<p>I live in an area where many people think nothing of spending OOS tuitions on schools like Maryland, UDel etc. These schools have OOS price tags in the mid 40’s. Not for me.</p>
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<p>The stock market has been on a tear for the last four years - if you have decent assets and were mostly invested, you should be sitting pretty right now.</p>
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<p>And that is a very viable path to take. One of mine chose that path but frankly the quality of our instate is higher than that of LACs that would give my third enough merit aid. They matched the price, oh yes, but he’s going for the name recognition and the higher recruiting that occurs at state flagships. Over the long haul the small college one S chose will get the blank stare and the public my three chose will be known.</p>
<p>At our school, which doesn’t weight, there are 17 this year, about 3.5%, graduating with 4.0, 10 of whom are NMF. We also have 9 more NMF not 4.0. Of the 17, I know destination for 14. We live down the road from UW-Madison. One is going to another UW campus. The rest: Princeton, Stanford, UChicago, Dartmouth, WUSTL, Vanderbilt, BU, Swarthmore, Vassar, Middlebury, UofMiami, Grinnell, ASU. The last is my D, who did get admitted to some higher ranked places. Not sure how people are paying. D has 2 scholarships that cover bulk of cost.</p>
<p>celeste–your post amazed me. 19 NSF in one class? I don’t think our school has had 19 in the past 100 years! And those colleges–surely just a sampling of actual acceptances–just wow. Is it a private school? How big?</p>
<p>If 17 equals 3.5 percent that should be around 486 in the class. I think our school has around 20 vald and around 25 nmsf out of around 550 kids. Public school in cali.</p>
<p>Public, about 500 graduating seniors. Lots of professors’ kids, plenty of kids with 2 profs for parents. It’s state capital, so lots of educated parents, but there is quite a wide variation in SES. District has passed above 50% poverty, though HS may not quite be there yet. This is the fewest NMSF in some years. Most years it’s 25 or more. They love to promote school by saying most NMSF in the state every year. Of course it’s nothing compared to TJHSST.</p>
<p>In GA we have the HOPE Scholarship which is keeping many top students at home. The jump in UGA and GA Tech’s average test scores since the inception of HOPE has been huge. Each year, those schools get a bit harder to get into. </p>
<p>If you aren’t eligible for need based aid, and only get some merit from privates, it is hard to beat the cost of our state flagships after the HOPE. (Room, board, fees, books etc )</p>
<p>Very little in the way of merit scholarships at our state flagship. I have been envying you in GA. Good system and good schools. Yeah, there is a lot of teeth gnashing here about how to keep the best kids at home, but no money to do it. However, we still get lots coming from OOS to fill the U and its coffers so I guess it’s all good. And the full pay in-state cost for those who want to stay is not bad here, compared to, say, Illinois.</p>
<p>My kids’ school (which may or may not be the same as celeste’s :)) had 26 NMSFs last year. I believe there were about 40 kids with a perfect 4.0. This year four kids were nominated for Presidential Scholarships and one of them won. The school has 45% students of color and 33% living in poverty. Among many families it is considered as desirable to get into UW-Madison as it is to get into the more prestigious private institutions.</p>
<p>Sounds like our school, yup. There are a couple of other good schools in town as well. 40 last year, really?? My D was one of the 4 but no comparison at all to the one who won, not even close.</p>
<p>Seconding the Georgia thoughts. My son’s private school class in Atlanta has seen a huge increase in students enrolling at GaTech - people are looking around and weighing the cost/value and are sticking with the HOPE and fantastic Tech education. UGA also gets a ton of kids.</p>
<p>Most of the Tech kids could have gone to trendier schools but the value just isn’t there.</p>
<p>Watch for Tech to rise in rankings, etc. as more families/students come to the same conclusion.</p>
<p>PTH</p>
<p>The elite schools that offer little to no merit money are doing fine with yield. Harvard, Stanford, Brown, Penn, Princeton and UChicago are all reporting increases in yield. In fact, I’m sure that these places are becoming more attractive than in the past to families of all income levels given their generous financial aid policies.</p>
<p>It’s the less selective private schools–the ones that offer merit aid–that are having the most problems, with enrollment targets being off by 10 or 20% at some places if the news reporting is accurate. </p>
<p>Many of these schools, though, are trying to raise overall enrollment as a way of generating tuition dollars. So some of these ‘enrollment targets’ might represent the desired enrollment increases. It’s unclear if the problem is that fewer kids are choosing to go to these places than in years past, or that they can’t get more kids to go to these places, and thus can’t meet the increased enrollment they desire.</p>
<p>We live in NC. It’s very common for top students to choose one of our big state u’s.</p>
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<p>There really are huge regional and state-by-state variations in this, and regional variations within states. Generally speaking, the Northeastern states send a far higher percentage of students to private colleges than do states in the South, Midwest, or West, but the pattern isn’t uniform across all Northeastern states. Pennsylvania is at the lower end of private school attendance in the Northeast. </p>
<p>Pennsylvania’s population is about 50% larger than New Jersey’s, but New Jersey sends about 50% more students to Ivy League schools. That’s a huge difference. Pennsylvania’s population is also twice that of Massachusetts, but Massachusetts sends about 12% more students to Ivy League schools. And it’s not just Ivies. New Jersey and Massachusetts also send far more students to top LACs than does Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>But I’d be willing to bet there’s a strong regional skew within Pennsylvania, too, with Philadelphia’s most affluent suburbs sending far more students to elite private schools than the rest of the state. </p>
<p>That’s not a phenomenon confined to the Northeast. Minnesota and Wisconsin are in many ways two peas in a pod, with roughly similar populations. Neither sends nearly as many students to top private schools as similar-sized states in the Northeast, but Minnesota sends about twice as many to Ivies as Wisconsin does. Why? Well, many people in both states would say Wisconsin has a stronger state flagship (and in fact many top Minnesota HS grads attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison, because under the two states’ tuition reciprocity agreement they pay essentially in-state tuition). But Minnesota is also a somewhat better-educated (more bachelors and higher degrees per capita) and more affluent state, with a higher percentage of its workforce in the “knowledge economy,” especially in and around the Twin Cities and Rochester. Many of these people went to elite colleges themselves, or aspire to it for their children. In Wisconsin, more people are content to set UW-Madison as their highest educational aspiration–except for the UW professors’ kids celesteroberts talks about, and perhaps a few in affluent pockets around Milwaukee, but the affluent pockets around Milwaukee are smaller than the affluent pockets around Minneapolis-St. Paul.</p>
<p>"This year four kids were nominated for Presidential Scholarships and one of them won. "</p>
<p>If this is referring to presidential scholars, there is no money given out. It is just an honor which allows the student to hang out at the white house for a few days.</p>
<p>It is an honor. Wasn’t suggesting anything about money being associated with it. Thanks for the clarification, though. </p>
<p>bclintonk: nice analysis. I’d add that the UW faculty I know tend to favor small LACs for their own kids–and not just the “prestigious” ones. Of course many of them also send their offspring to UW as well.</p>
<p>We’re in suburban Chicago, and most kids at the very top of D’s class went to highly selective privates (MIT, Stanford, some of the Ivies, Chicago, Northwestern and a number of top LACs). After that, it was a huge mix of privates and publics. A lot more kids go to OOS publics than our state flagship, but UIUC is pricey (roughly $30-35k in-state COA depending on major), so in many cases it’s less expensive to choose a private or OOS flagship that offers merit aid or better need based aid. When there isn’t a good, reasonably priced public option in-state, I think more families will stretch for the private school.</p>
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<p>Doesn’t surprise me. Chicago’s suburbs, and especially its higher-end suburbs, are a major producer of matriculants at elite private colleges and universities, by far the most important source in the Midwest, to the point that many elite private colleges and universities don’t do much Midwest recruiting outside the Chicago metro area. </p>
<p>Consider this: Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan are by far the most populous Midwestern states. Illinois’ population is about 10% larger than Ohio’s and 30% larger than Michigan’s. Yet Illinois sends about 50% more students to the Ivies than Ohio, and more than twice as many as Michigan. </p>
<p>Why? Well, partly it’s demographics: there are affluent pockets in all 3 states, but there’s more concentrated affluence in and around Chicago. Chicago also has more high-end knowledge-economy workers whose children are more likely to attend top private colleges. But there are also educational and cultural differences. Michiganders are brought up to believe the University of Michigan is an elite university (which it is) and that they are uniquely privileged to attend at in-state rates (which they are). UIUC is a very good school but it’s not held in that same kind of esteem, especially in the more affluent Chicago suburbs. In Ohio, Ohio State dominates, in part on the basis of athletic prowess, though it’s also arguably the best school in the state. Few would make that claim about UIUC.</p>
<p>But Ohio State sports is just deeply embedded in the culture of the state. Not everyone in Ohio is an Ohio State fan, but the overwhelming majority are; a courageous minority are actually Michigan fans, which makes the athletic rivalry that much more intense. Not everyone in Michigan is a Michigan fan; Michigan State grabs off a healthy slice, but Michigan is a dominating presence… I don’t sense that same kind of intense loyalty toward Illini sports, except among some loyal alums. </p>
<p>So the dominant state university just has a less dominating presence in Illinois, both academically and in popular culture.</p>
<p>Great posts Bcl - care to share the origin of your knowledge or background?</p>