<p>not that those people won’t rise above those said “slackers” during their stay at UNC, but it’s just a “I-worked-so-hard-and-I-feel-like-all-that-work-went-to-waste” thing, i think. but i’m sure ivy-rejects that go to UNC will eventually enjoy their experience, because, like i said, UNC is great.</p>
<p>Yep – no debt, but you will live with a crappy college name by your own name for the rest of your professional life, and people WILL judge you by this – make no mistake. For that $40K “in the black,” you have probably forfeited untold multiple thousands in professional income and relegated yourself to third tier professional opportunities (welcome accounting, instead of investment banking, for example) . . . forever. Stupido!</p>
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<p>Sorry I offended you.</p>
<p>If I had put Northwestern on the list, which college would you have cherry-picked for your example?</p>
<p>Just asking. You seem touchy about the subject.</p>
<p>^Yikes. You seem intent on inciting a personal feud. I’ll tell you again that I’m not offended, but I doubt that you’ll listen. You have yet to substantiate any of your claims; you merely stated that all colleges that aren’t absolutely top-tier (HYPSM and… Case Western?) are essentially indistinguishable from one another. This view is not widely held, so if you want to get people to listen, you would be wise to provide some convincing evidence. In order to prove my viewpoint, I could provide you with statistics concerning selectivity, quality of professors (in terms of research/advanced degrees held), average salary postgrad, placement into grad school, USNWR rankings (you’ll probably call me out as a snob… fine. Hate on the rankings all you want, they mean something), and several other telling statistics. Now, again, will you please tell me why North Texas and Duke are indistinguishable?</p>
<p>My daughter had the same decision to make.</p>
<p>After spending her freshman year at SUNY Geneseo, she applied for transfer and she was accepted at Cornell. She is a Bio major, with the hope of med school after her undergrad. Her freshman GPA at Geneseo was a 3.6. She was excited at the possibility of transferring, but concerned about the effect the more-difficult program at Cornell may have on her GPA and, consequently, how they may affect her opportunities for med school. She had been told by a Bio student, who had started at Genese and also transferred to Cornell, to expect up to a 1.0 drop in her GPA.</p>
<p>She decided to go for it, and began her sophomore year at Cornell this pas fall. Her GPA took a 0.8 hit at the end of her first semester at Cornell. I contacted SUNY Upstate Medical college on her behalf, in the hope of reassuring her, that her med school hopes were not down the drain. This is what the admissions person I spoke with said…</p>
<p>They use Barron’s ranking of undergrad colleges, and assign a ranking from 1-5 based on difficulty of program. #1 being the toughest, #5 being the easiest. Cornell is ranked a #1 program, Geneseo (which she called the IVY of the SUNY schools) is ranked a #2. This is one of the major factors they use in determining admission. She was very helpful, and indicated they would be looking for an average overall science GPA of 3.0 from Cornell.</p>
<p>I specifically asked her if my daughter would increase her hopes of med school if she transferred back to Geneseo, where it was likely she could expect to maintain that 3.6, and perhaps even raise. Her response was no, that Cornell was the best of the best, and that much consideration is given to the rigor of the academic program…and, of course, to the mcat scores.</p>
<p>proletariat2–
"Yeah, I’m turning down Pomona, Grinnell, and University of Chicago for Michigan State, which is offering a full ride and plenty of research opportunities. I’ll be in the Lyman Briggs residential college and the Honors College, and I’ll not only have no debt when I graduate, but I’ll be around $40-50k in the black. Whoo! "</p>
<p>I congratulate you for your hard work that allowed you to get into those places, and for having the clarity of mind to see the cost part of the equation, even in the rejection of those prestigious places, but also seeing what you WILL get - the Honors College, where you will have intellectual peers and the research opps. That 40-50k can be used for grad school or to found a company.</p>
<p>I did not know that state publics offered ‘free rides’ (I thought by virtue of their publicly subsidized status that their tuition was already discounted). Are you OOS?</p>
<p>What were your stats?</p>
<p>another note for this thread…
my wife has a book club and their latest entry was ‘THe Help’, a phenomenally successful book now. I saw in the author bio that she was a U of Alabama grad. State public school. </p>
<p>As so many in this forum keep telling us - and you can’t say it enuf since prestige is ‘so good looking’ - it is not where you go as much as what you put into the place: The combined force that you impose on the institution and the institution imposes on you. If I remember elementary physics from a million yrs ago, this might be called ‘work’.</p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_(physics)[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_(physics)</a></p>
<p>Is it really bad to settle for University of Wisconsin - Madison instead of Carnegie Mellon?</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon: bio+neuroscience/psych and $75,000 in debt. I like CMU’s program better
Wisconsin: bio+neurobiology/psych and $0 in debt</p>
<p>Wisconsin is a great school.</p>
<p>Go to CMU for graduate studies.</p>