<p>dreaming12 -</p>
<p>I wouldn’t call the Mathematics Department at Waterloo “3rd Tier.”</p>
<p>Waterloo has one of the best math and computer science reputations you can get!</p>
<p>What people forget when they talk about third tier is that just about anyone with a Ph.D is intelligent and hardworking and has the potential for being a great teacher. Being a professor at a first tier school is more about being extraordinarily successful in your own research than your qualities as teacher/researcher in general.</p>
<p>OP: Out of curiosity, what was your pseudo-hook?</p>
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<p>Kudos to the OP for her post. A few years back we were poised to send kids to any school(s) of their dreams. But 2 years of no employment will drain away that cushion and we’ve had to now tell our kids that financial aid will matter. (we’ve kid with them that they “ate” their college tuition). Your post is a comfort to some of us that will have to make some hard decisions to come, some that we had hoped not to be forced to make.</p>
<p>We have been looking at great schools that aren’t as expensive for both of them. They’ll still apply to some more expensive schools, but those offers will have to come with very good Fin aid packages to tempt us. None of us - kids or parents - wants the kids to start off with a boatload of debt.</p>
<p>Agree ^^ Waterloo is a well-known powerhouse (known even in the lower 48.) :)</p>
<p>Psych_…can you tell us what school you went to and what schools you applied to?</p>
<p>I know everyone is incredibly inspired and interested in your story so could you please share with us the specific names of the school…that would be helpful. thanks</p>
<p>Thanks for this anecdote, it has really helped to confirm my decision. I got accepted to Rice, my first choice school, but would’ve had to go into massive debt to afford it. I’m going to be attending Texas A&M instead, which is much less expensive, and still a great school, at least for engineering.</p>
<p>i believe and all, OP, but mind using specifics when it comes to colleges?</p>
<p>Anyone curious about the schools I declined, go to, or will attend can PM me. Cohorts in my field are very small, so it would be immediately identifying. I’m happy to share that info, just by PM. :)</p>
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<p>True. I was using the term in the more literal sense–last time I checked USNWR a couple of years ago, my school was, literally, in the third tier.</p>
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<p>To OP: Congratulations! Your story does not surprise me, but it is nice to read anyway.</p>
<p>Waterloo has a huge rep for CS and math. They do extremely well at the International Collegiate Programming Competition every year, too. It is a school my math/CS guy is seriously considering for his list of grad school apps.</p>
<p>Psych_,
Congratulations on your success! You know what impressed me upon reading your post is the thought, time and effort you put in writing this mail to give hope to other people-students and their parents. You did not need to go out of your way and do this, but you did it anyway. That shows the persona you have. Congratulations for that as well! A BIG THANKS TOO!! GOOD LUCK ALWAYS!!!</p>
<p>Kudos to OP, and thanks for the inspiring anecdote. But her success does <em>not</em> validate the notion that low(er) ranked schools do as well by students as the high(er) ranked. My kids have followed OP’s footsteps with my encouragement, so I am not posting to rationalize a different choice, but to point out the logical fallacy of assuming an anecdote can be generalized.</p>
<p>The specifics of each situation HAVE to be taken into account: the student, the department, the major, the environment. In some cases the flagship will be a good, or maybe even better academic choice, but not in others. Just as always assuming that prestige is ‘worth it’ is foolish, so is assuming that less expensive is always the better choice.</p>
<p>Frugality implies best value, not least cost. It takes effort to do right.</p>
<p>Waterloo is not a step down from anywhere, so far as I can tell.</p>
<p>I would much rather see my kids graduate with low debt or even no debt, than struggle financially to repay loans once having graduated (as we did). If students are high achievers in hs, receive merit awards to attend “Tier 3” schools (or any others) and continue the high achieving when in college, they are doing far better for themselves than those who attend a school with a hot name but don’t make the path for themselves once in. And I have seen that, too. </p>
<p>Besides, these schools all have Honors programs for their strongest students. Once you are in one of those, you might as well be in a “top tier” school. </p>
<p>I don’t know about other state schools, but anyone who disses Rutgers just because it is state is crazy. Take a <em>good</em> look at the place. </p>
<p>I know N Brunswick is not the Garden of Paradise, but neither is New Haven and that does not seem to hurt Yale.</p>
<p>EricLG, excellent point and well said. The cheapest option isn’t necessarily the best one, especially these days, when grant-based financial aid can make a “Tier 1” education almost (or just) as affordable as going to the state flagship.</p>
<p>Someone earlier noted that a study showed that graduates of lower-ranked schools who were admitted to top-tier schools make just as much money as their counterparts who attended more prestigious schools. While there’s nothing at all contentious about this finding, one should note that the study says nothing about how graduates would have fared had they attended, for instance, Yale as opposed to State U. It’s possible their earnings wouldn’t have been different. At the same time, I think back to another poster in this thread who pointed out that her company decides salaries based partially on the prestige of the employee’s alma mater. I presume many other companies have the same practice, which means that graduates of top schools do have a leg up, at least early on.</p>
<p>Earnings might converge over time as the graduate of the lower tier school demonstrates her abilities are on par with (or better than) those of the Ivy graduate. But the Ivy education, for better or for worse, does carry certain advantages beyond the initial salary differential. Particular fields value an Ivy education more than others – for instance, Goldman Sachs will recruit heavily at Harvard but not at Ohio State, while science majors, as has been pointed out, are essentially on equal footing the nation’s universities over when applying to grad school. </p>
<p>So in the end, tuition is important, but so are long-term prospects that may or may not change based on one’s college choice. Some careful consideration on the part of both student and family is needed before pouncing on the free ride.</p>
<p>That being said, none of these points detract from the OP’s accomplishments. Kudos, Psych_, and best of luck with grad school!</p>
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<p>Do people disrespect Rutgers? It’s well-regarded in my neck of the woods.</p>
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So far as I know, ‘counterpart’ is only based on matriculating scores and grades. That does not even begin to cover what should be required to justify the implication of similar groups.</p>
<p>If a particular major was looked into, and career choices were similar between the groups, the datum would carry some weight.</p>
<p>Another thought - I believe the same study concluded that going to a higher-ranked school did correlate with higher earnings for one subset of students, those who came from lower-income backgrounds.</p>
<p>That is my recollection too. I’d take it with a grain of salt though. One in twenty sub-group analyses are going to reach statistical significance by chance alone, assuming typical p-values.</p>