<p>blossom, just curious, about something. When you and those in your group have never heard of a school, would you try to see if the school is ranked by someone like USNEWS? For example, would it make any difference to a company if the school were ranked 38th master’s university of the midwest vs. a 2nd, or 3rd tier national university, if the gpa, internship, and LORs were good?</p>
<p>to the OP, very good points all around. You forgot to mention the difference in students.</p>
<p>Private schools (esp the uppertier ones, ex NYU, BC, Georgetown, etc) have a completely different student body than comparable state schools. Not only financially, but academically and socially as well. </p>
<p>Does anyone else notice this glaring difference?</p>
<p>Northeast- we would look at any and all available data. We will google the name of the professor for whom the kid worked (if it’s on the resume); we will look at % of fulltime PhD faculty vs. adjuncts if we’ve never heard of the school to get a feel for the place, etc.</p>
<p>But to be candid- we don’t do that across the board for every unknown college that hits the radar. I don’t know any of my colleagues at other companies who invest a whole lot of time exploring “unknown gems” in computer science or econ or linguistics. If you can hire strong kids from the applied math department at Brown or Berkeley or Rutgers, you don’t need to do a lot of research to learn about a Master’s university’s applied math department.</p>
<p>Is it unfair? Maybe. But does Boeing or UTC really need to do research to discover who the powerhouse programs are in aerospace engineering? </p>
<p>And for companies in the entertainment industry- are you really going to invest time and energy learning about a great film program at a tiny college in Kentucky (if such a thing exists) when your management wants to know about who the emerging talent is at USC? Or spend time telling people why you passed over the entire staff of the Harvard Crimson or didn’t bother to recruit at Northwestern to fill entry level writing jobs so you could seek out a “hidden gem” communications program?</p>
<p>blossom, you answered my question. Thanks.</p>
<p>Excellent thread with many informative posts. Thanks.</p>
<p>I particularly liked toneranger’s earlier comments and what came thru for me is that what matters most is not the environment, but the kid. A motivated, top kid who gets into an Honors program at a large public is likely to be just fine. For the less motivated and/or less bright kid….well, maybe there’s a difference and potentially a significant one. </p>
<p>The lesson for me is that environment matters, but the degree to which will vary according to the individual. Environment will obviously also have an important impact on opportunities that a student will have access to.</p>
<p>blossom,</p>
<p>great input. thank you so much for spending your valuable time to shed light onto this important matter from a recruiter’s perspective. You have done all of us here a great service.</p>
<p>I have a question. S2 is an ROTC hopeful. I think he will end up in a top 30-60 range school on an ARMY ROTC scholarship. He wants to serve about 6 years as an officer and then seek civilian career. His current thinking is to major in something like poli sci or IR. If he joins the civilian work force after 6 years, he will still have two more years of reserve duty left.</p>
<p>How do recruiters consider someone like S2 when he is ready to seek a civilian job? Are the 6 years in the military be recognizable as professional experience? Or, will he be considered an “entry position candidate”? Is his military experience negative, neutral, or positive factor? Does he need to go back to school for a masters degree to “retool” himself?</p>
<p>I am just a little confused about the original post. Are you saying that due to grade inflation at privates, it is worth the cost to get better grades for the same work? ie you get what you pay for? Would you not consider this buying a better GPA?</p>
<p>My company has a special program to recruit military officers; if the individual went to one of the academies we have numerous alums here who provide some helpful mentoring for people transitioning to the corporate sector (which is not always easy). The process isn’t as standard for people who did ROTC and then service, mainly because the backgrounds are so varied, and they don’t all come out of the service on the same timetable as the cohorts from the academies.</p>
<p>So my not very helpful answer is “it depends”. Some companies see former officers as entry level but with an asterisk (sort of like entry level hires who did the Peace Corps.) In those cases, the military experience is really just evaluated on its merits- leadership, advancement, accomplishments, etc. In other cases, military people are hired for specific expertise (supply chain people for example.) If you’ve run a billion dollar operation moving spare parts and engine components around the world, that is directly relevant to jobs on the corporate side- and you’d be interviewing with knowledgeable people who understand the technologies involved, would be very interested in what you accomplished and how. In still other cases that I’ve seen, military people transition directly to contractors and suppliers to the military- intelligence, products and services, etc… and in those cases, those are jobs which you just can’t get without having served as an officer (particularly if you have top secret clearance already and it’s required for the private sector job.)</p>
<p>Sorry I can’t give you a thumbs up/thumbs down- but it really varies. If he’s valuable to the armed services, he will probably pick up a Master’s degree during the 6 years- in a foreign language, in “Area studies”, or even an MBA. So I wouldn’t worry about grad school- talented officers seem to end up with a Master’s courtesy of Uncle Sam.</p>
<p>blossom,</p>
<p>thank you for taking time to answer my question. It’s greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>I wonder about the whole grade inflation/deflation theory. I don’t have data for this but its interesting. </p>
<p>It would be nice if one could ‘control for kid’- how would that student do in X vs. Y. At privates there is much less academic diversity, so in an objective sense, you should have more “A” work being handed in than other grades; in state there is a lot more academic diversity, so you have a greater range of grades (there is a natural curve of ability). This certainly matches my intuition (having taught and graded students at an Ivy and a State). The material is the material, the test the test, the expectation the expectation: at a more selective school more students will meet the bar than in a less selective school. It also matches my experience with graduate programs- whereby As are the norm (at that level, you are teaching top talent and there is not at all the need for that many B grades).</p>
<p>We recently did the state school v private school consideration for my son when he was applying at schools. We’d always assumed that he would go to our state university (we are in NJ, so you probably know what school I’m referring to) as DH and I are both graduates and it’s considered a very good school. So, son applied there and also to some local private schools. </p>
<p>When the acceptance letters came in, a private school gave him a scholarship that made it the same price at the State U, so cost was no longer an issue. So, while state schools are cheaper, a good scholarship can change that.</p>
<p>We debated the merits of him being a minnow in an ocean (at state U) or a big fish in a small pond (private school).</p>
<p>Well, my son ended up at the private school and really was a big fish in a small pond. He was noticed by his professors and he really was given some excellent personal assistance. In fact, one of his teachers really became like a mentor and he directed my son to a particular grad school program (it has a stipend and grad assistantship position) and my son applied and was accepted into this program. So, he’s going to grad school for free. Would this have happened at State U, not very likely.</p>
<p>Anther variable that impacted our decision - state U accepted very few of the credits that he’d earned as a high school student. Private school accepted all of them. This enabled my son to graduate college in 3 years. While there are pros and cons to this, for my son, it ended up being a huge plus. And we didn’t mind the additional savings in tuition money! So in the end, private college was cheaper than state school. </p>
<p>Also, (remember big fish in a small pond) he was noticed by the school president and eventually hired by him for a summer job doing research for him. Nice resume fodder. </p>
<p>So, for my son, private school ended up a better option than state U.<br>
However, I can see that for a different student, the state U could be a better option.</p>
<p>This is a big deal, coming from Taxguy!</p>
<p>sunnyflorida notes," it is worth the cost to get better grades for the same work? ie you get what you pay for? Would you not consider this buying a better GPA"</p>
<p>Response: Every parent and student has to make their own determination. What I have said about grade inflation does seem to apply more to private schools but there are exceptions. For example Boston University is known for grade deflation!</p>
<p>Some examples will serve to show some of the differences: At the University of Cincinnati, where my daughter goes, the average GPA for graduating students overall is just under a 3.0. abouit 25% of the student body graduates with a 3.25 or better. In freshmen year, the average GPA was under 2.7. Any university of interest should be checked out for their average GPAs.</p>
<p>Compare this to many ivy schools where the average GPA is a 3.33! Look at that of Tufts and a number of other private schools. From what I can tell, a decent private school gives about a .2-.3 edge on the GPA, but, as I noted, there are exceptions. </p>
<p>Is it worth it? You have to be the judge. I would think that if your goal is to attend a top graduate or professional school, having an extra twp or three -tenths to the GPA is a big edge.</p>
<p>shrinkrap, I just was very ticked off when a school noted that they are eliminating 65% of their adjunct professors in a department due to budget cuts! To me, this is changing the deal midstream.</p>
<p>Also, I was visiting both UCLA’s graduate school of Film and Televisions and Digital Arts for my daughter and visited USC’s new Cinematic Arts school for their animation program. Both are considered powerhouses in cinemtatic arts.However, UCLA facilites was in an older cramped building. The professor that I met complained about furlouighs and cuts in pay. USC had brand new faciliteiss and wasn’t cuting pay for anyone. In fact, they are expanding course offerings and cinematic facilities. It was a HUGE difference. I do believe that the California budget cuts, as that of other states, will eventually impact quality at the schools and cause the schools to lose some top professors.</p>
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<p>What I am going to say will probably upset some people. Some grad schools (not the top schools) are going look at your scores, recs, gpa, and resume. They will only look for the school’s certification. It will not matter to them if your school is public, private, 3rd tier, 2nd tier, a school that is ranked as a 47th or 87th master’s university. You can get a boost in gpa by attending a less selective school. Another way to boost a gpa is by picking your professors and major carefully (ie: I know someone who boosted her gpa in order to be able to get teaching certification. She switched from majoring in a science to a certain type sociology major where her science classes already taken were going to count towards her major. She then got a master’s in education. If she had not done that she would not be able to have been certified in her state to teach).</p>
<p>DMD:</p>
<p>Thank you for pointing out the Blue Cross Policy. I’ll look into it for future reference. I have fantastic coverage however and given he is an athlete, I’d rather keep him under my coverage. His knee surgery last year was $75,000 plus and I was $400 out of pocket.</p>
<p>This is really a one semester thing for my Son as he will be transferring in the Spring and will be increasing his course load at that time. </p>
<p>Basically he got into a emergency situation when the school decided not to hire some of their normal instructors (e.g. temporary Professors) and instead offer fewer sections of some classes - including English 1B (second semester GE English). So instead of having a full time load, he was unexpectedly below the line - and had 36 hours to find 3 more units. Thank you CA budget.</p>
<p>As an aside to the dicussion on private versus state schools and the grades one earns. This is for grades in gradate school, so it may not apply, but…</p>
<p>My niece was a top 1% student in UG work at a state school. She then went to any Ivy for Law School. At that Ivy, she was told by more than one professor - “You will all get As here, that’s just how it is…if you got yourself this far…that alone says you deserve, and therefore will receive As.”</p>
<p>hey r12…let us know that school! My son has an excellent GPA at our public and would love to go to a law school with guaranteed As!</p>
<p>How many colleges and universities are there in the United States? Are all state schools similar? Are all private colleges similar?</p>
<p>Despite being true, the only value of anecdotes is that they offer a small insight in the particular situation of one student at one school, and perhaps at two schools if he or she transferred. </p>
<p>Grading policies are rarely the domain of an entire school. You can have easy graders and tough graders in the same school, and even in the same program. Trying to reach a conclusion about the difficulty or ease of grading based on advertised GPA is an exercise in futility. Grades are a combination of difficulty of the curriculum, teachers’ expectations, AND student abilities and previous preparation.</p>
<p>As far as matching the students and their objectives, there is a reason why people love to talk about best fit. And there is a reason why there are so many different options. For some, attending a school where it is “easier” to maximize a GPA by navigating easier and fluff classes might be the best option. For others, the opposite is true.</p>
<p>Fwiw, when it comes to graduate school, there is a LOT more than GPA. Altough carrying a reasonable importance, the GPA does not dwarf the combination of prior work and results on standardized tests. Obtaining high scores on the GRE, GMAT,LSAT, or MCAT might be directly proportional to the individual abilities of the applicant, but also to the quality of the UG education.</p>
<p>Interesting discussion and info…thank you all.</p>
<p>Both of my daughters attend public schools, one at a big OOS, the other at a small public LAC instate. I had encouraged my daughters to pick private schools, but both of them ultimately choose their schools based on the strength of the programs for their majors (smart thing to do). </p>
<p>Neither of the schools have experienced much in the way of budget cuts, other than increases in enrollment for this year’s freshmen class. Interesting that both schools did this and besides affecting their USNWR rankings, it’s not immediately evident what the impact will be. Both daughters report small class sizes with outstanding professors again this year, housing and food is the same, etc. I think both schools planned for this growth…not sure, but it doesn’t seem to affect returning students.</p>
<p>I have to say we have found the resources at the OOS big public to be extraordinary, from research opportunities to fellowships and advising. As expected, the resources at the small public LAC are much less, but the personal attention and assistance given to students opens doors for opportunities at other institutions to supplement their studies as needed. So I don’t feel there’s anything lacking there either.</p>
<p>As far as grades go, both of my daughters work very hard to maintain their excellent GPAs. No disadvantage for either one of them being at a public school in that area.</p>
<p>I attended an Ivy and never in four years was I able to enroll in my first choice electives outside of my major. Career services were terrible – almost non-existent.</p>
<p>My kids attend a large state university where they have also had some difficulty getting into a few desired classes, but nothing worse than I experienced. Career services are far superior to those at my Ivy.</p>