<p>From reading above, I concluded that State Public is NOT academically challenged to the most top caliber students!! I would like to open the eyes to all who think so. Very incorrect!!! I know many from the best private prep. in our area who graduated at the top of their class (including my own D.) over several years and who went to State Publics on full tuition Merit awards (smart kids and parents), who were challenged to their extreme academically. Than includes even classes that they had to repeat for some reason(s) after they had "A"s and “5”'s in their respective AP classes in HS. Most Bio majors (as an example), require to take intro/first Bio despite “5” on AP exam. My D. had to do so and we know that good number of Honor students (valedictorians in HS) have changed their proffessional plans after taking firts Bio class. No wonder that Med. Schools pay practically no attention to the name of UG college. Yes, even Harvard graduate still have to have very high GPA and MCAT score, “Harvard” name will not help with acceptance to Med. School.<br>
The same goes for many other majors. Engineering in particular - most engineering firms are hiring locally as well as good number of initial “engineering” majors fall out of this track at Public State schools, because they are challenged much more than expected, even very top kids who would definitely qualify for Ivy/Elite, but never applied.<br>
I say, that it is up to every family to decide where they send their kids, it is nobody else’s business. But to state that the kids will not be challenged at State Public is NOT correct, they will much more then they can imagine after all APs and straignt As even in private prep. HSs.</p>
<p>Please do not take this thread off topic. This is a thread about affordability and secondarily about “value”. But please, for the love of god, lets not get into yet another tiresome discussion of the private vs public schools.</p>
<p>Miami, my neighbors kids all went to the local, non flagship branch of our public U system. The satellite campuses range in quality and breadth of their academic offerings. Some are former teacher’s colleges (not to knock teachers) which came under the state U umbrella during a consolidation effort a few decades ago. There are some colleges in the system where the number of kids who have successfully entered med school is probably less than a dozen over a 30 year period. So once every three years one kid makes it to med school from one of these colleges, and frequently that’s with taking a post Bac program at another institution first.</p>
<p>Your D’s experience- as wonderful, and low cost, and fantastic as it was, is not at all applicable to thousands of other students who might well be enrolling in a State Public which is ill equipped to educate a kid who wants to be a physician. Great place to become a gym teacher or a speech therapist or a social worker (and their admissions stats to grad programs in education, speech/language pathology, and MSW schools is fantastic) but a terrible place to prep for a medical career.</p>
<p>blossom,
^I was specifically mentionning that my D. is one in many. She went to the best private prep. HS in our area and we knew many families with graduates over several years (mostly with MD parents). Parents just did not want the kids to have .5 mlns in debt after college. They knew very well that they would be challenged everywhere.
All of my D’s pre-meds friends (who applied) got accepted to Med. Schools, she was not the only one. There are 3 others from her UG in D’d Med. School class currently, surrounded by many from Ivy / Elite schools, including PhD from Harvard, few law degrees and many with other advanced degrees. They all doing just fine (not just my D.) after graduating from their respective Public State schools without debt and without additional financial burden on thier families.
Again, each family has to decide and nobody around them should care, we all have to respect others’ personal decisions. However, correct opinion about anything cannot be based on some stats data extracted from internet or somebody else’s opinion, one need to have a closer look and first hand experience to form it. My opinion was based on knowing backgrounds of many kids, knowing where they went to UGs and the reasons for that and results (acceptance to Grad. Schools, job offers…etc.). They are all very hard working top caliber kids from the best HSs in our area and they are doing just as well as others who decided to go to Ivy’s for UG. I just say, why not to both groups. I have no judgement against one or another.</p>
<p>blossom, you are following in an honorable tradition. You can’t dispute the data (not a single study, but multiple studies over 30 years, as you well know but choose to misrepresent) , so you attack the messenger.</p>
<p>Well, here’s a little bit of data, from Cleveland State’s website:
Is that good? Hard to say, but it doesn’t say over what period of time.</p>
<p>Annasdad- Namaste. I’m sure your D will be very successful in whatever she chooses to do. Miami’s evidence (one kid plus her prep school colleagues) clearly trumps the results from my own local state U which every couple of years has a kid make it to med school (usually in Grenada), after doing a Post Bac program somewhere else. As I said- there is nothing wrong with going to one of these schools to become a teacher or a social worker- that’s what their mission is, and they are very good at that. It is erroneous to conclude that a smart kid can go anywhere from anyplace based on Miami’s D, but you are the statistical whiz here with all your meta-studies and faulty correlations/causations so I defer to you in drawing a conclusion based on a sample size of one. Especially since that sample attended a top drawer public U.</p>
<p>BTW, I was talking about kids being accepted to top 20s, not Med. School in Grenada where they did not have to apply as they have plenty of stats to apply where they wanted and have high rate of acceptance with few choices of great Med. schools. I am talking about kids turning down acceptances to Northwestern Med. School and such (as one example) because they had choices.</p>
<p>Again, the discussion has taken a hard turn from affordability to perceived value. If any given student has a range of options in the same “affordability” band what is so wrong with them assessing value to them on a personal scale that included both academic outcomes and “experience”?</p>
<p>I guess value and affordability are related, since you might consider the likely cash flow from your ultimate career in terms of determining how much debt you can “afford.”</p>
<p>
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<p>There are plenty of families making 1 M/yr. To them, 50K is just 5% of that income. You think they bat an eyelash?</p>
<p>The tuition at a private (day) prep school in Manhattan is around 30K+/yr. Tuition at some private boarding prep schools is around 40K+/yr. For these families, paying 50K/yr for college tuition is not a big jump up.</p>
<p>Hunt:</p>
<p>That medical school acceptance list doesn’t seem at all impressive to me. Despite MiamiDAP feeling the Harvard name means nothing for medical school admissions, I can assure you that its list of medical school admits is heavily waited to Harvard, Penn, JHU, Columbia, Yale, etc. :).</p>
<p>Unless you are making $500K+/year, you are going to have to make personal value decisions when you choose what is affordable to you. That might mean foregoing the more selective school for a merit ride that allows earlier retirement or discretionary money to be spent elsewhere. I find it interesting that previous posters have said they could afford a luxury car but choose not to do so since their current car is good enough to meet their needs. No one is saying they can’t discern the difference between a new BMW and their used Chevrolet - only that the Chevy is good enough to get them where they want to go. As for college choice, OTOH, there are some parents here who say for a given kid with certain aptitude, there is no discernible difference between the luxury and budget options.</p>
<p>I actually waited too long. You have to use it with 10 years of getting out… </p>
<p>My wife is using hers though. It’s very nice. Stacked with the university grants, its almost a full time family income, with a great education to boot.!</p>
<p>Sent from my ADR6425LVW using CC</p>
<p>“luxury and budget” segregation is simply NOT applicable to education. Hard working top caliber kid will go further graduating from state public than some others graduating from Ivy’s and I do have examples of it. There are so many opportunities everywhere, not just academically, but there are certain job positions at colleges, Research Interships, volunteering, trip abroad and even campuses abroad. While some open minded kids with time management skills are taking chances at many (and they are offerred more as the top kids), others will pass them by no matter where they are. These kids are building great relationships, getting awesome LORs and recognized at graduations, they have world open to them without ever relying on the name of their UG. When they go to Grad./Law/Med. schoool where they are surrounded by very “fancy” degrees in their class, they do not feel inferior, they feel prepared just as well and perform just as well as others, yes, graduates from Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, and many other Elite places with good number of post grad. degrees already in thier pockets. They are chosen for rare opportunties because of their performances, they are getting feedback about doing very well.
I have nothing against anybody going to Harvard. Why not? But to say that others do not get at state public what some are getting at Harvard is incorrect. You have to look at individual kid, yes, it is up to this person, did he pass by or took advantage of everything that was available for him in 4 years of college. I am not talking about academics. For once, there are plenty of 4.0 in at least pre-med crowd.<br>
Some choose their UG not even based on money. Moneywise it might be affordable for them everywhere. But again, they do not feel like paying for something that could be free and …not the least, they might not want to go far away from home. That was criteria #1 for my D. choosing Med. School, let alone UG. Then affordability is much wider issue, as she did not feel that she could afford to be far from her hometown, acording to her that would be a bit too much to handle. There are many out there feeling like her. Affordable is not only money, it is other resources like time, in this case time to travel.
Please, go to Harvard if you wish so, your Merit award at state public will not be wasted, it will be awarded to the next person in line and he will be very thanful for that.</p>
<p>vicarious parent,</p>
<p>Yes, thats exactly true. Don’t know any people who make that kind of money, but for us, we’ve been saving for college since the kids were born, so the money as there and required no lifestyle change. So even though we are middle class, for us we could afford what we paid for college without batting the proverbial eyelash. </p>
<p>And yes - we called private school tuition “practice” for college tuition.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP: You seem to be assuming that state public with merit award will always be less expensive than private option. Not all states are generous with merit and some merit/need profiles may fair equally or better financially at some private schools.</p>
<p>Also - There seems to be an assumption that we are all discussing the “Hard working top caliber kid”. Forget Harvard and Cleveland Sate for the moment - in the vast middle ground of institutions of higher learning and for the vast middle ground of students who don’t hail from Lake Wobegon there are value difference among institutions at the same price point. A car example was used awhile back - if I have a budget of 20k for a new car I may value space to haul soccer, football and baseball equipment. I may value towing capability. I a may value style. I may value gas mileage. If they all get me from point A to point B and I’ve decided that I can “afford” anything around that price point without undue debt or hardship who’s to complain that I am valuing the wrong attributes relative to my particular needs and conditions?</p>
<p>I also might decide that not every vehicle at that price point offers enough value to me to make it seem “affordable”.</p>
<p>Miami-
A top caliber, hard working student from many schools probably will do well in general, but by no means does that mean that one from a state school will go further than one from a top private or top flagship. Sorry, doesn’t matter if you have a few examples of students that did well. We probably all do. But to say they will do better than ones from the elite schools is well, silly. Not even worth discussing. Please don’t turn this into another soliloquy about your daughter and her accomplishments. She is doing well. Congrats. But this discussion is about afforadbility and value, not one kid’s accomplishments.</p>
<p>** crossposted with saintfan</p>
<p>Every time the Olympics come around, one of the human interest stories will feature a kid who ran up and down mountains barefoot with rocks in his pockets because he couldn’t afford running shoes and professional training.</p>
<p>I’m always inspired by such stories, but they don’t make me think the best way to get to the Olympics is to run up and down mountains barefoot.</p>
<p>If that same athlete had a world class coach and facility, could that athlete have gone further?</p>
<p>jym626 “But to say they will do better than ones from the elite schools is well, silly. Not even worth discussing.”</p>
<p>I have plenty of examples of students from elite schools that didn’t fulfill the great expectations for them after graduation. I’ll agree with you that a top caliber student from an elite school who takes advantage of all opportunites ought to do better than one from a “lesser” university. Reality though is messy. Top students aren’t equally savvy, willing to take risks, or as adept at internal politics in large organizations.</p>