<p>Giving a good name to the ACT, I like it!</p>
<p>Excellent story. Right in time for making decision for my D. Thanks.</p>
<p>psych_, your story is an inspiration. 
Wow, if you can get a debt-free PhD that will make it even more incredible! Congratulations!</p>
<p>Whatâs the name of this âthird-tierâ institution you attended, psych_ ?</p>
<p>thank you for sharing and congratulations! so inspiring and I agree, kids - not parents should read this!</p>
<p>OP: Thank you so much for sharing your storyâgreat post! Yet, one more reminder of how fit and feel, rather than âprestigeâ per USN&WR, should really be the decisive factor in college choice. My daughter is currently trying to decide among a few schools with varying levels of âname recognitionâ and I plan to share this thread with her. Congratulations on your success in school, so far, and best wishes for continued success in graduate school!</p>
<p>OP
Thanks for posting!!</p>
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<p>Well said, Gardna.</p>
<p>great post, Iâm from Toronto and have been mourning my rejection from my only american application to MIT, but this shows me that I can be just as successful at Waterloo math!</p>
<p>"The point of this post is not arrogance but simply to show that a student, including a âtopâ student, can have an enjoyable experience and successful grad school admissions outcome coming from a (gasp!) third tier school. "</p>
<p>-Agree completely. D. is college senior next year. Graduated at the top of her HS class. We do not know he Grad. Admission story yet, she is taking MCAT in few weeks and will apply based on her score. However, experience at her state school has been beyond expectations, including opportunities for high caliber students and extremely challenging academics. She had everyting that she she wanted out of her college years and a bit more. We do not know tier of her school, we never cared.</p>
<p>Congratulations to the OP!</p>
<p>But I canât help but wonder whether the large volumn of excellent students âcascading downâ to lower ranked undergraduate schools because of the financial crisis will cause a reaction among the elite graduate and professional schools. At some point they have to start âdefending the franchiseâ.</p>
<p>My son had a similar experience. He could have gotten into a âbetterâ school, but his chosen 3rd tier school offered enough merit money that we could afford to send him. He was at the top of his class all the way through college and was able to graduate in 3 years (saving us even more money). From there he went on to a fully funded grad school postion as a liberal arts major. </p>
<p>Going this route worked well for him.</p>
<p>Good luck to the OP. Remember, cream alway rises to the top.</p>
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<p>Congratulations, OP! </p>
<p>Hereâs a our experience - My DS chose to pursue undergrad at a school that provided him a full ride in tuition as opposed to paying top $$ to an undergrad program at a well know Boston school. He loved the school, did extremely well, and just got inducted into their Phi Beta Kappa last week.</p>
<p>My husband and I were at the Parentsâ Orientation day at our Stateâs Med school last Saturday. At my breakfast table, I met 3 other sets of parents whose children had completed undergrad at Ivys or equivalents (and had shelled out $50-55,000/year for their undergrads) and are now returning to the Stateâs med school for MDs. </p>
<p>During the orientation, when the faculty presented the 2010-2011 yearâs cost of education, there was a collective gasp in the lecture hall. The total cost of medical education (inclusive of tuition, fees, room, board, and books) has now risen to $55,000/year even for instate applicants! My hubby and I were happy we did not spend $200Gs on DSâs undergrad since all the parents who did, are now stressed over yet another round of $200Gs!</p>
<p>I just want to say that Iâm amazed at how many people are blown away by your amazing story, like itâs truly taboo to go to a Tier-3 school and have a quality experience. Thank you so much for posting this!</p>
<p>I chose a Tier-3 school because of money, while my dad was pressuring me into going to Carnegie Mellon because of prestige. I knew what I was doing, and itâs a super-comfort knowing that people finally get it. Iâm really tired of telling people where I go to college and following up with, âBut I turned down Tier 1 schools! I did, I did, I did!â I hope more and more people gradually understand, especially as tuition costs rise, that intelligence is so much more than a brand name.</p>
<p>You made the right choice. My son made the opposite choice. Name over cost and a reach to boot. Now he is flunking out and is a broken shell.</p>
<p>BicoastalMamma, Iâm a bit perplexed. Your son got into a very good school. He was having some trouble and didnât speak up for help and you were obviously concerned about his mental health. You posted his troubles on a forum for that board. Someone on the board who knows the Dean emailed her to be able to reach out to you because people were sincerely concerned about your sonâs mental health, the Dean responded within a few hours on a Friday night and offered to reach out and personally investigate, and then you yelled at everyone on the board because they had âgotten into your businessâ and âinformed on youâ â even though they were trying to show you that the culture of that particular college was one of trying to help students, not let them flounder! So youâll forgive me for being a bit perplexed by your comments?</p>
<p>Pizzagirl â BcMâs comments (then and now) are perplexing, especially to me as you know. My son, a classmate, struggled through most of the first semester but buckled down and went to AE religiously, and now heâs doing fine (working his tail off, hardly sleeping, but very happy and passing all classes with room to spare). I canât help but note BcMâs timing. The last flurry was around the time applications were due⊠then nothing until today. Last weekend was that collegeâs Admitted Students Program.</p>
<p>Back on topic, though: Great big, happy-dance, heartfelt congrats to psych_ on the great payoff of your hard work! I canât think of a student more deserving of such success. And this is a timely reminder of a CC truism that sometimes doesnât get enough play: Those tippy-top-type students are successful wherever they go, because the student makes the student. Uber-selective colleges donât produce amazingness so much as recognize and cultivate it. psych_ made her own opportunities and will probably continue to do so throughout her life. Waytago psych_!!</p>
<p>Congrats, psych. And thanks for telling your experience, and I think such successful story is common at EVERY large state school.</p>
<p>But I cringe every time when state flagship schools are described as 3rd tier or 2nd or 3rd rate on CC. For students interested in science and engineering, the quality of faculty and amounts of resources and opportunities available (though not at per student basis) at many of these flagship research universities far exceed the very best LAC and many higher ranked private school (including at one of the ivies). It is sad that schools like Rutgers, U Arizona, Penn State, or U Md, all world-class research universities, are considered 2nd or 3rd rate by some on CC.</p>
<p>It is true that in large state schools, the average student level are lower than the more competitive schools, but it is actually an advantage for top students there. Faculty at these schools sometimes need to beg good students to join their research labs â opportunities that students at HYPSM often have to fight for. As for graduate school admission, a top student from, say Rutgers, with 2 years of good research experience, a couple of published research abstracts under his/her belt, and glowing letters of recommendation, will beat a middle of the pack MIT graduate every time.</p>
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<p>Couldnât agree with this more.</p>
<p>And OP, it may appear to you, that given keystrokes alone over âuber-selective collegesâ on CC, that thereâs some prejudice about anything âlessâ than that. Instead, understand that most of us never open threads about such Uâs, ever. Rather, others do open them (often merely regarding some technical question), so you will see a lot of responses regarding those schools, because they are a popular subject. That by no means equates to blanket preference or to assumptions about the quality of one education versus another. Many of us have spent years here publicly counseling students competing with siblings over private/public admissions (FrecklyBeckly comes to mind), discussing State U admissions attempts by student posters, and supporting those deciding among various-tier LACâs. Many, many of us have seen a variety of matriculations within our own immediate families â with one child going to an Elite private, another child going to a public which may or may not be âElite.â Thus, we have argued the very points you made. Youâll find many more parents in agreement with you than disagreement. I can think of about two parent posters (no one on this thread) who, within the last few years, stated categorically that privates are âalwaysâ better than publics. No, actually, itâs âalwaysâ two things: the program, and the student. I used to advise students interested in musical performance to avoid my Elite alma mater like the plague and instead attend (X) State U, which had a cutting-edge reputation in that field. (Donât know if they still do.)</p>
<p>Please do not confuse us with those students in some of the forums who post repeatedly about the âElitesâ and who obsess about comparing stats and admissions prospects and âname-brands.â</p>
<p>Your story validates what most of us do know, and was an important illustration of those realities!</p>
<p>To PizzaGirl
The only suggestion the dean had was work harder, like he wasnât going to every session of tutoring available and working day and night. I am just commending the thread person who went to a 3rd tier school instead going where he or she had a chance of flunking and paying for the privilege of being destroyed.</p>