<p>
</p>
<p>I’m a jaded smart aleck, and I have no idea where those kids were coming from, but I did see more North Face tents at the encampment outside my office than I would have expected from a gathering of the proletariat.</p>
<p>OK…I will answer the OP’s question with my opinion. Our family has two Wellesley grads in it. If my daughter had the stats to get accepted to Wellesley, I would have scrubbed floors for her to attend. I think it is well worth it, if you can pay the costs.</p>
<p>When I think of the “think tank” folks, I am thinking (no pun intended) of the ones further in their career, not spot out of college… like these folks [Salaries</a> of Top Think Tank Leaders - Think Tanked](<a href=“http://www.thinktankedblog.com/think-tanked/2010/08/salaries-of-top-think-tank-leaders.html]Salaries”>Think Tanked: August 2010)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.thinktankwatch.com/2012/03/think-tank-salaries.html[/url]”>http://www.thinktankwatch.com/2012/03/think-tank-salaries.html</a></p>
<p>OP - wish I could have talked to you a month or so ago before scrapping AFA. Sounds like you are in IN too? Feel free to message me if you’d like, especially if she will be doing ROTC at MIT!</p>
<p>marciemi,</p>
<p>Going back to your first post, there was an older neighbor who ended up turning down MIT with full ride FA/scholarship to attend Annapolis because he wanted the SA experience and go into the submarine service. He would probably be around class '90. </p>
<p>Last my family heard, he graduated and got assigned to a submarine training.</p>
<p>Cobrat…are you saying you know someone who turned down a ROTC scholarship…because…MIT doesn’t give full ride institutional merit awards…only need based aid.</p>
<p>Thumper1 - what are the family members who graduated from Wellesley doing now? I would be curious to hear that. My impression is that many go on to grad or professional schools. I can’t imagine that they are able to pull down high paying jobs with a 4 year LAC but what do I know? Also, we are not Catholic…we are Methodist, but both D’s have been Catholic educated from K-12.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It was need-based FA and a likely ROTC scholarship if he had elected to do NROTC at MIT considering his stats and demonstrated enthusiasm for the Navy.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think you are making assumptions here that aren’t necessarily valid. My D1 graduated in 2012 (pretty tough job market) with degree from a LAC ranked pretty far below Wellesley. She had a job lined up before she graduated with a $45K per year salary, and was promoted within a year with about a $10K raise. She was a political science major. Her boyfriend from the same school also had a job line up for $60K a year, which so far he likes a lot (haven’t asked him about raises :)). He was an econ major. I think both are on a good track to move up the ladder at their corporations and do very well if they choose to do so. So I guess it depends on what you mean by “high paying jobs” – although some STEM majors will do better, I think those are very respectable salaries for 23 year olds. I think maybe you have some bias against the liberal arts education that isn’t entirely valid, at least for kids who are go-getters like mine and apparently yours are.</p>
<p>LaBech…I sent you a PM.</p>
<p>All of the Wellesley grads in our family got jobs with their Wellesley degrees. One recently finished a masters at Hopkins…but graduated from Wellesley in 2006, and has been gainfully employed ever since.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Wellesley doesn’t have the preprofessional/vocational majors like business or accounting that are designed to lead directly to post-graduation employment, but many of its graduates do go on to corporate and finance jobs. Economics is a big major at Wellesley. </p>
<p>This is an old article but it gives an idea of the culture of Wellesley:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/29/business/how-to-succeed-go-to-wellesley.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/29/business/how-to-succeed-go-to-wellesley.html</a></p>
<p>Many Wellesley grads do go on to graduate school.</p>
<p>If I were going to try to commute to ROTC at MIT from W, I’d do whatever I could to try to get a car. Even if they are technically against the rules for freshmen, I’d try to get an exception to that rule, or else create a work-around (like renting a garage spot from a local family). It won’t be cheap, but it will be a hell of a lot cheaper than 3 years of tuition. Anyone else making the same commute would likely split costs in exchange for a ride.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>One doesn’t necessarily need to do a pre-professional major in accounting to be recruited by a Big-4 firm if one attends an elite enough college and has a respectable GPA. Knew a few Columbia/Barnard alums who were recruited into a few Big-4 accounting firms who weren’t STEM or even Econ majors. </p>
<p>One was an East Asian Lit major who now has been a successfully practicing accountant/CPA for nearly 15 years. </p>
<p>Unless things have changed drastically, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did/are continuing to do the same for grads of other elite schools…including W.</p>
<p>cobrat - it’s really not hard to get into subs these days. Actually they’re almost coercing people into it. Top people only, granted, but especially at MIT nearly all grads go into subs (with a few surface nuclear). One of the reasons my son even applied to MIT in the first place was because they were one of the few schools he found that offered nuclear engineering (of course he’s now a chemical engineering major but that was his goal then). </p>
<p>My son got off the sub Monday and we (the PARENTS!) received a letter Saturday from the sub commander, giving us his email and encouraging us (and our son) to contact him with any questions we might have about branching into subs. Guess my point is that while I won’t deny that there are a lot of reasons to choose an academy, I’d bet your neighbor would easily have gotten subs out of MIT as well. </p>
<p>About the only branch/field I hear it really makes a difference is as a pilot in the AF. If you go to USAFA and are pilot qualified, you’re pretty much guaranteed a pilot slot (assuming you complete pilot training successfully of course). It’s harder to get out of ROTC. But for everything else I think the numbers/opportunities are pretty much equal.</p>
<p>I would imagine a lot of graduates from W go into finance or consulting (I am waiting for Pizzagirl to jump in now to say not everyone has such aspiration). For IB type finance jobs, they pay over 6 figures first year out. A lot of those firms are trying to hire more women, so I would think W would be a school they want to recruit heavily at.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s fairly easy to fix. When my kid was looking at LACs, I encouraged him to go online and see if he could find copies of both the alumni magazine and departmental newsletters for the subject in which he intends to major. Then I encouraged him to look at what recent graduates were doing and what folks about ten years out were doing. If alumni were reporting that they were doing things in which he thought he might be interested, then we felt pretty comfortable about the application. </p>
<p>At least one LAC we toured kept a book in its admissions office showing the placement for every graduate of the college from the prior year. That was good reading while we were waiting for the info session. As others here have suggested, many top employers recruit the best LACs; their graduates may not have specific technical skills walking in the door, but they have well-trained minds and can learn on the job very quickly. </p>
<p>If you can’t find those publications online, I bet Wellesley would send you a couple of back issues now that your daughter is deposited there. And I bet you’ll find that their recent alumnae are doing lots of things your daughter would find exciting between four and, say, fifteen years from now.</p>
<p>marciemi,S2’s friend had an AFROTC scholarship at our big state u. He graduated in May as the highest ranking AFROTC student in the nation and the Valedictorian of his class (summa cum laude aerospace engineering)of his college class. He got a plum assignment in the Euro-NATO jet pilot program.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m not sure where you’re getting the impression that a top LAC would be any less employable than any of the top research universities that your D was looking at (leaving aside the AFA right now, since that’s a specialty school). Is it your fear that Wellesley is inherently less employable than, say, Georgetown, Duke, or ND because it’s an LAC? I don’t believe that to be the case.</p>
<p>Daughter is at Wellesley and loves it also works 3 part time jobs to help pay for it.As a veteran I would like to re-emphasize what many have said the, USAF is part of the armed forces and she may be directed to commit or contribute to great violence in service to her country.</p>