But where does that funding go? Medical school funding and research dollars don’t hold much benefit for undergrads. The student who opts for the highly funded (and highly regarded) research U. may end up getting taught mostly by inexperienced TA’s, lecturers, and newly hired assistant profs – whereas the student at another, less prominent, campus may be working more with experienced, tenured profs. Those profs may not be as famous as their counterparts with more published research and funding at the more prominent universities – but for the undergrad, quality of teaching is far more important.</p>
<p>^at Clemson last year, I only had one class (Introductory English) taught by a graduate student and labs were taught by graduate students. The other classes were all taught by professors and lecturers. Sure, the lecturers have no research experience but the lecturers taught the material much more clearly than the professors with research did (probably because that’s their job, not research). Just because a professor or lecturer doesn’t have a huge resume of research stuff doesn’t mean that they’re a bad teacher at an introductory level.</p>
<p>Calmom- I am assuming your continuing refusal to recognize the fact that careers in industry exist outside of Wall Street is due to your lack of experience with private industry. I realize you are all about non-profit work, but there is a VAST range of careers that aren’t in investment banking or even in NYC. Your discussion of medical school degrees has nothing to do with this thread. Med school is entirely different and you are absolutely correct that a state medical school takes you to the same place as any other and for a lot less money.<br>
There is a HUGE difference between state flagships and lower level state schools. California isn’t representative of the rest of the states, although I do believe a Berkeley or UCLA degree has more national reputation than some of the others. California residents are fortunate to have some great choices- many great choices, in fact.</p>
<p>Agree that Georgia, Indiana and Colorado are the clear flagships in those states. There are states such as my own (TN) where the flagship may not be ranked particularly high nationally, but if you want to stay in the state, you really can’t go wrong there. My kids would not have thrived there, however (and we weren’t residents when they started college anyway). If you are trying to say that attending UT-Chattanooga where a huge percentage of students don’t graduate is going to be the same experience as going to Knoxville- well, you would be incorrect.</p>
<p>I can say that I know people personally who probably could have gotten into HYPSM (or at least had as good of a chance as anyone else, 3.9+/ 8+ APs/ 35+ heavy ECs types), but decided to go to UMich… Many did not apply to HYPSM (or anywhere other than Michigan). </p>
<p>I agree. I have a good state flagship in UIUC, but my kids don’t want to go to college with 100+ other kids from their high school, and I can’t say that I really blame them all that much, as I didn’t want to do the same in a different state 20+ years ago. Nothing against the kids – but it’s a big world out there, and while certainly anyone coming from this state flagship who wants to stay in the midwest will do just fine, I have different criteria for my kids, and part of that includes spreading their wings geographically and being exposed to people beyond those from this immediate area. It would take a lot for me to send them to our state flagship, even though I think it’s a good school.</p>
<p>JHS, may I ask what are you referring to with respect to Kansas? Univ of Kansas (in Lawrence – a charming college town, btw) is the state flagship; there is no secondary or directional state u that has surpassed it.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl brings up what I mentioned a few pages back. There is something very important about stretching ones wings geographically, if at all possible, and meeting people from another state, another country, another walk of life. </p>
<p>At our lower tier state schools in my state, you will certainly find few, if any, kids from out of state. Sometimes, there are no other choices, but aside from the lower academic peer group, I’d like my kids to have exposure to kids from somewhere besides this state.</p>
<p>Again, at the state flagship, there is more of a possibility for kids from out-of-state, although even in the state flagship, the highest percentage of students will still be in-state.</p>
<p>I am going to say something that might interest you: It doesn’t matter where you go to college so much as where you go to high school. If you go to a crappy high school that does not prepare you for college, you will most likely fail. If you go to a top prep school, you will be way better off.</p>
<p>I go to a Big Ten school. When one of my professors, who was fawning over my well-written paper, found out that I had attended a great prep school, he was shocked. “Why aren’t you attended ivy league?” Because I didn’t want to get into debt!</p>
<p>How well you do and how sucessful you become correlates to how great your HS was at preparing you for college. Picking out a great high school will benefit you far more than picking out an Ivy league college. How are you going to excel in Ivy or state school when you are unprepared?</p>
<p>In a way, yes. But people tend to think more about which HS they should put their kids in over than which elementary school their children should attend to.</p>
<p>People put too much emphasis on Ivy vs. State schools. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the student’s drive, intelligence, and ability to excel in college. A lazy and unprepared student at a Ivy league majoring in basket-weaving is probably not going to succeed whereas the driven and prepared student at the state school majoring in something marketable is going to end up with better job prospects.</p>
That might depend a lot on what state you are in. California is a state filled with immigrants, and the UCs and urban CSU’s are extremely diverse culturally. I mean, if you want diversity, try spending an afternoon people-watching at Sproul Plaza in Berkeley. The most frustrating thing for my kids, coming from the SF Bay Area, was the lack of diversity at many colleges they visited. It was definitely a reason that my d. ended up dropping all the non-urban colleges from her list after visiting. I also think that was a big part of my son’s frustration at the suburban, east coast LAC he started at – yes, there were kids from many different states, but they all seemed to be upper middle class and wealthy white kids. The day care center my son attended at age 2 was far more diverse. </p>
<p>Now I can imagine that the situation would be very different at many public colleges in other states. </p>
<p>But that’s the point – you can’t paint everything with a broad brush. Many public universities in the US actually draw in a lot of international students – the publics like them because they pay full tuition, they like them because the “full tuition” at Middle-State U. is much more affordable to them than “full tuition” at the private colleges…plus, they could get accepted.</p>
<p>PrincessBride- There aren’t too many lazy and unprepared students at the Ivy League schools. A few slip through the cracks, but not many.</p>
<p>My son’s group of friends at Penn was as diverse as anything you could find at Berkeley. I was very surprised. A range of nationalities, aptitudes and economic status. A LOT of wealth, but not in every case. </p>
<p>I still maintain that California is an entirely different deal and not at all the norm for looking at state universities.</p>
<p>We noticed this when visiting the more expensive LACs. I think we cued in on it more because son has been in a private college prep school since K-5 which was made up of mostly upper middle class and wealthy white kids and when you grow up in that environment, it’s pretty easy to spot. Son was dead-set against going to a LAC that was comprised of the same socio-economic group in which he grew up. Some of the kids from his HS seek this type of school out because they are more comfortable with it. But it can be hard on students who don’t come from a upper-middle class background. I’m really curious to see how son fares at the state flagship. I’m thinking (but I could be wrong) that the honors college will be a little more diverse than some of the LACs we looked at.</p>
<p>There is a real danger in ending up in a homogeneous population when the tuition is so expensive ($40k plus). In our area, there are several LACs that have more or less the same demographic population. Not that there aren’t kids there on merit and financial aid but it’s a small population.</p>
<p>I agree. That’s what companies or grad schools are really buying when they show a preference for graduates from high-end colleges. The school has already filtered out a lot of the lazy and unprepared for them.</p>
<p>That’s why employers and grad schools like to see students who have completed their public school degrees. There aren’t all that many “lazy and unprepared” students who graduate with honors from public schools - and you can tell a lot from the major. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I don’t think there’s any such thing as a “Gentleman’s C” at a public U. Students who don’t do the work will flunk out no matter who their daddies are.</p>
<p>“That’s what companies or grad schools are really buying when they show a preference for graduates from high-end colleges. The school has already filtered out a lot of the lazy and unprepared for them.”</p>
<p>I do agree with this. It falls under the “life isn’t fair” category. But I think companies who do this, especially those who hire from ONLY top schools…are…lazy and unprepared. And perhaps elitist (although not in all cases). Enron is a good example. Or maybe Lehman. Oh wait…I forgot…they folded.</p>
<p>Seriously, there are plenty of average and lazy students (those who get straight C’s/D’s) who got into Ivy because their mommy or daddy knew so-and-so or their granddaddy made a grand donation to the school. Lots of undeserving kids from the “good ole boys” club attend the likes of Ivy league schools. In public university, everyone has a fair chance at suceeding.</p>
<p>grad schools now? Oh, come on. Schools keep stats on who goes on to grad school. For PhD programs there are more graduates coming from private colleges than from public colleges.</p>
<p>I went to a small private college and I didn’t have any trouble finding a job after I graduated. My school had an excellent career placement center. Later, after I finished a graduate degree at a State school, I found the career placement center there to be worthless. I ended up going back to my original college and even though it was four years since I had graduated they were willing to help me again. Well, it amounted to a pep talk but I needed it, I was discouraged. That is what you get from a small college.</p>