^^ Oh, but don’t get me wrong, she’ll still apply to the top privates as well. We will sort out all the options as they are received. In the end we have told her (like brother) to let us take care of the finances.
Entrance to the CS major is restricted/competitive at some schools so that the number of CS majors does not overflow the available department capacity, at least if the department is regulating the number of CS majors properly.
It does mean that a non-CS major who wants to take a CS course may find it difficult to get into the course, assuming that CS majors get registration priority for CS courses.
Seems like most BA/MD or BS/MD combined programs require the student to maintain a college GPA higher than 3.3 (usually a college GPA that would be high enough to give a reasonable chance of medical school admission the regular way) and a high MCAT score (again high enough to give a reasonable chance of medical school admission the regular way). These combined programs are also highly competitive at the frosh admission level, and the colleges and/or associated medical schools may also be expensive.
Most of those direct entry BS/MD or BA/MD programs are as competitive…or more so…than admission to elite schools. I would not say they are a slam dunk for admissions for anyone.
“One interesting strategy I’ve heard is to get into the strongest undergrad program you can that provides the most (full) aid saving funds for use in med school. My only concern is that should she change her mind about med school would that high-aid school be the best one for her to attend?”
Your best bet would be to attend the state flagship especially if they’re Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, UNC, UVA, not only for cost but having strong programs across the board should a student want to switch out of a pre-med major into engineering or even humanities or social science.
On the CS majors question and regulating the intake of majors with the availability of courses, the surge in majors has made this an issue, and many departments are in catch up mode, e.g.
https://www.michigandaily.com/section/academics/eecs-department-struggles-satisfy-record-demand
Re: the “Stanford vs. Cal” type choices, I am not arguing to chose Cal over Stanford. I think nearly everybody would chose Stanford – if money were not an issue. Take it from a Cal grad (way back in the day), the student experience at Stanford is way nicer. My point: if money is an issue and absorbing the additional cost is highly problematic for whatever reason, then part of the calculation about whether to take the “family” risk should not include a fear of compromising the “student” economic future. This is especially true with some of the vocational courses where industry can sort out who is good and who is bad – and pay accordingly.
There has been some very good advice on this thread about how to approach preparing for a career that has does not require attending an expensive high prestige private school.
IMO, the med (or grad) schools like the athletes because playing a sport and maintaining top grades in an engineering or STEM field shows a great deal of time management and organization. It could also mean the student has a way to relieve stress.
I agree that if the student doesn’t think he can handle it, he shouldn’t, because it does take a great deal of time. My daughter (and her roommate/teammate trying to get into dental school) have very little wasted time. They are in class, at practice, or studying. Both have boyfriends, but exciting dates include things like cooking dinner or watching a football game on Sunday night.
@Much2learn - Thank you again for your thorough response. Your user name is a bit of a misnomer. ^:)^
@ucbalumnus and @PurpleTitan - I appreciate your insights as well.
@PurpleTitan - we have similar stories.
I need to synthesize all of this information; add the newly mentioned colleges to my spreadsheet, run the Net Price Calculators and I’m sure I’ll be back with more questions.
Also want to thank @choguy1 for being gracious about the birdwalk off the original topic.
And if a family has $X amount to spend on education per child, another consideration for those who kids have not entered HS yet is whether there is more incremental value per $ if spent in HS vs. in college (or for a Masters).
Though an elite HS may raise peer pressure that affects spending for college as well.
"Much2learn wrote:
Unlike most majors, geographic differences don’t matter much since most top students are headed for the same three very expensive cities: San Francisco, NYC, or Seattle.
@UCbalumnus1 Location can still matter. For example, smaller Silicon Valley computer companies may not do much (or any) travel recruiting, if the recruiting at local schools provides enough new graduates and intern/co-op students.
The big famous name computer companies recruit widely."
I agree, UCB, I was trying to point out that the geographic differences matter less compared to other majors in terms of adjusting the salaries for cost of living because most top CS jobs are clustered in SF, NYC and Seattle which are all expensive. I can definitely matter for recruiting. However, VCs in SF definitely find their way to the east coast to recruit at strong CS schools. Likewise the NYC financial firms who need to CS grads, have no difficulty finding their way to UCB, or Stanford. lol
@thelonliestmonk I agree with your assessment completely. Last spring, my daughter had to choose between a private school with a stellar nursing program (to which she was directly admitted) and an elite OOS public flagship. Since we are full-pay, cost was not the deciding factor. The state flagship was more prestigious, but that wasn’t the deciding factor either. Instead, we choose it for precisely the reason you articulated. If there was even a small chance that she may change her mind about nursing, the state flagship had stronger alternatives than the private. For the practical reason that most people change their majors over the course of their undergraduate studies, I couldn’t in good conscience push the button for the well-known nursing program even though her future career would be secure. Fast forward to now – daughter is seriously considering a major in arabic and middle east studies. She never even talks about nursing any more. Whew! Boy, did we dodge a bullet.
Coincidentally, my son, who is a H.S. senior still awaiting admissions decisions, is likely to face a similar choice in a few months. I’m probably going to vote for the state flagship again.
@CollegeDad2020 Agree with you. If I or my kid had to get into a significant debt to attend a more prestigious school, I would choose a state flagship or Honors College that offers a lot of scholarship to NMF kids with good grades. That’s what many of the kids with almost perfect grades and test scores did at my kid’s high school, but they also got denied from top schools, so they couldn’t attend HYPSM or similar school even if they wanted to. Frankly, I cannot say whose situation is better. All I know is I think we made the right choice for us to send our kid to Stanford even if he could have invested $200K ~ $250K difference in stocks and let it grow and help him financially during his life. Anyway, the important thing is it was my kid’s choice and we could afford it. But if we had another kid about to apply to college in near future, I don’t know what we would have done.
School prestige is a big myth. Fortunately, for most parents, the sticker shock becomes a reality check. When you think about it, it’s just a bachelors degree. No degree is worth 250,000 unless is says M.D. next to it. The key is to get into medical school. Medical schools get applications from a wide variety of schools from all over the place. The thing they’re most interested in is grades and MCAT scores.
Not sure I want to live in a country where the only career path for an ambitious student is physician.
Just saying.
I guess it depends on your definition of “ambitious.” My wife and I are both scientists - she was a very ambitious student and very intelligent. She earned her PhD. and then spent many years in academia. She would argue that researchers (humanities or STEM-related) are far more concerned about where you went for undergrad then med schools. In general, I would say the majority of top academics came from the expensive, private liberal arts colleges before finding their way to top research universities for graduate school (including foreign students). My point is it’s not just this country, it’s Western culture in general. The ambitious students within this “system” perpetuate the bias for prestigious colleges to the exclusion of others like state universities. I would argue that it doesn’t matter the field. I can think of a couple of ambitious students in the top 10 of my son’s class who intend on majoring in history and English at exclusive private colleges - they have already made some snide comments about my son being accepted at the Honors college of a public university. That’s part of the reason I started this thread.
side note: my wife gave up her academic career to raise our children and get away from that culture. She now happily teaches science to 7th and 8th graders. She continues to be ambitious… 
I am in “applied” science working in biopharma.
You are right @coolguy40 , no undergrad degree is worth that much. I would argue the prestige is real - brand recognition is real be it college, food, clothing, etc. What isn’t real is the value of what has been done to create the prestige of the brand. A good Timex watch can keep time as well as a Rolex but most people want the Rolex because the brand says “something” about the wearer. It’s parts are definitely not worth 100x more than the Timex. I think the private schools are the Rolex (no offense meant to Rolex owners out there, they are pretty nice).
So why are some colleges considered prestigious if they are no better than any other university? Are all universities created equal? Is just a matter of money? Is it just the open market working as designed?
Actually I think there are some differences.
@Rivet2000: There are differences.
IMO, though, too many people are willing to overpay for those differences (and perceived differences) in part due to increasing inequality and a growth in the wealthy class.
Here’s a neat example: UMSL engineering classes are actually taught by WashU profs using WashU resources at WashU.
The engineering education is the same as at WashU, but the degree name is different (and so is the college experience). UMSL potentially costs a fraction of what WashU does yet UMSL engineering, I would wager, gets a small fraction of the applications/demand that WashU engineering gets.
I’m in academic science and I think for the most part the flagship state university to elite grad school route works fine. My impression has always been that where elite private undergrad is most important is for getting into consulting, investment banking and the like. Some areas of engineering like CS seem to have their own elites, while most engineering seems pretty egalitarian. I’ve never found academic science to have a bias against state flagships, in part because state flagships are often research powerhouses. The biggest challenge of doing science undergrad at big state schools is not getting lost in the crowd. My impression is that elite private is least useful for medical school for the large majority of medical students. I don’t know law, government, or academic liberal arts.
As for whether it is “worth the money” that depends enormously on personal circumstances. Below a certain income level, an elite need-blind university might actually be cheaper than a public one. Above a certain wealth level, $250k may not be all that much money. In between, it is a lot!