<p>@coolweather: Did you even read through the whole article? 87% of all freshman at private colleges receiving institutional aid means few are full-pay.</p>
<p>But hey, you can believe whatever you like. If you want to believe that there’s as big a percentage of the student body at OWU who are full-pay as at Yale (for whatever reason), go right ahead.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus, the policy is basically that a college class used to fulfill HS graduation requirements/Cornell matriculation requirements cannot also be used to fulfill Cornell graduation requirements. Presumably one of the reasons Cornell accepted you was that you had sought out course rigor and intellectual stimulation.</p>
<p>Seems perfectly reasonable to me. College should be college. If a student places out of introductory classes due to dual-enrollment classes or APs or a placement test, then they should be taking more college classes instead, either in new disciplines or more advanced, not trying to squeak through a credential with the minimum amount of education. There is always more to learn. A student admitted to Cornell or its peers is assumed to want to LEARN, not buy a credential. </p>
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Many students may receive institutional aid, but if you compare the actual cost for students who come from families that have incomes near the US median, then top tier colleges are often less expensive than merit options elsewhere. You mentioned Yale, so I’ll use that as an example. They list the numbers of families who applied for FA in different income groups and average cost to those families at <a href=“http://admissions.yale.edu/financial-aid-prospective-students”>http://admissions.yale.edu/financial-aid-prospective-students</a> . Some ranges are reprinted below:</p>
<p><$65k – Average Parental Contribution = $0
$65k to $100k – Average Parental Contribution = $4k
$100k to $150k – Average Parental Contribution = $12k
$150k to $200k – Average Parental Contribution = $26k</p>
<p>The $150k-$200k group had a large average grant of $30k, but they probably could have saved more through some types of full tuition merit options elsewhere. However, it would be more difficult match Yale’s cost through merit options elsewhere for lower and middle class families, with incomes of under $150k. </p>
<p>Most of these responses are not related to the original post. I hope that the OP sees this by pizzagirl, which is really incisive and to the point:</p>
<p>“It continues to floor me that there’s no cultural transmission in place in these communities to tell them – “Yes, I know that back in our home country, where you went determined your station in life, but it’s not like that here in America, so put that out of your head.” All of these people seem to have to learn this lesson anew and there’s no mechanism, so it’s got to be repeatedly learned, individually, again and again, the hard way. Why doesn’t the meme ever spread in these communities that America is different, and hey, that’s part of why you moved here in the first place (often at tremendous personal sacrifice) – because we don’t have that social stratification based on universities?”</p>
<p>I am PM’ing this to the OP in case he or she gave up on the threat.</p>
<p>There are, indeed, many threats on CC . . . (:</p>
<p>@OP: If you have the potential, challenge yourself, do take those hard courses and work hard to get the best grades you could possibly get. Your parents may or may not JUST have college in their minds when they push you to “up your game”, you however would gain more than just a top tier college by challenging yourself academicall. You may be unlucky to have parents who don’t understand you as you want, but you may also consider yourself lucky for having parents who deeply care about your future and are prepared to fully support you financially and otherwise for your education. </p>
<p>This is a messsage to you, not to your parents. Hope it makes some sense.</p>
<p>Purple Titan, I am in my 60’s and couldn’t find my glasses. Obviously, I meant “thread.”</p>
<p>@compmom:</p>
<p>I know, I know. Just joshing.</p>
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<p>A more cynical explanation is that private universities want to limit transfer credit so that the student will not graduate early, reducing the number of tuition-paying semesters. Public universities have the opposite motivation, since most students are subsidized state residents for whom each additional semester costs additional subsidy money and reduces the space available for additional state residents to be able to attend.</p>
<p>I don’t blame them one bit. They’re there to provide an educational experience, not just rubber-stamp educational experiences had elsewhere. </p>
<p>But then why do most of them accept transfer students at all? Accepting a transfer student means accepting the student’s lower division educational experiences elsewhere.</p>
<p>I did not read 5 pages of posts, so maybe it already has been pointed out. I believe that it depends on career field. You do not need to go to the top schools at all, just go to the cheapest one that still fits you good. Some careers where the name of your school will be irrelevant include (but not limited): CS, engineering, medicine (Med. Schools do not care, they want to see high stats). How do I know about those? I have been in IT for over 30 years, my H. has been an engineer for about 40 years (and, of course, we have tons of IT and engineering friends), D. is 4th year Med. Students who also knows lots of people at various Med. Schools and what required of them to attend there.<br>
Some fields might require a higher ranking colleges though (maybe Design, Business, Law?), I really do not know anything about them.</p>
<p>Highly selective, well-endowed privates with stingy AP/dual credit policies accept very few transfers anyway. Less selective and less wealthy privates have more generous AP/dual-credit/transfer policies. There is a wide spectrum of practices re the treatment of transfer applicants. It’s not a simple public vs. private dichotomy.</p>
<p>ucb - Pizzagirl has bought the line they are selling about why they don’t accept them rather than the core reason. Like many things in life, one must follow the money. </p>
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<p>That sounds good but isnt necessarily the case. My son took calculus from a 4 year degree granting accredited college. He did this while in high school and used the credit for HS requirements. </p>
<p>Harvard, cornell and many ivys will not transfer that class. The would make him retake calc. </p>
<p>If he took the same class over the summer and didnt use it for high school, they would take the class and excuse him from retaking calc. </p>
<p>Anyone care to defend that as rational ? </p>
<p>Highly selective colleges with stingy credit transfer policies try to choose an initial cohort that will spend four years together as a rite of passage and be inculcated (hopefully) with a sense of institutional loyalty. These schools are selling community, identity, and prestige to families for whom going to college full-time from 18-22 was never really in question. You can say it’s all hokum, but rich colleges need alumni support to maintain their position, and they get it by successfully fostering a sense of community. </p>
<p>They are not trying to attract or serve the kind of student who sees college as a process of racking up credits toward a credential as quickly, cheaply, and efficiently as possible. There are different markets in higher ed. There is no point in resenting the schools that do not give good deals to transfers. Those schools are not interested in that segment of the market. Fortunately there are many other good schools that will serve this need.</p>
<p>But these schools DO take transfers. No of that warm 4y fuzzy stuff applies to those students…and ivies would never say their tranfers students arent ivy blooded like the rest of the graduating class. </p>
<p>The financials are so significant its hard to ignore them. In MN college credits while in HS are free. Lets assume a student earned 60 of them and has an EFC of 30K. Also assume the ivy fully meets need. </p>
<p>Cost of IVY: 30K * 4 years = 120K
Cost of MN/WI flagship: 25K * 2 years = 50K. </p>
<p>Thats a total of 80K. Add in the opportunity cost of not working for 2 years (50k each) and the difference is 180K. </p>
<p>If we were talking about a retail paying parent, the total cost difference would be around 400K. Thats an awful lot to pay for a sense of institutional loyalty. </p>
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<p>In almost vanishingly small numbers. Harvard, for example, admitted only 15 transfers last year:
<a href=“The Real 1%: Harvard Admits 15 Transfer Students | News | The Harvard Crimson”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/6/21/transfer-admissions-one-percent/</a></p>
<p>I’m talking about highly selective privates, not any and all privates.</p>
<p>Cornell takes a lot of transfers. So does Columbia SGS.</p>
<p>USC does too and still manages to foster a lot of alumni pride.</p>
<p>Basically, there’s no one pat answer. Each university tries to do what it deems best within the philosophy that it tries to live by. And yes, you can’t ignore money.</p>
<p>"But these schools DO take transfers. " </p>
<p>Not at high levels, they don’t. </p>
<p>“If we were talking about a retail paying parent, the total cost difference would be around 400K. Thats an awful lot to pay for a sense of institutional loyalty.”</p>
<p>So then don’t pay it. No one obligates you to apply to schools that don’t take a lot of transfer credits. (Or for that matter, AP courses. At my alma mater in the day, getting credit for an AP course just meant that you didn’t have to take that requirement, but you still had to take some course at the school. (For example, you could place out of foreign language, but you still needed X units to graduate.) It created incremental learning; it didn’t just treat education as a bunch of boxes to be checked off at the cheapest place you can check them off. </p>