Two sons..Ivy vs. small LAC..guess who's happier

Parents Forum
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<p>I have followed CC for several years but have rarely posted, however, I feel compelled to tell the story of my two sons...</p>

<p>Both were homeschooled through grade eight and then each decided to attend a small private college prep high school from which they both graduated in 2009 & 2011. CC was a major help to our family as we navigated the college application process. (S1 and I both posted under this name while he was applying in 2009.)</p>

<p>S1 had a GPA of 3.9, ACT of 32, 6 APs and a passion for engineering. He had some interesting ECs, wrote essays from his heart, and spent a semester at The Mountain School. He applied to 15 schools and accepted at 14. His choices included Duke, Wash U, Vanderbilt, Michigan, PSU Honors, UW Honors & Berkeley. Although he received amazing merit scholarships at several schools, he chose Cornell because of the engineering opportunities and his passion for outdoor activities….plus he was a wee bit enamored with the prestige factor. He refused to even consider the southern schools for a variety of reasons… probably because I am from the south and he had witnessed all sorts of southern family drama. </p>

<p>Now as a junior, he is looking at graduate school and reflecting on his decision. At Cornell, he has had very few opportunities to get to know his professors because of class size and the extensive use of TAs to lead discussion sections, etc. He was fortunate to have landed a position in a research lab yet does not have any real connection with academic professors who know him well enough to write a recommendation for grad school. He would not classify his experience there as ‘wonderful’ although he is quite assertive and reached out enough socially and academically so that he has few regrets…just not that spark of ‘amazing’ that he was hoping to find. Culturally, he can’t wait to get back to the northwest…</p>

<p>S2 had a GPA of 3.7, ACT of 33, no APs and did not care a bit about the prestige of the college that would be best for him. He was turned off by every school we visited for his older brother and did not show any engagement in his own college search until we attended a Colleges That Change Lives Fair. I saw an awakening in him that startled me. He applied for 12 schools and was accepted at all of them with a total of over $750,000 in merit money. He turned down Oberlin, Kenyon, Dickinson, F&M and others in order to attend Beloit College….a college ranked a bit below the others. He insisted that we visit every school that he was accepted to and finally felt the ‘fit’ at Beloit. His passions are classical studies and anthropology. I would have chosen Oberlin or Dickinson…but the choice was his.</p>

<p>Last week he called me to tell me he was having the best year of his life. He loved his classes, his relationships with his teachers, his friends and everything about college life. He wanted me to know how he was so glad he did his due diligence in the college search and that he had truly found his place. He has even decided to stay there this summer to work in one of the museums….gulp. </p>

<p>I suppose the point of this long posting is that as parents we know that prestige does not equal happiness yet we still hope our kids will strive for ‘the best’…whatever that means. I am extremely proud of both boys for taking charge of their own educational choices and want others to know sometimes ‘fit’ trumps everything else.</p>

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<p>Thanks for writing out your story.</p>

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<p>Great story. I wish more parents and students understood that fit trumps prestige. My son had a similar experience. He selected U of I over a top 20 school and is having a ball. We looked at nearly 18 colleges before he applied and then developed our own ranking system. He got into 10 of the 13 he applied to and went to the school which was actually ranked #1 on his list. </p>

<p>He is in now in the College of Business, business fraternity, social fraternity and a few other groups. He rarely wants to come home. He is thriving at school. When I spoke to him yesterday, he had just had a mtg with one Dean with his business fraternity and today he is meeting with another Dean regarding something else. This is the kid in high school that hated making any type of impression in his class. Now he is “Mr Networking” and he couldn’t be happier.</p>

<p>My DD is following a similar approach. She has visited 20 schools and has a good idea of what she wants in a college. With the intensity of the college admission process, I am making sure she really loves her safeties as well. I pray that she will also love the final school she selects. Right now we have a few Ivys on the list, but her current top two choices are none Ivys. </p>

<p>What I have learned through this CC journey is that happiness trumps prestige. It is far more important to go to an undergraduate college where you will flourish so that you have the option to go to a top graduate program, then be just a number at a prestigious undergraduate college and not make any impressions with the faculty. </p>

<p>For all of the students that are sad about their Ivy rejections, hopefully they will look through their list of acceptances to find the school that is the right fit for them.</p>

<p>For all the junior students, please take the time to include the schools that best fit your personality. There are a ton of great schools in this country and many are perfect for you.</p>

<p>Good Luck!</p>

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<p>Just another anecdote. I work with a woman who had one son go through Harvard and another through Colby. The kid at Colby had a <em>much</em> better college experience. The Harvard kid said he usually couldn’t track down his professors for help, but even if he managed to, the only thing they ever said was, “work harder.” Just a really frustrating experience for him.</p>

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<p>I think some of the difference could also be engineering vs classics/anthropology. So few students major in classics, the profs are probably thrilled to have an interested student.</p>

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<p>Cornell engineering – like engineering at many other top schools – is not known for being a joyously happy experience.</p>

<p>The curriculum is demanding and time-consuming, and students are under a lot of pressure. </p>

<p>Cornell is also by far the largest of the Ivy League schools. Many students, especially those in Cornell’s larger divisions (such as engineering) experience it as being impersonal, although this is certainly not a universal impression of the place.</p>

<p>I think that it’s possible that what you’re seeing here are differences between large schools vs. small, and engineering vs. other subjects rather than differences between prestige schools and lesser-known ones.</p>

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<p>I agree with Marian. I wouldn’t hold prestige against a school, anymore than I would consider prestige a positive deciding factor.</p>

<p>I think the experience of students at certain schools really depends on a lot of factors, and that valid generalizations are hard to make.</p>

<p>Experiences at many Ivies can be incredibly positive, with small classes (depending on department), interesting peers (though some are quite competitive), rigorous work (good for some, not for others) and a surprising amount of support. Ditto for LAC’s.</p>

<p>Like I said, it depends! It looks like, in the original poster’s family, the LAC worked out really well and there were some problems with the Ivy, but that both sons worked through any difficulties and give her a lot of reasons to be proud.</p>

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<p>endventure. Thanks for sharing your story of your sons experience so far.</p>

<p>Very briefly my son chose PSU Honors, a very large school, graduated with a BS degree in physics and a BSEE degree in Engineering Phi Beta Kappa and got into some top 10 grad programs in his field where he ended up with some IVY grads.</p>

<p>PSU Honors was his safety. He turned down Cornell, Duke, Swarthmore and many other top 20 schools. PSU Honors offered so many perks he could not turn them down.</p>

<p>He was surrounded with other highly motivated and very accomplished young people who went on to do some incredibly awesome stuff. He was very, very happy.</p>

<p>I post only to counter Marians post with a different experience. PSU is a huge school and he took two very demanding majors. I think he only had two TA’s in total. He knew his profs, had one on one advising. The numerous perks of being a top student were incredible. </p>

<p>Good luck to both your boys.</p>

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<p>“Cornell is also by far the largest of the Ivy League schools. Many students, especially those in Cornell’s larger divisions (such as engineering) experience it as being impersonal, although this is certainly not a universal impression of the place.”</p>

<p>Just an antidote to add and I by no means intend this to mean this is typical of Cornell. A good friends is a freshman (in COE) and the roommate he was put with is a Junior. I cannot imagine that happening at my son’s LAC or any other highly selective LAC. My friend was didn’t seem concerned (she is kind of odd) but I felt terrible for the kid. It’s hard enough adjusting to college but to have a roommate who has been on campus two years already, has friends already, etc., imo, just makes the transition into college life that much more difficult. But maybe that is just me.</p>

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<p>I think this hits the nail on the head. Your son’s experience has nothing to do with the fact that Cornell is an Ivy and everything to do with his major and the type of university it is. If he had gone to Dartmouth and majored in engineering, it is virtually certain that he would have had a very different, much more intimate experience. Or, as sax points out, if he had gone to an honors program within a large university he might have had a very different experience, depending on the way the honors program is run. (It is as futile to generalize about honors programs as it is to generalize about Ivies or “prestige” schools.)</p>

<p>The endless need to put down the Ivies here is as tiring as the desperation among others to get into one.</p>

<p>I’m glad your second son found a school he loves. I’m sure they will both do well.</p>

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<p>Another issue is that the getting in is one thing. You still have to GO to college! My daughter is self-aware enough to know that she wants to work hard but not be floundering in college. We looked at schools that some would call 2nd (or lower) tier. She has a super high gpa but frankly cared too little about test prep so her scores weren’t that great. She is in at schools that will fit her, and she will do well. </p>

<p>I have a family of cousins who are scary smart and have a father (my uncle) who is driven. My cousins went to Stanford/Harvard grad school, Cal, UCDavis (the “dumb” one, yes that’s how he describes her), Harvard, and Allegheny. By the fifth kid he really didn’t care much (had a new wife and baby). Happiest by far is the kid at Allegheny. The firstborn quit Harvard grad before getting her PhD, the Cal and Harvard kids are teaching underprivileged kids (the Cal kid talks about needing “sharp elbows” to get into classes at Berkeley and wishes he’d just gone to a good school so he could be a good teacher, the Harvard kid was miserable all four years and echoes his sib). The Allegheny kid will graduate this May. I look to this family when I ponder the Ivy thing. They’re amazing kids, and I’m so proud of them. But they themselves would be the first to tell me that they would do things very differently.</p>

<p>All except for the dumb one. She’s got an amazing job in the US Department of Justice.</p>

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<p>This is bizarre and extremely atypical of Cornell, which makes an effort to keep almost all of its freshmen together in one dorm neighborhood and provide a living experience especially designed for freshmen. </p>

<p>Chances are, there were some special circumstances here. One possibility is that the freshman requested one of Cornell’s special-interest residences. They’re mostly small, and students from different years are mixed together (unlike the practice in Cornell’s other residence halls), so the usual rule that freshmen get freshman roommates would not apply. Another possibility is that the student missed the deadline for submitting a housing request, or was accepted off the waitlist, but that Cornell made an effort to fit him in somehow because the university feels that living on campus is an important experience for a freshman.</p>

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<p>Research universities; whether an Ivy, Big 10 public, or a private; are going to give you a vastly different experience than any LAC. Period.</p>

<p>Some people like the research uni, others don’t. Some people like LACs, others don’t.</p>

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<p>I think this is a serious concern for those who want to attend graduate school, since undergraduate student-professor relationships are important, as well as the opportunity for meaningful research experience. However, for those who want to enter the workforce with just a bachelor’s - does the employment opportunities provided by the prestige and training of one school trump the “college experience” of a lesser ranked school? Of course, it’s hard to compare that in any of these examples because each student is pursuing a different major and will be taken in different directions. </p>

<p>Personally, I believe in finding a balance. I wouldn’t pick the lowest ranked, or unranked school I got into due just to fit, but I wouldn’t choose the most prestigious just for prestige, either. I would want the best fitting college that offers the most to me both during and after attendance - one that is well respected in its field, has excellent internship connections and recruiting, etc. </p>

<p>I think the take-away message is that no one really knows what is best for their kids - including their kids. What seems like a wonderful option now might not be in a year or two. The best we can do is be smart about our decisions, get as much feedback as we can with an open mind, and be adaptable to changes.</p>

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<p>Agree with Haystack</p>

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<p>“At Cornell, he has had very few opportunities to get to know his professors because of class size and the extensive use of TAs to lead discussion sections, etc. He was fortunate to have landed a position in a research lab yet does not have any real connection with academic professors who know him well enough to write a recommendation for grad school.”</p>

<p>He was lucky to only have TAs lead discussion sections. At P., my daughter (a “head preceptor” - fancy words for lead TA), in a subject area as far from engineering as you can get teaches new material, grades all papers, grades all exams, and recommends final grades. The professor lectures, and would have no idea whom he is teaching. There is no chance he could write an informed graduate school recommendation. In her subject area, NO undergraduates are involved in research with the faculty. I have to add that as a “TA”, and having graduated from a LAC, she was pretty shocked.</p>

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<p>Marian, No to getting in off the wait list. Can’t speak to the other possibilities but when I expressed my surprise she didn’t say it was because he was in one of the special interest houses or late putting in his housing request. She was surprised that it happened but just shrugged it off - which is not how I would acted if it was my kid. But this is her third kid and she has had to deal with way more “weird college stuff” than I and likely just does not get worked up over these types of things anymore.</p>

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<p>Well, the only other possibility I can think of is that the upperclassman might have had a health problem and requested special accommodations in housing. The freshman dorms at Cornell are pretty much on a level with the main campus. Almost all of the upperclass dorms are way down a steep hill. An upperclassman with a health problem that would make climbing that hill a problem might have requested placement in the freshman dorm neighborhood.</p>

<p>In any case, what happened is atypical and almost certainly reflects some sort of special circumstances.</p>

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<p>mathmom: DS’s experience with his Classics professors was great, but they’re not “warm and fuzzy.” Classics is not for the faint of heart.</p>

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<p>My nephew is a Junior at Cornell, in Engineering, and reports just the opposite. (btw: he is not from the NW, but the mid-west.)</p>