<p>Thanks for your feedback. It’s a real challenge knowing what the best “fit” is for my son. He wishes he could go to a number of schools.</p>
<p>My son is an “out there” type extrovert and loves meeting people, talking with people, and is used to strong relationships with his professors (he’s had a lot of college classes in high school). I hope that, wherever he goes, he’ll be able to continue this experience to an extent. </p>
<p>Could you PM me regarding econ as a major? My kid’s always been math/physics but more lately has expressed an interest in finance and possibly pursuing an MBA upon graduation.</p>
<p>Congratulations to your son! It sounds like he had a wonderful experience.</p>
<p>Re. the OP: I can totally see how both types of schools could be excellent. Still on my son’s lists are two small schools, 200 freshmen each, one being a LAC.</p>
<p>My D attended both a LAC and a uni. She attended Barnard, but half her classes were at Columbia because of her major. She loved the excitement of Columbia, but if she had to choose one I know it would be Barnard, her love.</p>
<p>D had a completely different experience than mini is describing. She had close relationships with every professor in her major that she took a class with and they have been wonderful in terms of giving her recommendations etc. for graduate school. She periodically visits Princeton and she often has coffee with at least one or two professors. I was down there recently with my youngest son and I re-introduced myself to her thesis advisor, whom she had worked with closely, and he was incredibly nice and talked to my son about the school and suggested he sit in on one of his classes.</p>
<p>And, although it is probably ancient history, my experience at Princeton was similar. I was able to enroll in graduate courses in my somewhat arcane field, I developed close friendships with a number of professors (one of whom was in the music department) and I thought that the quality of the teaching and the willingness of professors to be helpful was extraordinary.</p>
<p>I truly believe that mini’s D’s experience is an outlier here.</p>
<p>Good friend of my older son’s attended Princeton and from what I hear (mostly from his Mom) it’s been a pretty rotten experience. He still hasn’t finished his senior thesis and seems pretty directionless. That said, I think at least 50% of the problem is with the kid (and his helicopterish parents).</p>
<p>To the OP, what a GREAT Beloit story! Beloit parent here. </p>
<p>Regarding the research, my shy D grew immensely during her time at Beloit, did research, had great support from her professors in both majors, while having a great time taking advantage of all sorts of opportunities.</p>
<p>I think the OP’s story only proves that one of her sons liked Beloit more than her other son liked Cornell.</p>
<p>You can’t lump all “Ivy League” universities into one category and all LACs into another. Nor are all college students alike. </p>
<p>I’ve known kids who were miserable and unhappy at LACs. I’ve known kids who were miserable and unhappy at universities. Different stroke for different folks.</p>
<p>DS was at a research school that is comparable to OP’s school. Some of his TAs were good; but some not so good. In the latter case, the students essentially learned the “new material” together with the TA at the same time – What may be worse is that the TA’s undergraduate background is sometimes only remotely related to student’s undergraduate major. (because the professor’s research area is in a very narrow/special niche that it has little to do with the major.) This more likely happens in some intro labs.</p>
<p>In some classes, when the students found that TAs actually had taken the same classes at the same institute, they were overjoyed. Indeed, TA (who is an MD/PhD student) taught them almost as much as the professor in that semester. But this does not happen often.</p>
<p>It appears that many graduate students/TAs rarely did their undergraduate at the same institute.</p>
<p>There is some truth that the professor rely on graduate students more than the UG students, mainly because graduate students take fewer classes and could commit more hours each week in the professor’s lab. The higher the graduate department is ranked, the more you may notice the interdependent relationship between the graduate research students and the professors.</p>
<p>Agree with Jonri. I have one at a LAC and one at a research university. They both are very happy, but if one were happier than the other, I wouldn’t chalk it up to one type of school being “better.” My D is definitely more of an LAC type, but my S at the uni likely could have been happy as a clam at an LAC – different personalities. Anyway, I don’t know why one would have even assumed that an Ivy experience would have been the ne p,us ultra of happiness. I’m sure plenty of kids are just as thrilled with Big State U as Ivy kids are with Ivies.</p>
<p>IMO, what the OP’s son found at Cornell is not uncommon. It’s the only Ivy that kids from our school get into fairly regularly, so hear lots of feedback. Great education, but not one to take lightly.</p>
<p>Regarding the whole TA thing, people seem to consistently overlook the fact that universities are supposed to be teaching their graduate students how to be professors. Having an assistantship at some point is essential to that.</p>
<p>One could argue that the problem is more that the professors are failing the TAs…</p>
<p>The OP’s Cornellian may be a lot happier as he approaches graduation and looks for jobs.</p>
<p>The job opportunities available to Cornell graduates are impressive. My daughter went to Cornell. She and most of her friends found very good jobs, mostly through the university’s on-campus recruiting system. Several are working for leading employers in their fields. All are working in jobs that relate to their career aspirations or their majors. Nobody is unemployed. Nobody is making lattes for a living. Nobody is living with their parents because they don’t earn enough to live on their own.</p>
<p>I don’t know what recruiting is like at Beloit.</p>
<p>I think this mom was simply trying to impress upon us all the importance of fit over prestige. She herself admits to being a little caught up in the name game. Then she has had the pleasure of seeing what best fit can truly look like in a child. I think the schools in question are totally irrelevant, but in this season of worry over what top schools our children were accepted in and can actually pay for, this is a great reminder that fit can be better than the name brand.</p>
<p>It is too naive to think the teaching in Musicology dept represents everything in Princeton undergraduates. Musicology is an exotic, off-main, non popular major. But, it would be one of the reasons why Princeton is just on the top of ranking in few magazines but still behind HY.</p>
<p>I understand Princeton can not be the best for everything, but it is sad that Ivy league undergraduates avoid Princeton Musicology…I guess all Ivy leaguers know what is going on in the Princeton Musicology.</p>
This actually happens quite a lot, one reason why I’m amused that people assume TAs at top universities will be good. For example, I know of a guy who majored in Chinese and is getting his PhD in Asian history here – he TAs US history. Most departments have a few large survey courses that require lots of TAs and fund graduate students; depending on the rarity of your specialization, you may or may be not assigned to something you know anything about.</p>
<p>Heck, my first quarter of grad school was spent TAing a subject I was only vaguely familiar with. Most of my evaluations remarked on how knowledgeable and helpful I was, which doesn’t bode particularly well for how discerning undergraduates are!</p>
<p>I don’t know where you get your information from, but there is no evidence that Princeton students are avoiding musicology. There were 10 seniosr majoring in general music at Princeton according to the last available stats. By contrast, there were 7 students majoring in music at Harvard, 12 students majoring in music at Columbia and 13 students majoring in music at Yale (and these schools all had larger undergraduate enrollments than Princeton). According to the Gourman report, Princeton has one of the top undergraduate programs in music in the country–here are the top ten</p>
<p>UC Berkeley
U Chicago
Princeton
Yale
Cornell
U Michigan AA
U Illinois UC
Columbia
Harvard
UCLA</p>
<p>I don’t think that music is a very popular major at many schools. Serious musicians often peel off to go to music conservatories and students interested in performance at non-conservatories have many opportunities to perform without majoring in the subject. However, suggesting that the Princeton music department is a negative is misinformed.</p>