if you want to talk money only, I would say that if a parent spends an additional $10K more per year on a college education and it results in an additional $3K per year income for their kid, that their kid will be better of financially than if you just gave the kid $40K to invest.</p>
<p>collegehelp – there is no causitive coorelation between attending a higher rated college and career earnings.</p>
<p>Collegehelp, you investment math is off. Take $40,000 today and earn 8% yield for 40 years (age 25-65) you have $870,000 at the end. Make $3000 more per year for that time and invest that at 8% you have $780,000 rounded. If you invest the $10,000/yr while they are still in college you have even more.(significantly)</p>
<p>It’s about moderation. Choose a school that will be too hard for you and you will drown and be unable to dig your way out, and you likely won’t grow because you won’t be able to take advantage of what’s being assigned/taught. Choose a school that is too easy and you won’t grow because you won’t be challenged. The key is to choose a school that is in line with the appropriate next steps of your academic progression.</p>
<p>The key to choosing a good college is to make sure that you are absolutely choosing for yourself. Don’t choose for your parents, or for future employers, or even for a girl/boyfriend. You need to focus on what’s important to you and where you will grow the most.</p>
<p>I chose Penn as my school and I’ve regretted it for a long time now. I came here largely because it was close to Princeton, where my girlfriend had been going, and because the business programs at Penn were top notch, which I interpreted as a good way to get my door into jobs that are lucrative.</p>
<p>However, that girl is no longer my girlfriend, and I’ve since come to find that I really dislike Wharton. My interests lie elsewhere, I dislike the campus and the weather, and I envy my peers who are off at “lesser-ranked” schools who are actually growing and improving themselves, while I’m off studying exchange rates and interest differentials and things I honestly don’t care one iota about. I had gotten into like 14 other schools too. I’m probably the prime example of irony lol. There were so many schools at my disposal – Harvard, Yale, Brown, Stanford, UCLA, Berkeley, Georgetown, UVA, Tufts, among others – and I wasted those options because I made a choice based on something I felt I was locked into. I regret it so much and wish I had chosen more wisely.</p>
<p>So, don’t make the same mistakes I did. Go to the school YOU want to go to.</p>
<p>legendofmax-
Why didn’t you go to Princeton? Maybe you’d still have your girlfriend. Why didn’t she go to Penn?</p>
<p>Most of all, it sounds like your interests changed. So transfer to a different major. Penn is an awesome school. Maybe if you found a nice Catholic girl at Villanova your attitude would improve…</p>