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<p>I don’t cite it as evidence of their academic credentials or their worth as researchers or as human beings. I cited it as evidence that they are unlikely to be inherently biased against high-prestige institutions. Both of them have their doctorates from Syracuse, one teaches at Penn State, the other at Iowa (or Iowa State, I don’t remember).</p>
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<p>It absolutely would be disingenuous if I were paying a premium to send her there, or if I had to take on a lot of debt to send her there. But although all you say is true, you leave out the fact that it’s also known for being one of the most affordable “hidden gems” in the country. The COA for a Midwest Exchange state resident is about $18,000 (plus books and incidentals), and with our aid package we’re at about $12,000. That’s less than what it would cost us to send her to an in-state residential, and begins to approach what it would cost her to live at home and commute to the nearby directional.</p>
<p>So I’m going to plead “not guilty” to the charge of disingenuity.</p>
<p>Okay, fair enough.</p>
<p>But, let me put it another way. I think you invested a considerable amount of your time in assisting your daughter in finding an amazing school she could also afford. So, I don’t think you completely “believe” the level of instruction and students is immaterial. Truman has an astonishingly high number of overachievers, and I would put its students up against any of the better known private LAC’s out east.</p>
<p>So…</p>
<p>Time or money? Either way, you spent your capital wisely and your daughter will not be some lone wolf bright student in a sea of ambivalent students. Truman has a bright and industrious population of peers for her, as well as excellent professors. She is not going to some second rate school.</p>
<p>annasdad, you are turning every thread into the same discussion. It is very difficult to follow what exactly you are trying to say with all these cited references.</p>
<p>Please give me your opinion/theory/argument in three simple sentences. </p>
<p>Are you saying that all the universities are the same per education purpose. So, one should attend the school with the lowest cost?</p>
<p>Gee, poetgrl, when my D made her choice, I promised myself that I was not going to become of those tiresome CC parents who endlessly spout the (real or imagined) virtues of their kid’s school. Turns out I don’t have to - you’re doing it for me!</p>
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<p>Nor have I ever said it is. What I’ve said is, “the dimensions along which American colleges are typically categorized, ranked, and studied, such as type of control, size, and selectivity, are simply not linked with important differences in student learning, change, or development.” (P&T, 641) There are institutional factors that make a difference (see post 85 above) - yes, for the so-called average student, and I don’t disagree at all with frazzled that student needs differ. A thorough college search takes that list of attributes and does the best job the inadequate public data allows in trying to discern what school does those things best for your kid.</p>
<p>To the extent it’s relevant, the reasons my D chose her school: (a) it offers Russian (her one non-negotiable demand, and one that makes the initial filtering job a LOT easier), (b) she can graduate with zero debt, (c) it’s far enough away that mom and dad won’t be dropping by just to say hi yet close enough that she can get home when she wants to, and (d) on her accepted student visit she felt she was among her kind of people. She had another choice, a private that offered her a fabulous FA package that put it within about $2,000 of Truman (which DW and I would have been happy to cover) and met a, b, and c, but got eliminated due to factor (d). At no time did she consider prestige - although she goes to an exclusive math and science school that sends 20-30% of its graduates every year to top-rated universities and LACs and another 30% to 50% to our well-regarded flagship.</p>
<p>This will be East vs West, prestige (best value) vs anything should be fine as long as it’s cheap.</p>
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<p>Opinion: What a student does when the student gets to college matters far more than what college the student goes to</p>
<p>Theory: I’m no theoretician.</p>
<p>Argument: Because that’s what the data shows.</p>
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<p>No, and maybe. (Succinct enough?)</p>
<p>My anecdotal evidence is my own child and her friends and other family -some went to in-state small schools several went to Ivy’s. They were all in the same academic high school programs and had fairly equivalent grades. The difference between the Ivy admits and the students that attended what you call the in state directionals grade wise was non existent. In fact in Honors and AP classes my D had with a Harvard admit her grades were actually higher. Her SAT scores were over 400 points lower. She had an 1800 not bad not Ivy. When they get together I have to be honest there is no discernible difference in their intellect. Now I have come across indivduals that were just off the charts smart- some were Ivy grades others were not.</p>
<p>My experience would be similar to annasdad- huge loans will negate a lot of the so called value at the prestige schools.</p>
<p>I actually believe a study was done which shows that the greatest difference a “prestige” school makes is in the lives of those who come from the lower socio-economic and less-educated parents.</p>
<p>So: if you have highly educated parents and go to prestigeU, the return is marginal compared to first-gen student at prestigeU for whom the return is very large. I’m not in the mood to find the study, but I’m sure others here are familiar with it.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, there is a lot to be said for peers who are as bright as each other, maybe not 100K worth, but certainly there is a cost/benefit analysis which would show that for certain students the rate of return is higher than for others.</p>
<p>I think you want your kid to be with at least a certain number of kids who are in the same ballpark, intellectually. I think you can find this at a variety of price points, as Anna’sdad’s daughter did with Truman State.</p>
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<p>The data supports that, with qualifications.</p>
<p>According to Pascarella and Terenzini (full cite upthread, pages 594-5), attending a selective or prestigious institution appears to have only a trivial impact on overall educational status - except for the most selective 1 or 2 percent of institutions, which enhance degree attainment in specific high-status professions such as medicine or law. Selective colleges confer a modest advantage in job attainment and career mobility, but only through the middle organization ranks. Student body selectivity has significant, positive impacts on subsequent earnings. 100 points in SAT average increases earnings by about 4% in later life. However this may not be linear and “only those elite schools at the very top of the selectivity distribution may confer an appreciable earnings premium.” Moreover, this may be inflated because of the problem in controlling for individual ambition. “Replicated evidence indicates when ambition is taken into account, along with other factors, the impact of college selectivity on earnings becomes negligible. Thus, a substantial part of the net earnings premium attributed to degrees from selective or prestigious colleges may in fact be due to the talents and motivations of the students they enroll.”</p>
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<p>I agree with you 100% on this one. My anecdotal data points say exactly that. </p>
<p>While both my kids are not in any Ivy schools, those schools they are attending offers so much for them to learn in and outside of the classroom. I am convinced that it is the student’s ability and drive that counts the most.</p>
<p>However, not all the schools could afford the resources for ALL their students. I.e. they may not have Nobel Laureates and/or world leaders to give lectures. They may not have fundings to send students for independent summer researches at first class research facilities outside the campus. Etc. etc. In other words, some of the students in certain schools may not be able to do what they want to do - evenso they have the ability and drive to do it.</p>
<p>In terms of the cost. Our kids will only go to college once to enjoy 4 years of growing experiences. As long as I have beans and rices to eat, I will support them to go for their dream schools.</p>
<p>On a different topic.</p>
<p>For anyone who argues that they don’t care about ranking and/or prestige. I personally tend to believe those who got into a top 5 and select not to go. I.e. one kid we know on CC picked CMU over H.</p>
<p>It would sound like a sour grape to me when someone who did not get into any top 20 and said they don’t care. If you did not make the NMF, SAT is around 2100, and could not get a full ride at a none flag state U. You should not declare you could have picked H but rather not. </p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with taking a good merit package to a none flag state U, it is just your arguement for not care about ranking and prestige would not be very strong.</p>
<p>Annasdad:</p>
<p>Your cited studies say that the nature and frequency of student contact with peers and faculty members does affect the degree of educational attainment. I think we can all agree that the peers and faculty accomplishments at a top 20 school exceeds what you will find at Cleveland State. I think the idea that this only affects the top 1-2% is bit too restrictive.</p>
<p>As for kids turning down Harvard to go to CMU, I’ve been a Yale interviewer for too long to not take many of these statements with a grain of salt unless I knew that kid was going for engineering or CS. I hear from parents that so and so got into Yale but is going elsewhere and I know this is not the case privy to local admissions data. One parent recently told me that her kid was going to a USNWR school ranked about 30 unless she “changed her mind” and decided to go to what was her ED and deferred Ivy school. I’m sure it was just an oversight that she didn’t also qualify it to say “and also get off the waiting list”. Other parents in that conversation understood that to mean she was turning down said Ivy for some small merit award.</p>
<p>Also, I didn’t read those studies besides the abstract but I wonder what endpoints are measured. Many parents on CC doubt there will be a material economic payback to investing in a top tier school and as a parent who does this, I would agree. The social and life changing experience of being surrounded by true peers, something these top kids may never have felt even in AP classes, is an intangible benefit for personal growth.</p>
<p>I obviously can’t dispute your anecdotal data; but just this year, one of my D’s best friends turned down a so-called “top-5” national university for a LAC ranked in the 50s. And money was not the issue. And I know it was not just a story, because DD and I were around while both the student and her mother (whom I know well) were agonizing over the decision. So yes, it does happen.</p>
<p>And to your general point, the data does not show that selectivity has a statistically significant impact on educational achievement of a given student. You can deny that all you want - can you cite juried research that shows otherwise?</p>
<p>Alright DadII, I’ll bite. S got into a top 5 USNWR with 10k in merit money and has chosen to go to a top 50 in-state very good uni that bottom line is about $20k a year less even with no merit money (Honors college, though, which conveys some benefits). Along the way he turned down a half-tuition Regents scholarship to UC Davis and an honors college offer from UCSD, both ranked higher than the school he has chosen to attend. We told him we had a specific amount saved and would pay for any college he thoughtfully chose, but that once the well was dry, he was on his own for graduate school. He took that into consideration in choosing his school but not so much as to go to Davis, which he likened in negative terms to a “big farm.”<br>
In all honesty, I would have chosen either the top 5 or UC Davis, but it was his choice to make. He chose his school based on where he thought he would do the best and be the happiest, which I guess satisfies the whole “fit” issue. We are happy to have some $ left over so we can afford to help with grad school, but it won’t be as much as if he had taken the Regents scholarship…</p>
<p>Which top 5 school offers merit money?</p>
<p>Yalegradanddad,</p>
<p>Count my son as someone who decided not to attend either of the Ivies (Princeton and Penn) he applied to and was accepted to, and instead chose MIT. He was very close to choosing Harvey Mudd and even UT Dallas at one point. He, in fact, chose the most expensive of his options, which was a point of contention. However, given our income level, he will not incur huge debt. I am hopeful that if he’s careful and frugal, he was have less then 10K in debt. It was a little hard at first, knowing he could have graduated debt-free from at least 4 other schools. I hope it will pay off for him to have the peers and environment that he felt was the best fit for him.</p>
<p>Edit: Old Fort, I’m curious about that, too.</p>
<p>WW, Good for your S. I was not arguing with any one. Just saying - if one did not get an offer, he/she should not declare they turn it down. </p>
<p>I think the concerned #5 is U of Chicago, Oldfort. They offer some 10K merit $$ on top of need based FA to limited number of students.</p>
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<p>Annasdad, If you just look at the selection of Rhode scholar or other top academic awards. You should see top 5 schools probably took 1/2 of all honors. Sure, one could always pick one student from any university and said “selectivity has a statistically significant impact on educational achievement of THAT student”. But, if you take the whole student body into discussion, what do you see?</p>
<p>I’ll be darned that U Chicago is #5 and it offers merit scholarship. Who would have known!!! D2 considered NU, but not U Chicago. I told her it was EA, no cost to her. She looked at me like I was crazy.</p>
<p>Back to the original question…I’m straying off my usual thread as I recover… Afford to me means I can cover the cost without being dependent on loans, grants, financial aid, kindness of strangers or generosity from the university. I can combine savings and earnings to pay my kids way while being able to maintain my lifestyle and savings goals.</p>